Aivor

I am alone again. I am nothing. I am forgotten. I want to go home.

I beat against the walls of my cage, flesh and bone.

I scream. No one hears but the ears of my cage, and its mouth speaks a babbling melody. It is too young and too stupid to understand. I scream and am not heard. I rein myself in. If I do not quiet myself, if I am not calm, I will drive the host mad. I want to go home. I want to go home. I was so, so close.

The damnable Mirshalites keeping their Veil, they don’t even know what they’re doing to me. It’s torment, every day in this world. I can’t slip through – they won’t let me through. If they knew, maybe they would let me through. But it’s been too long and they will never trust me. Hating me is embedded in their very culture. The bulk of these Mirshalites, they are followers of Ab, and they will never love me, because I am of the other world, the one that threatens them.

But I want to go home. I want nothing more than to go home.

Before the eyes of my cage, people bow down. Priests chant praises, soldiers bang spears against shields and fire rifles into the air. Ordinary folk avert their gaze. I am worshipped, and I have never been less free.

I was so close. But I failed, and now – I cannot go home today.