Once upon a time, a girl lived in a sandcastle, making monsters to send through a hole in the sky.

Love makes a person do strange things.

It was as if she had emitted a pulse of radiation that reached him even where he stood, and it bathed him and it burned him.

...the air seeming to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place were a story about her.

As for Ellai, she told her sister what had passed, and Nitid wept, and her tears fell to earth and became chimaera, children of regret.

You could look out the window today, see the sky raining fire, and say that it has all been for nothing, everything we've ever done, because now we've lost. But folk were born and lived and knew friendship and music in this city, ugly as it is, and all across this land that we fought for. Some grew old, and others were less lucky. Many bore children and raised them, and had the pleasure of making them, too, and we gave them that for as long as we could. Who has ever done more, my friend?

I've always imagined that one day the path of your life would unroll at your feet and carry you away from us. As it should, as it must. But I am glad that day is not today.