It had been three months since Sebastian had left the temple. Bryony had to settle for self-entertainment. Often it would come from Angela enchanting books to fly in front of her and turn the pages when she needed it. She could have sworn she had read every single book in the three months that he had been gone. It had been a click in her head that something might be off about the whole situation.

The Goddess of Life and Earth couldn’t find a cure for her condition? Absolutely unheard of. Bryony began to contemplate that her situation was more so the desire to keep herself from moving. That something had happened and her feral temper could cause more problems than good. How close she was to hitting the nail’s head was shocking, to say the least, at least in Angela’s eyes. While Angela was constantly assaulted by Bryony’s newest theory on everything the goddess had remained silent which meant that Bryony was close to the truth.

Finally, Bryony looked up from the pages of a book that she made clergy members get her and chuckled. “It’s about time you came home. I was honestly wondering what was taking you so long.” She wasn’t sure if he could hear her and to be honest she had a lot of questions. 

As soon as he was near the room, the magic on the book seemed not to exist as it fell into her lap. An annoyed look was on her face as she figured Angela had something to do with that as well. “At least she didn’t lose my spot. Alchemical magic is some of my favorite things to study.” She took a sigh as she looked up to see his face. “Can you turn the page Dear… or at least put a bookmark in it for later. You know I managed to read through Angela’s collection a dozen times over so I had to make them travel to get me this book from the shadows of whatever place they found it in. Could have been Sularia… could have been someplace in Parvpora.”

She looked rather energetic for being stuck in a bed for three months but it spoke about her body. It appeared to be living off of some kind of mixture Angela had cooked up. Again that was a hint that something wasn’t entirely right about the ‘I can’t find a cure you.’ She was propped up on some of the nicest pillows she had ever seen, probably as a sorry for having her stuck there. The blankets were that bad either, way nicer than what Angela had supplied before. She was sure that there was ass kissery involved in the way Angela had been doing things lately. Still, though, when she looked at Sebastian… whatever it was they were keeping from her couldn’t make her mad.

The Rosenite had a volcanic temper and maybe just maybe this was how they were dealing with it.

What does one do when they learn they do not actually exist? That their entire life is just a dream…and not just this life, but several others? This is the question that Sebastian had to ponder as he made the trek back to Angela's temple, his long crusade all but finished, save for the battles in his own mind.

Sebastian had left right on the cusp of Autumn, returning in the thick of Winter. Many of the locales in his travels were covered in sheets of snow, so he was grateful to be met with the warmth and greenery of the Goddess' realm. He took his time on the roads leading up to the temple, pausing in the fields to simply revel in the warmth. He still wore the light armor that he had donned for his grim task, beneath his overcoat, which clung to his frame in tatters. Removing his gloves, Bash ran his hands lightly across the shafts of wheat on either side of the path he walked. He closed his eyes as he looked skyward, and fell to his knees.

If he wasn't real, how could everything feel so real to him? The sun on his face, the dirt between his fingers as he grasped at the rich earth beneath him. Then again…There was Ozziah.
The images of the nightmarish creature his childhood friend shifted into were still burned into his mind. Surely, such a blasphemous creature could well manifest in Revaliir, with the blasphemous magick to match. Sebastian could not deny that the monster was otherworldly in nature….indeed, pulled from someone's worst imaginings, and made flesh. He knew the entity that brought them together was powerful…but was it deified enough to make its imaginings real, or was that too only an illusion? Perhaps a question for Angela. She seemed to have some insight into the situation, and the thing did not seem to worry her in the least.

Seeing himself in Bryony's mirror as he entered her room, he looked far more worse for wear than he physically felt - not speaking for his state of mental and spiritual health. He almost did a double take. It was subtle, but he could sweat that a different man looked back at him from beyond the glass. It was only for a second. It would not have been the strangest thing he could see after taking the plunge into this problem he was born into. Still, it was a little unnerving.

Offering Bryony a quiet, tired smile, he sat at her bed side, and turned the page for her. "I never intended to take so long," he mused apologetically, while looking through his belongings. "I didn't know you would be kept like this. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had been away a year or more."
Sebastian pulled a small vial from his pack, and held it out so Bryony could see. "This will cure you."
He sighed. "Judging by the look on your face, I don't think you need to ask how long I've had it."

