The air burned. The remains of his home, his friends, his loved ones, his comrades, his enemies intermingled ash and dust. He had fallen to his knees, among the aftermath of the ruin of his own making. He no longer knew how long it had been since he'd fallen, how long he remained beyond everything else he ever knew. The ashes of his life coated his body, making him appear as a gray uneven statue, a monument to his own sorrow.

Violet-hued flames of Fel magic continued to burn, despite that lack of fuel. For they burned by his will, and would only extinguish by his will. Rolling hills of ash and flame, all that remained of the landscape. The once serene plain, torn by war, the once grandest city of its age.

He stood, slowly at first, as the ash that coated him cracked, rolled and flowed down his body. The flames ceased, sputtering into nothing. Feathered limbs shifted stretching to their utmost after so long. A jerky movement sent another plume of ash into the air, revealing their darkness. Each wing, folded along their complex joints, returning to a relaxed position at his back. He strode forward, trudging through the ash, the bottoms of his wings dragged through the ash leaving serpentine furrows in their wake. His mind too enraptured in his loss, guilt, and sorrow, to bother with any care for time. He knew naught what he sought with his journey. Until his leg entangled with a small withered bush, singed from the heat, rooted in a patch of barren soil. The anomaly broke his mind free of its inner turmoil, taking an awareness of his surroundings for the first time of his journey. The bush was not the lone sign of life. Patches of grass and shrubbery increased in regularity as his eyes scanned into the distance.

His pace quickened, a sense of purpose filling his stride. He kept time by the brightening and waning of the light that passed through the clouds of ash. His journey ended at the base of a tree, its deep, wide-spread roots reinforced soil, holding firm against the hills of ash. Small saplings and fresh patches of grass, could be seen rising through the film of ash, subsisting off the nutrients and water brought forth from deep underground by the roots of the great tree.

He decided his new purpose, nursing the life in this small grove he claimed as his own. He would protect it from the ruin he caused. Each rolling hill of ash that approached the grove aided in its protection, as he wielded what was left of his untainted magic. The hills ash were fused together and formed a gray wall encompassing the grove. He sent his mana into the earth below, compressing the earth forming a large cavern, willing moisture to gather there. The earth and water obeyed his command as he tore a path from the surface to the newly formed underground lake. The new spring provided water for the shallow river he forged through the ground. Encircling the grove within the walls, the river flowed into the lowered ground around the great tree, surrounding it, forming a small peninsula.

With the last vestiges of his mana, he reached into the sky, pushing the ash aside. The Grove saw its first sunlight since the raging inferno, nourishing the plant-life within. Small withered buds of the great tree blossomed pitifully. The red and pink blossoms filled his chest with a warm feeling. With three flaps of his wings, He rose into the boughs of the great tree. Rough bark met his kin as he settled its trunk. He rested, as both himself and the life around him recovered their strength. He knew he had far harder work to do.