I should have been paying more attention to other people. I would have noticed the desperate energy everyone was working with. I did notice it, but I wrote it off. Foolish in hindsight.

Thes finally snapped today. I thought we had more time but something must have happened. Maybe the fighting from a while back was much worse for him than we thought, maybe he got sick, maybe someone sabotaged him. Maybe maybe maybe. All we have are maybe’s. Whatever, it doesn’t matter now.

Mest was the first one there when Thes started to rage out of control, but he wasn’t enough to contain it. My children were next, and many of them got torn to pieces in the process, nothing they won’t recover from. Parius and Tiddol also took part in the fighting.

I was the last to realize what was going on. When I did the first thing I did was try to bind Thes with the Mithrilwood I had on his person, and it worked, for a moment. Thes tore the restraints off of himself after only a moment of struggle, it wasn’t enough. I called upon everything, all my plants, both magical and nonmagical, it wasn’t enough. I used my puppets, it wasn’t enough. I tried to put him to sleep with the most potent mixture of Dead Tulip, Flore, and drowsy clover, It wasn’t enough. I fought until I had no more mana to spend, and then I drew on the tree’s reserves, it wasn’t enough. Nothing was ever enough.

Thes eventually got through my children and reached Mest. Thes attacked Mest with a vicious fury. And then there was a cracking sound, and an amulet around Thes’s neck shattered. And then Thes stopped, he turned around, and he walked away. Everything was quiet for a full minute, and then another crack. Mest’s bear totem had shattered.

He’s really dead, isn’t he? Both of them. I was never close with Thes, but Mest was important in all of our lives. To me, he was like that older brother I never had, and now he’s not.

Everything has been so surreal lately that I can’t tell if this is a dream or not.

I’m so tired, emotionally exhausted. I’m just going to sleep now.