Bryony offered but a small smile to him. “It’s alright, I do believe that I trust in you both to know me.” She looked down at the book and chuckled. “Fairy tales change a lot in a thousand years. Different writers but sometimes the endings are different compared to the old tales. I’ve been so lost in thought that maybe being in bed this long was good for me. You can understand the generations around you by reading their works and understanding their mind set. It may be the same story but the story behind why is always different. The way an author rights a certain phrase can tell you the whole day. The way he describes a person can tell you a lot about how they feel.” She looked up at him and gave a smile. “An action not done is still a reaction to a situation. Even if the victim feels the need to scream unfair, the particular reason for victimizing might be good. In some cases.” 

She had been angry at first but getting lost in the world of fairy tales had opened her eyes just a bit. The  stories of good and evil. Love and Loss. All of these things were laid out and while some were grim there were others that over time became happy. She took a breath as she stared at the vial. “You will have to tell me the whole reason why but for now can I have it?”

With his gentle help, Bryony took the liquid into her mouth. It was great to start to feel things again. She got up with his help and she held tightly as the numb feeling in her legs finally started to leave. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly. “Is my wrath so great in this situation that you had to leave me like that?” Her blue eyes stared into his autumn gaze. “I had a long time to think about why I was being held back and I know that if an atrocity had happened… I would have lost myself in a rage and killed everyone who brought it. It’s why you had to leave… You had to hunt down what I could not. That’s why I am not mad.”

There was a hint of sadness as she burrowed herself in him. “But what was so atrocious that it would have made me that angry? Why do you look so tired? Just what has been going on in that beautiful mind of yours?”

Sebastian was relieved that Bryony took the implications rather well. He had thought he would never hear the end of an inevitable tirade; after all, he was an accessory to Angela's motherly shepherding of her, something he knew was grating to the oracle. Like him, she had a powerful independent streak in her, that, when tread upon, made the temper flare. He obliged her request for the cure without hesitation. Understanding how she must have felt after he'd taken his leave had torn him up inside for many long weeks. Besides, he needed to find the words to explain to her just how grave the entire situation had been, and still was.

"Atrocity does not begin to cover the extent of things," Sebastian replied to Bryony somberly as he helped her along. "The important part was committed in ignorance. In fact, I don't think they would have touched even a hair on your head if they knew what I know now."

He most certainly seemed exhausted, as Bryony observed. There was more to it, though. Certain shifting subtleties in his appearance, and even the way he spoke. There was still a marked tinge of an accent to his speech, but it seemed somehow altered. His muscle mass had dwindled somewhat with his active hunting of the cult and lack of nourishment, and thus, his face also seemed thinner. His black hair had grown long, and his beard had come in fully. Most curious of all though were his eyes, which were already a curiosity to begin with. The autumn shades seemed dull and listless, but with a tell-tale shimmer lurking beneath, as though they were…molting, as plants would do in the fall, or as a snake sheds its skin. It was as if he were multiple men in the same body.

Sebastian wrapped his arms around Bryony tightly.

"There is no easy way to say this…you were with child, love."

His hands shook as they clutched at her. "I was hunting the wrong enemy all along. They didn't know…they didn't see…"
Sebastian swallowed hard and took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves as he said these revelations aloud for the first time.
"The only reason the entity assisted us was to get to our child. It cared not for its cult of worship…or even me any longer, if it could have my offspring. It's a very convoluted subject to fathom but…I'm…not real, Bryony. When the entity is no more, the same goes for me. It is dying."

Bryony ran her fingers through his hair. She was listening and though she was hit with a wave of grief, there was something she couldn’t understand. Why did they need their child now? That was the important part she had taken from everything was that instead of killing their child they had actually needed it alive. Not them but it. Just hearing the words from his mouth told her he was hurting bad from the loss of their child. She was as well but the grief was overshadowed by something else.

What overshadowed the death of her child? What could cause her more harm? The loss of Sebastian himself. She kissed his shoulder as she put her forehead against it and thought endlessly on the words coming out of his mouth. “I don’t give a damn if you weren’t real to begin with.” Finally her eyes shot up at him. “You are real to me. Real enough that if you left it would hurt greatly. I can’t deal with the loss of not only our child, who was very real, and you Sebastian.” 

