this kingdom you've burned

there she was, all dressed in adventure, straddling the edge of a star

This is the farthest she has ever come into Hollowed Ground territory. While normally she would be enamored with the differences, with the way the trees sing their own tune and the world seeks to reclaim the abominations of old, derelict buildings that she passes, she has a reason for her intrusion. Not that it's much of an intrusion at all. Nephele would happily bring this section of Caido into their realm, protecting it from the sickness of its current inhabitants and healing the wounds left upon it.

The Spire is like a monument of death, surrounded by ash and ruin. It twists her stomach, a fist clenching deep in her ribcage that mourns what had once been. What could have been. Any sympathy Nephele had previously been harboring for the Outlanders is burned away by the fires of her rage, the grief that consumes her entirely. To see such a wasteland where once fertile soil had lived is like seeing a child fall to sickness before their time. It is a loss that impacts her directly, that steals the breath from her lungs and brings a burn of tears to her eyes.

Still she flies, because there is simply nothing else she can do. Vi's command brings her here, and she prays so fervently it nearly takes over the entirety of her conscious thought. Please, please heal this land. Breathe your life into it, let Rae reclaim it. It does not deserve to suffer because of these cruel, mindless creatures.

When she lands, ash puffs up in clouds around her ankles, staining her bare skin with the remains of scorched earth. It nearly chokes her, and she blinks away the dust and the tears that accumulate in her hazel eyes. Without a care for her dress or her skin, she falls to her knees in the wreckage of this once-beautiful plot of land. Her hands tremble as she withdraws her spade, and can scarcely bear to thrust it into the earth to dig a hole for the next rose. Has it not suffered enough? But Nephele trusts in Vi's power, in his guidance, and she places the rose in its hole and uses her black-stained hands to cover it once more. Wipes her tears against her sooty forearms, smearing the darkness across her cheeks, and presses her palms to the blackened earth in solemn, tearful apology for what was done to it.

Nephele