Raven sat with his knees drawn to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs. Feeling like a child, he wept. There was nothing that he could do about the losses that had come his way. The greatest blow had been Dipak stepping into the Life Tree. It puzzled him that this was where the largest hurt was. While it seemed they had just met, a part of him insisted that they had already known each other for life times. Dipak had indicated as much, but he had given no more.

There seemed to be no more darkness in the world, but Raven sensed that Erebos had only been pushed back into its proper place. Where it had always meant to be and now Aer was allowed the space it was always supposed to have.

This place would need a new name. This beautiful grove that was spun from magic, love and hope. The Named Ones were standing in the clearing and many were paying tributes to the newly grown tree.

“Enaid,” Raven said.

Several looked over at him, unsure.

“This grove. I am naming it Enaid,” he declared it without question.

The Named Ones nodded and murmured among themselves that it would be so. It seemed right that this place would carry her name as a memory of what she had done for them.

Without thinking, he added “And we are the Fey.”

Again they murmured an ascent. He wondered what else he could suggest now that they would blindly accept. There was nothing else in mind. But naming the people the Fey had not been in his mind either. It had simply fallen from his lips and it had felt right.

Was this how the naming had been for the Narrator? If so, where did this knowing come from?

Raven looked at the Life Tree and wondered why Dipak had gone into it, wishing that he had been allowed to follow.

Within the Life Tree, Dipak slowly climbed down the spiraling stair way. Small glowing mushrooms lit his way with a soft blue light. He knew where this place would take him. Every other time he had walked this path, he had come to the same place. The stairs led into a small round room and Enaid stood in the center waiting for him there. 

“Dipak,” she whispered.

He did not look at her. Despite her beauty and her offered welcoming embrace, he felt that he did not belong here. She came to him and ran her fingers down his cheek then up under his chin and lifted his face to hers. Lightly kissing him on the brow, she gave him a small smile.

“You want to stay with Raven,” she stated.

Tears filled his eyes and he nodded, not trusting his voice.

"Neither of us know the price that will be paid if you stay in Aer," she stated.

She looked the same as the girl that had clung to the muddy seed, but now she had bound herself to that seed and held within her the knowledge of every Life Tree that had ever grown within Aer. She was the only being in all of existence that knew him from all the life times that he had walked.

"Joining the Life Tree helps restore you," she whispered.

He nodded.

"If you do not join me now, you cannot in this life time. You will live, immortal upon the land until something kills you."

He nodded again. The tears came and he let them fall. 

"I cannot make Raven immortal. Will you give up your joining, accept an inevitable violent death to live but a short time with a mortal creature?" she asked.

“Yes,” Dipak said in a hoarse whisper.

He knew that he would give up anything for a single day with Raven. They had already been denied so much.

“Do you love him?” Enaid asked.

There was no simple answer to that question. Dipak considered it carefully. He had lived more than a thousand lives and in all his lives, the times in which he had been with Raven had been the most fulfilling. Was that love?

Raven was bound to the Life Stream as all mortals were. Each life was something new. He was remade and yet so much of him was the same. Raven never remembered him. Each life was starting over. And each life, Dipak was called to protect the Life Tree while Raven was called to find the Verdant. There was never enough time for them to discover what it was that they could be to each other.

“Yes,” Dipak finally answered.

Dipak turned from Enaid and gently touched a mushroom that clung to the wall. He thought about the last life that he'd shared with Raven. Dipak had been a female and had allowed Raven to call him Horse. They had been happy together for a short time. But everything came undone. Dipak had allowed Raven to distract him from his real purpose and he was killed. The Life Tree was killed and Erebos settled over Aer.

Would that be the result again, if he stayed with Raven now? It didn't matter what the out come was, he had to know.

Dipak looked up at Enaid. She took his face in her hands and he was touched to see that she was weeping for him. Understanding the dichotomy within him, she gave him the power of choice. But it was also a burden. For whatever came of him now, it would be his own doing. And he knew that regardless of the choice he made, there were to be regrets. Was that the curse of living without fate?

“Yes,” Enaid whispered. “You will live with a mortal heart in an immortal shell.”

He nodded. Remaining here only delayed the inevitable. The choice had been made in his heart before Enaid had offered it to him.

“Go,” she said, kissing his brow again. “Before the Life Tree closes forever.”

Climbing those stairs back out into the world was the hardest thing he had ever done in all his lives. But it was the only way that he could hope to heal the damage that had been done to Raven’s heart. It was a service that he owed. In so many lives, he had broken Raven. Another time was an unbearable sin fore now it would be with the power to do otherwise.

He could not leave Raven alone, believing that he had destroyed everything that he loved.

When he stepped out into the light, Raven was the first thing that his eyes laid upon. His form was folded in on itself and his grief was a cloak he wrapped himself in. Floating across the water, Dipak went to him and ran his fingers through the ruffle of feathers framing his white face. Raven snapped his head up and gaped in surprise.

“I’m not a hallucination,” Dipak said, laughing.

Raven wrapped his arms and wings around Dipak and pulled him into a fierce embrace.

“Never leave me again,” Raven croaked.

“Never,” Dipak promised.

This would be a new age.

But already, the scent of war was in the air. Why did the humans always fear the Fey? Mages could call upon and wield the same power. It seemed that they could not avoid the wars and slaughtering of themselves. Perhaps the Fey were merely bystanders that caught up in the chaos that the humans created. Perhaps it was the result of being born of the Aer, this place caught between the light and dark.

“Is it over?” Raven asked.

“No,” Dipak said. “It is just beginning.