Raven took her to all the places that he'd loved. Rainbow waterfalls and cloud kissed mountains. These were all the beautiful places that Narrator had remembered into being. Needing her to see what her mother had created, he spent days flying. She had to know what the world could be. But he avoided Erebos that was a shadowy circle locking this world from the outer places. He didn’t know what was beyond Erebos, if anything. He’d never been able to fly that far. Something kept him here. Perhaps it was Erebos itself.

He had lied to himself when he'd started on this flight, telling himself that he had no destination in mind. Of course there was a place that he wanted her to see. But to what end? She was not Narrator and it was foolish for him to expect her to be able to finish what her mother had started. Yet he wanted her to see where her mother had died and where her bone fragments had been buried. But he knew that he could not avoid Erebos and the Telling Tree forever. It was also a place that he needed to bring her. But what right did he have? Bringing her there was the same as damning her to her mother’s fate.

But he hoped. It was a feeling that brought him dread. A feeling that had always led him to disappointment. Well, not always. He'd found hope to be powerful when he'd known Narrator. Perhaps this hope would also bloom into beauty and further promise. There had been a price. Could he ask Enaid to pay it? He didn't even know what that cost would be. How could he ask?

"Th-there is a place, place that I want to, to t-take you," Raven said.

Leaning forward and pressing her stomach onto his back so she could hear him better, he had to repeat himself while turning his head towards her.

"Anywhere!" she called, still laughing as she had when they had first taken flight.

He drifted down to the ground, landing in a place he didn't know. It was too difficult to talk while flying. Repeating himself was exhausting.

Sliding off his back, she ran around him several times before stopping to give him a hug. Beaming her smile up at him, she gave a silent thank you. She had no words to describe how wonderful it had been to leave the earth behind. Every human who walked the earth watched the birds with longing. Now she knew their joy.

Settling himself into a comfortable crouch and folding his wings up against his back, he tried to sort out his thoughts. It would be difficult for him to tell any story. His mouth betrayed him the most when the words were important and there were none as important as these. But how else could he ask her this? She had to know what her mother had paid. She also had to know what the Unnamed ones were suffering. It was up to her to weigh the two against each other and to decide.

Slowly, with care, he told her the story of her mother. He began as far back as he knew. None of them had known where she had come from or why she had left where she had been. He figured it was in a place beyond Erebos or perhaps she had simply been the first to come out of Erebos. He also knew that other humans had come into this place and he wasn't sure where they had come from either. But were Narrator and Enaid really human? He wondered if all humans held this mysterious power.

It occurred to him that he didn’t even know Narrator’s name. Humans did not name themselves that way. It was a title that she had been given after she had done the first Namings and had done the first Tellings. It was a name they had given her. But this sadness that he felt was so small to the others that had settled themselves inside him. It was possible that he was unable to feel anything other than this forever mourning.

Narrator had strolled into their lives as though she had always been there. The place had all been darkness when she had arrived. None of them had names or stories. Everything had just been. The shadows had been so folded together that they had no longer known which were living and which were part of the background.

The very fact that she had come from elsewhere made them realize for the first time that there was the possibility of being somewhere else, of being something other than they were. Perhaps what they had always been. But when they tried to leave, they found themselves bound to that place. They found that part of their prison was still real. Raven did not understand why they had been trapped there. Nor did he know how that entrapment had come to be.

There were so many parts of his story that were missing. The time between his wife's death and awakening in Erebos was nothingness. Perhaps that part of him would always be lost. Narrator had told him once that there were stories that were better not told. Apparently this was one. But he still longed to know. Just like he had when he had first become aware of himself again. Had he descended into madness? Would he again?

Upon her arrival, he had woken. They all had. Moving sluggishly and the pull of sleep dragging at them; they had all been drawn to Narrator. They knew that she offered them release. At first, many had believed this to mean death, but they didn't care. An ending of any kind was better than remaining in this place of emptiness and nothing. They had sloughed off the cloying darkness and sorted out what parts were theirs and which belonged to something other.

Raven had watched as she had walked along a line of them. Giving each a name, she moved onto the next. But there were many that she passed by without seeming to notice that she had. It was as though these ones had not existed. When he became one of them, he had wailed his outrage. But she had been unable to see him then. A shadow with in darkness. That had caused him to question his very reality. Was he, in fact, part of the background that foolishly longed to be something more?

Each name brought out a light and the formless blob was able to shape into something beautiful. Bright colors began to grace this place. These recreated beings clustered at the center of Aer and it slowly became a place filled with life. The Telling Tree was at the heart. From there all things came into being. As each new creature emerged, a part of Erebos surrendered itself to this newly forming light. The trees grew vibrant green leaves and blossoms hung heavy on their boughs. The brackish stream turned clear and sparkled as it flowed by the Telling Tree.

