how it feels

Aamu

A snowstorm blew inside a wolf's eyes
And the frozen tears covered all the mountainsides

He remembers those first few weeks: the ruined Grounds, the unfamiliar faces, and that damn black tower looming over him like a constant reminder. (This was before the pain settled in his heart, before he realized the past is the past and never coming back.) He had avoided it as much as he could, routinely refusing to even look at it, acknowledging it only to use the portals in its base (and rarely even that).

But bit by bit he got used to it. Bit by bit he began to face the fact that this is where he is now, and that's not going to change. The Spire? Just another feature of this new landscape. Insignificant. Nothing, nothing, compared to the loss of everyone he loved.

Likely he's going somewhere, heading up to the obsidian needle, not quite noticing (or caring) that someone else stands in front of it. But as he comes closer he passes into the distance where memory, repeated so many times over, snaps into place—

He stops dead in his tracks, confused and concerned. But it.. can't be? It can't be. He waits for a movement, anything that will betray it as not him, but in the stillness it never comes.

You're delirious. Heartbroken all over again, Aamu contemplates just turning around and leaving, and whatever else he had originally planned on doing be damned.

But then the time got by and the wolf died
And someday that wolf would be I