A knock at the door distracted her enough to look away for a moment. It was Angela resting in the door frame with Rohan snuggled into her. He had a mess up wild fading red hair. It seemed to only be red in the autumn. “Not to intrude but, I do have a temporary solution to the problem. I’ve been looking into it since all of this happened. First with the entity we know is in Sebastian caring about Bryony, it made no sense until what you just said. Two, what I’ve learned from the substance dripping from your friend there in Adeluna.”

Bryony was about to speak when Angela cut her off. “You have two options and both are equally annoying. First option is just not to do anything and slowly probably lose yourself like your friend and eventually disappear. Second option, you conceive a child and we force the entity into something physical until we can deal with it. It means the child would be impacted for a bit but at least if we can restrain it, we can deal with it.”

“And how would you recommend sealing something you don’t even understand?”

“Please, I’ve sealed plenty of things I don’t understand. However, forcing this creature into something part way seems like the good option. That way it cannot hurt the child but the child isn’t hurt by the entity being taken out completely. I actually might recommend a stuffed animal, something the child can keep with it. I imagine the vessel we use will have to stay close. This is your temporary solution, Sebastian. How you deal with the entity after that is the permanent one. I don’t like putting children in harm’s way but… That child might be one of the most protected children around with the entity in it for a bit. Plus you could always keep it here or you two are capable of being out in the world protecting it. I don’t really see Bryony as a house wife after all.” Bryony scoffed a bit at the goddess. “The choice is up to you Sebastian.”

Bryony clicked her tongue a bit. “Well, it took me how many years to conceive the last one. No offense to your plan but I feel broken Angela. I can’t just will a baby into existence–” She was cut off by Angela formed a bottle of something. “Right… You can help with that.”

Sebastian wished he could console the pain that he had brought. He'd had much time to think about it all, and had grown somewhat numb in accepting that he might have to end his own life to ensure the entity's destruction, and by extension, its cult, once and for all. He closed his eyes and his lips parted when Bryony touched his hair, leaning in to kiss her. He too turned when the knock came, and he gave Angela his full attention, listening carefully to what the goddess had to say.

"I do not claim to understand the events of my strange life…or any other life I may or may not have lived…" he began in response. "It is wrong to taint another life in this world just so that I may go on existing in it, though."
Sebastian shook his head. "I would rather deal with this problem on my terms. There is more than one life in the balance I have to consider. My boyhood friend, Ozziah…you were there, Angela. You saw the state he was in. I think he has suffered long enough. Also, if this thing goes on living, how much more havoc will it cause through my own daughter?"

Sebastian reached out to take Bryony's hand in his own. Despite the frail state he was in, physically and mentally, there was strength and confidence in his touch, and in his gaze when his eyes met hers. "In the months I was away…I've felt…different. If the feeling of having my mind touched by this entity was opening a book to all of my existences, its slow decay is opening a book to reality itself. Whether this intangible knowledge is just brought with death, or it is something more, I can't say. I do know it is worth a chance to end it. I may yet live."

"I had a vision," he explained to the two of them. "I saw the eldritch, autumn realm….but it was overtaken by a tree that was very much living and vibrant. It seemed to grow around me, bigger and bigger, its roots ensorcelling and shielding me, making that realm fade away. I could only only feel its warmth, and the familiarity of feeling at home. Bryony…your face stood out amongst a wall of faces within the tree, pulling me and rooting me here."


Sebastian looked to Angela. "I'm not sure how possible it may be to be in contact with it, but there was no doubt in my mind it was a world tree. I've seen one just like it in visions I was shown of previous lives."

Bryony was being held close to Sebastian at this point and it wasn’t him keeping her there. Her blue eyes closed as she thought deeply on the words coming from his mouth. “And what about me Sebastian?” Finally she pulled herself away and looked at him. There was so much sadness in those blue eyes. “I’m not only going to lose you but our daughter as well. I’ve already lost our first child, we’ve lost our first child. How am I suppose to handle that if you leave me.” She was trying so hard not to cry, but her voice was cracking from the impending flow of emotions that wanted to escape her.

Angela took a few moments to step back and watch. They were holding each other now and explaining their emotions. Listening to his description she fell back into a chair and stared up at him. “You can’t. The tree you are talking about is a being that won’t show itself to mortals. It barely lets us see it. The tree in Parvpora has been dead for a long time here Sebastian. The tree in Canelux went into hiding because of mortals.”

