Silence. Stillness. Cold.
Silence.
Stillness.
Cold.
None of them were previous attributes to Corrioa, but they were present ones. Heart-wrenching details to a small bud of their family tree that had yet to bloom. One by one the branches had been burned, broken, defiled. The losses were felt to the core of the trunk. It had once numerous, wide reaching stems, so many that it seemed impossible to count them all.
Until they began to darken and fall away.
Then counting became painfully easy. It was too easy now to count.
Two.
Or one. Did the pair count as separate if they were the trunk that had started it all?
One.
Together.
One without the other seemed an impossible notion, but the Harbinger had carved her path to the tree with a purpose, lopping off whatever pieces were necessary. Even Corrioa.
The plan was simple, created in the whispers of the evenings where one crest pressed to the other. There was only hope now, hope that it would work. It would mean the destruction of the trunk completely, but it was a better sacrifice than to be used as a weapon that would destroy other trees.
Their good byes were made in the silence of the evening. And when the Harbinger came to them it was for him.
Cold.
Stillness.
Silence.