When night came and the sun partly set, Narrator would come to the tree and she would tell a story. This would draw out a shade that would come into being. Happiness spilled out from her with each new birth. They worshiped Narrator like a god. Despite all her faults, she had given them hope. A fragile thing that they had not known they had lost. But she had given them something more. She had not truly birthed them, but she had drawn them into being. And she was slowly shaping Aer into a place they desired to live in. 

Waking each morning, she seemed to have forgotten the previous night. Each day, the New One would go to Narrator and ask for its name. She would always look upon the creature in confusion, believing that she had already named all of them. But she would name. Mostly, these did not get a Telling. It seemed that since they had already found their form they did not need their story. Why then did they need a Naming?

Then she would send it away to tell the others that there would be no more stories, at least for that night. The New One would go to the Telling Tree and would announce its name to the others. Then they would all leave the Telling Tree. The coming story would not be for them. But they knew that somehow these Tellings were the most important. More of the forest gave itself over to the beauty when these stories were told then when things were named or simply drew themselves from the darkness. These stories carried the most power.

She came every night and there was always a story. She would stand at the Telling Tree and she would bring into being one at a time. Each story seemed harder than the last. She wept for the suffering that they had forgotten; her heart broken and bled for them. Perhaps this was why she forgot. Maybe recalling all those stories was too much for her heart to keep beating.

It had been Raven's story that had broken her. After his Telling, she had given up. He had held her while he watched her die. There was no reason that he could not have stopped her, but he had understood that making her live would not be a kindness. So, he had been powerless to help her.

Letting her die condemned the others to remain in Erebos, but he could not force her to continue this work. None of them had that right. But it was easy for him to feel that way when he had already become. Either way, someone was damned and he directed their sentencing. He chose to let her find freedom and peace. He hoped that was what waited for her where the dead went. But even ceasing to be was a mercy to what he had seen in her eyes as she’d torn herself apart.

But this was not the first time that she had ravaged her own flesh. It had happened each night when the Telling was complete. The others had forced her to live. He had not. He had allowed her to stop the great work. This, more than anything else, was what had condemned him to be the guardian of death. The sentencing for his crime was carried out each time he flew to the dead and devoured them, reliving his first two feasts. Wife and Goddess, they should have been sacred. But he had reduced them to nothing in his selfish desire to draw them into part of his being.

He'd left the fragments of Narrator’s bones scattered around the roots of the Telling Tree, but he knew that others had come and gathered them. These remaining pieces of their Goddess had been buried beneath the tree. It had taken only a few handfuls of dirt to cover those shards. He had reduced her to so little.

"Th-those are my sins," he wheezed. "Horse and Narrator."

It was then that he noticed that Enaid was crying. Holding her small hands over her mouth, she sobbed. There was no comfort for this kind of pain; he'd seen it before in her mother. But he wrapped her in his wings and cradled her in his arms like he had with Narrator. It was all he knew how to do. Grabbing onto the feathers that framed his face, she pulled him down to her and kissed him softly on the lips. He jerked back, leaving feathers between her fingers.

Setting her down, he took a step back while stretching out his wings. Was she mocking him? Rubbing at her wet eyes, she wasn't aware of his response. She didn't seem to have malice, but what had that kiss been? Looking up at him, she gave a weak smile.

"Yes, I will go to the Telling Tree," she answered the question he had not yet asked.

"You, you don't have to," Raven's voice grated out.

"I know."

She put her hand against his knee. Then he realized how small she really was. Her head was even with his hip. Only half his size, yet she held more than double his strength. He was frightened for her. Picking her up after slipping his hands under her arms, he lifted her to his height. Thoughts raced through his mind. There was no way for her to get there without him. He could fly away with her now and never take her there. They could be happy.

"No," she said, again reading his mind.

It was true. If he fled with her now, he would do so knowing that he condemned the others. Knowing what it was like to be part of that darkness, it would have plagued him to the end of his days to know that they still dwelt there. And she now know. It would be impossible for her to leave them there. She would not stay with him. Instead, she would wander until she had found Erebos or had died trying to reach it. Looking at her, he knew this as truth; it had been clearly written on her face.

"We have to go," she said.

He nodded. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to block the tears in, but he couldn't. They stained his white skin with black wiggling lines. This nightmare stretching before him now seemed inevitable. He was as helpless to save her as he had been Horse and Narrator. What good was he?

"Don't grieve."

She wiped his tears from his cheeks, but it did not erase the hurt. Had she thought it would? She was as powerless to comfort him as he had been to comfort her. That made them quite the pair. They had so much laid out before them, yet had little to offer each other.

"There are two things we offer each other: purpose and love," she said, putting her hands on his cheeks and smiling at him. As radiant as the sun, it warmed him.

"Love?" he asked.

Kissing him on the tip of his nose, she repeated "love."