Deep in the very heart of the Great Valley, in a nearly impenetrable stand of ancient trees, a lithe form was slowly working its way through the foliage. It had taken Sy nearly two weeks to find it, and now he wasted no time getting inside.
Inside the grove, the trees blocked most light, but where the sun's rays broke through, they revealed ancient stones that rippled with weather-worn patterns. In other places, tiny brooks snaked their way across the moss-covered ground. There was a silence about the place; not of death or gloom, but of reverence, as if the world were listening to hear what it had to say.
Sy could feel the age held within the trees, the memories they carried, the millennia they had stood there, watching silently as things came and went. The life pulsed through them, and through him, just as it had for so many years.
In the center of the grove, he came to a group of mounds scattered over a small area. Upon closer inspection, they revealed themselves to be great boulders, covered in moss. He knelt by one and carefully scraped a patch of moss off of it. Beneath the moss was a symbol, carved into the rock; there were few capable of reading it, but to him, the name was all too familiar.
He left the grave of his brother Enns and examined the other boulders. Spectrum... Kyson... Phantom... Ghost... But where was she...?
He stopped at the last grave, his hands shaking as he scraped away the moss. The symbol shone in a ray of sunlight.
Salakla...
He could still see her sparkling emerald eyes. Hear her soft peals of laughter. Feel her cool breath caressing his cheek.
And he could still remember the night that she died, all those many years ago...
A glint of color caught his eye, and he knelt down to examine a small blue flower that stood beside the grave, its head bowed. Carefully coaxing it from the soil, he placed it in a depression in the rock, above the name, where the sun would nurture it. The light passing through it made his lover's name glow pale blue.
Sy left the grove, a single tear sliding from his missing right eye.