She played with the edges of her dress. “Your daughter won’t be in harms way if we bind the entity. I can give you time to figure it out, until the girl reaches maturity. That is up to you Sebastian and I know Bryony’s answer. Just from the way she looks at you. I would rather not be burying a whole bunch of bodies. We don’t know that if the entity dies you stay, but we also don’t know if he dies Ozziah will become sane. What’s driving him nuts possibly isn’t what he learned but what’s infected him. Kill the entity save a bunch. You don’t know if you and Ozziah are the only one’s affected by this. I’m not one to put a child in danger, you know this.” Getting up Angela went to leave. “But I wouldn’t give up on my Lover and a chance to change things if there was an option either. I’ve lost so much that I would be selfish in that moment.” 

Bryony had come back to burying her head in his chest as she thought about it. “I’m not going to tell you what to do Sebastian but I don’t want to lose you. If I lose you I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s breaking my heart already thinking about it. I’ve waited so long to have someone and now some asshole entity is pulling him away from me and I can’t do a single damn thing about it. Just tell me what to do.”

What about me?

Sebastian shook his head, trying to avoid Bryony's pained gaze. "That's not fair, lass. None of this is, in fact. I just want to do what I feel is right."
He looked to Angela when she spoke.
"That may be true…but my visions have yet to fail me. I never for a moment dreamed that a World Tree itself was contacting me. What I see is usually filled with metaphor. That being said, it makes me confident enough to take a calculated risk."

He held his lover tightly as the goddess took her leave, running his fingers through her long dark hair. "There's so much to say. I just wish I could make you understand how it all makes me feel. I would never put any of this before you and a future if I didn't think I could come back from it. I came back from killing the cult that hurt you, did I not?"

Sebastian put his hand beneath Bryony's chin to pull her sorrowful blue seas to meet the confident, yet fearful conviction in the autumn realms that burned in his skull. "Ozziah was my childhood friend. To see him so tortured, and so twisted…" he sighed, and bit at his lip thoughtfully. "Despite his madness, what he revealed to me in our brief encounter made a lot of sense. I need to learn the rest, and to set things right. This entity is deeply tied with me, but it is high time to sever the bond. I don't care what good it has done…it was all in self-interest. The thing is evil, through and through, love."

He kissed her. It was emotionally-charged, but it did not carry the weight of a goodbye kiss. He lingered in her embrace, shivering and grasping at her hips, but breaking away before getting too carried away.

"You've trusted me before. I only ask for your continued faith in me."

Bryony dipped herself and stuck to his chest after they kissed. She was so upset with him. “The visions have shown you many things. We as a pair was one thing they warned you about. You considered yourself a monster for going against it when you should have walked away.” She pulled herself back from him and she was probably the saddest she had ever been in front of him without tears. “You said that were scared of becoming a monster like you had dreamed about.”

The words got caught in her throat. “The problem is… that I trust you with everything I have but my own heart is broken right now. If you are wrong I’ve lost everything, everything we could have, and anything we have right at this moment. If you are right, we can have it all without the risk that will come if we have our daughter right now.” She reached and covered his eyes for a few moments.

“I waited for you here not because I had to or I was incapable of leaving but because of that faith, I have in you. I’m not a risk taker, I got with the most logical answer but here I took the risk in saying what I did because I can’t bear to lose anything else. Now you are telling me to put my faith in you again when it hasn’t left. The monster is winning simply because it's shaking the very core of everything we want. It will win if something goes wrong and it will lose if you can find a way. There is no gray area Sebastian. There is or there isn’t. I can’t see what is going to happen and it scares me.” 

A deep sigh left her lips as she struggled with herself. There was an internal war raging on in that head of hers. Suddenly as if the world caved in, she was gone from her spot. She was gone from the Gardens. Angela came back and looked at the spot she had been standing. The goddess looked annoyed. “She’s ported to Parvpora. I have no idea where she went. Most likely she is upset with herself and needs time away. She could be upset with you as well but I don’t have any answers. Just hope you are right Sebastian. She’ll come back when she’s ready… or you could find her but I don’t know anyone other than my daughter who could help…”