{se} feels like I'm sleepwalking when you're gone

Hotaru

Somewhere my lifeline still hums and sings
In the mess of all I have thrown away

It isn't long before Hotaru returns to King's End with a magically-strengthened sapling and a clearer head to pull Sunjata from his work and out into the colorful, early-autumn fields that surround the Dreaming Well. It feels like an appropriate area for Kamaria's tree; one of Caido's few phenomena with only positive legends surrounding it. The rolling fields surrounding it are equally resplendent; perfect for a lone tree to stand out and visit easily.

She'd procured the tree he'd requested, wanting him to have as much control as possible over the monument they would be creating today. As she sets the bound sapling on the ground so they can begin preparing, Hotaru looks out over the fields and the well nearby. "Did you know I planted Enzo's tree because it became an unintentional tradition?" Her hand rises, fingers gently touching one of the spindly branches of the little sapling. "My parents were killed while they were together." She believes she told him once, how she'd found their bodies in service of her Goddess, who had decreed she destroy all evidence of the perpetrator. Even with her own parents' bodies before her, Hotaru had followed through. "When they died, two trees magically grew and intertwined where it happened. Clearly distinct, but thriving even when utterly bound." Her smile is far-away and consumed by memories as her hand falls away from the fragile little branch. "I sat beneath their tree countless times; on days I missed them, or wished for their guidance, or merely wanted to remember that a love such as theirs existed." Turning towards him, she picks up a shovel and holds it out his way. "I followed Halo's traditions for Enzo's funeral, but it felt right to plant a tree as well." And she has similarly sat beneath it many times on days she missed her son more than the human body could seemingly stand.

"Anyway. All that to say I'm glad to see someone else continuing the legacy, even if Kamaria isn't really gone." Out of reach, yes, but still safe in her mother's realm. A different kind of grief, but one that brings some small measure of comfort.

Hungry now,
I am gathering new seeds to throw wide