Welcome to Gaia! ::

High above the battered ruins of what was once the Crosshaven city square, a torch is lit atop the old courthouse building.

The city has been broken into hundreds of glittery pieces, but it still has one constant. A dark one with curls of cigarette smoke haunting the air around him.

Yeah, he's a fixture. A lonely reminder that while hundreds have fled this place, some still remain.

Some are here out of love, searching still for those the earth swallowed;

Some for the sake of duty, to keep promises to a city that is in its death throes, but still breathing;

And some for the sake of looting what's left, surviving like rats in the dark;

But not this one.
He's bound, unable to move his feet across the gates out of town.

Crosshaven's fate is his fate. He cannot leave. His soul--if he has one at all--resides here, tethered up by an old spell.

He watches the city like a doctor holding vigil for a patient on a ventillator.

The large book on which she wrote on had once belonged to the Crosshaven library. It was one of those old books that used to serve as record books for population census' that is before such things had become modernized and done in computers. Funny, she used to so love technology. If things had been different she would have been typing furiously at a computer. But she had decided long ago that work such as this was work done best, not by cold key stroked but by loving hand.

On the page before her a list of names in black ink in her beautiful calligraphy. Names of the dead and lost. There was space but for one more name but she had not the stomach to do it. It was a name she had left for the very last. Something in her dreaded inking it for it might mean he was truly gone. Not that her heart would ever be convinced of such.

She stood and walked to the window. She looked up to the stars, it was a clear night such as had not been seen in a while in Crosshaven, having the dust only now settled, the atmosphere itself trying to regain some of what it had been before. He jade eyes scanned the sky for her star. He had given it to her all those long nights ago. She did not have to look for long and once her eyes settled on it she sighed. At least some things remain unchanged , she thought. Turning she looked about the room. It had been his office once, still was in her mind and would always be. She felt as if she was only taking care of it until he returned. Everything was as it was when he left it.

She walked to the table a gentle hand caressing the page and all the names of people some on whom she knew well all of whom she mourned. There on the last blank spot she wrote as she held her breath her hand trembling slightly:

Nathanael Nevermore, missing, presumed dead

She looked at the words for a long time, presumed dead. Perhaps, but not to her... not to her.

She smiled gently glad to see him not the least bit startled by his appearance out of no where which was were he usually was. How long a night they had spent together looking for Nate, fighting the war side by side. The way people see each other change in times of turmoil and it had been no different for them. Not that he would ever give an inch was there ever another soul in the room as to just how much he had grown to like her.

She looked up in to his eyes chucking lightly at the comment. "Lets keep them waiting a little longer shall we?" She moved from the desk to a comfortable seat on the far of corner wanting for now to put some distance between herself and the name she had just written, something inside feeling like she had betrayed her lover by writing it down.

"How about you? This is quite a night for you. Do not think it goes unnoticed that tonight, my friend, your debt is no more." She spoke matter-of-factly but scanned him closely as she spoke. "What do you plan to do now?"

" But I am not a Nevermore, not by birth nor by.. marriage" she fiddled absentmindedly with a a silver ring with an orange stone that hung by a silver necklace from her long neck. "What?! no loophole? " she asked with hopeful eyes. " Am I really stuck with you?" she said with mock horror.

She laughed lightly sobering up a bit, she could hear the people down stairs "Hollow, I don't think... I don't know if I am ready for this."

She nodded at Hollow then added, "Well if I had to have a psychotic son of a b***h on my side I am glad I got the handsome one." she said with a playful laugh. He was right though she did not want a loophole, she needed him in more ways that she would admit.

That was about as much tenderness as she had expected from him. She understood now why Nate had told her the very same thing the day they had met, how he was not sure what the hell he was doing. She remembered now how she had been the one who had comforted him and offered to weather come what may with him, to the end. Revisiting Hollows response in her mind she knew he was absolutely right. Time was not about to stop for her sake and there were more important things to attend to than her jitters. People depended on her now and she felt heavy with responsibility. Had Nate felt like this all the time?

She stood and walked towards the door pausing before a mirror. Even if she did not feel it, she had to look the part, and gave her figure a quick inspection. Her red mane of soft red curls was tied tightly back were it had been affixed when the war began and had to stayed to this day. She looked paler now her fine features now seamed like carved marble jade eyes even more striking.

"As if I could keep her from you if I tried. Spura herself would scratch me eyes out." She knew well that there was only one thing in this world he desired more that being free to roam about and that was to find Spura. In her heart she knew that finding her was as much and obsession for him as Nate was for her.

She remembered something as she stepped through the threshold. " Hollow have you heard rumors of rebel-rousers or of people causing trouble these days. I mean of course more than usual. I received a rather disturbing tip. Anything abut anyone trying to crash the party tonight sort to speak?" The letter, which was safely put away n the top most drawer of Nate's desk, had been singed a friend and it contained only a flyer of a rather unsettling nature.

She nodded knowing he would be only more than eager to split a few heads regardless, but oddly comforted by the notion that in this new fate that befell her she would have him for protection if not company.

"Go on ahead Hollow, I need a few more minutes before I face the town. Like you said , once I start calling the shots there is no turning back."

She watched him leave the room with half a mind not to ask him to take her in to insubstantia with him so she could flee the ceremonies. It was one thing to govern, she had been doing it ever since Nate had disappeared to some extent really. But this ceremony made it seem too... official. More than once she asked if it could be forgone all together. But in the end she knew that this was not about her. Nothing would ever just be about only her again.

It was about the town. A town that was as much a part of her as a limb. A town that saw her born. A town where she fell in love. A town that had given her abounding joys and insupportable woes, but above all, it was a town that given all of itself to her. No matter how far life had taken her from here it had always managed to bring her back to the only place in the world that truly felt like home. How could she not do as the town had done to her and give all of herself to them to the town?

She could recognize effortlessly almost all the voices she heard coming up from the floor boards, she knew them all. And they knew her. And now they looked to her for help, to lead, now they needed her. They all had suffered as much as she. Not many had remained that was true but of the ones that had remained, of wich had she been asked she could have named almost every single person each of them had lost, all harbored a deep love of this place.

No it was indeed not only about her anymore if ever her life had been about only her. This ceremony was about reassuring the town that, yes, they had been trodden by evils that at one point seemed unsurmountable, but they were not broken. Never broken.

Walking to the window again she glanced not at the stars, but at the war scared town and felt the pain she always did when seeing the state it was in. To her it seemed that the physical scars of the town matched those of it's peoples hearts. For her time for gazing at the stars was long gone, the time when her emotions had been the guiding force was gone just like, the one, who had usually been at the helm of said emotions. It was now time to rebuild, to come out of hiding and to reclaim the place she called home, the place that all whom shared the building with her and all those who lurked unseen but ever present still called home. With a deep breath she walked away from the window and walked out the door toward her new destiny.

I was a year and a day, but a new day it was. It was the day when all would begin a new, it was the new age of Crosshaven...