The land forever changes and doesn't. This is the lesson of my return. Not a statement to the negative, nor to the positive.

It simply is.

Were my world made of wishes, the land would be ageless. There was a time when the quiet of my home would have torn a hole within my soul. But that time is not now. I've made many goodbyes, some in song and some less so. Goodbyes are not unfamiliar. And time has taught me that to wait upon a balm of reunion is to wallow in that world of wishes, that may as well be a world made of stone.

I do not know what the future may be. I do not know my place in it.

My family will always be with me in my heart, wherever they wander.

When I sing, and I will sing, I will remember.

When I play, and I will play, I will remember.

When I drink of mead, I will remember the mead of Branishor that I bought not because I believed him, but because I wanted to laugh for it.

When I wander dark places, I will hide and seek with the shadows, imagining some feline eyes seeking after.

When I walk through Dundee, I will put my hood up and blush red to my brow. Well played a dare, brother mine.

When I see the cloth of red flash at the tailor's stalls, I will hum of the storming sunset.

When I pick up this journal, I'll briefly think back and have a chuckle, imagining it some mock demon lord diary. It's only just.

Here's to our fears, to sing our sorrows away. Everything that I love is in not only the words I pour to the page, but the ones that I keep secret and quiet and dear. I walked from Jolan's one day, a boy. I met a woman who would become my dear friend and mentor. I met a man whose facade would fall away twice. I roamed every hall and every corner until I memorized them through, and learned to love even the strangest corners. I watched the gates rise against the storm on the horizon.

My friend swathed me in a gift of a cloak when I found my family, and I never laid it aside. I love that cloak, for it reminds me every time I look at it that we are far more than the quiet gatherings and the far-off places. It reminds me that we are not just rogues and enchanters and clerics and warriors. It reminds me that we are not just serious folk and merry folk and brooding folk and curious folk. It reminds me that we are all of the little things that fall over us and pour through us and make us more than anything we could have ever been alone. It reminds me that we are all clay, molding in the touch of the people whom we choose to take the time of a turn to say hello to.

There is no one at all that I regret saying hello to.

There are no secrets. There is no hiding. There is nothing but to walk forward in hope. If I'd known then what I know now, maybe things might have been different, but in no way I would leap to change. May we be changeful and changeless at once.

The land is lit rosy golden by the 'Rifter this morning. I think I'll take a walk in it.