This was not the first time Ellinor Olysha Rask found herself bound and chained, and she very much doubted it would be her last.

Ellinor crossed her arms over her chest, her headache returning in force with Lazar’s words. “So what you’re trying to tell me is, we’re fucked. That about sums it up, yeah?”Lazar smirked. “I just said we’d be in for trouble.

Tallis is a beautiful and terrible thing. Fearsome and alluring. Just like the forest in many ways... but it's written all over that handsome, pale face of yours; you like her.

Euria was like most of the sprawling metropolises in Erhard: tall skyscrapers that didn’t so much kiss the sky as ram their fist through it, their shadows casting a perpetual false night across the ground where the unfortunate dwelled.

And who are you really, Tallis? Are you going to be the hero of Selkirk, rather than its monster? A promise of hope, rather than a warning of darker things to come?

The reflection no longer held the image of a woman Ellinor recognized, nor particularly liked. She saw a facsimile of herself, someone who was still unsure how to trust, move forward, to live without Misho.

She was starting to forget which scars she had gotten by Misho’s side, and which would be new to him. Mirrors reminded her too much that she was still here, fearing failure and success alike because it took her further from the man she loved.

Tears stung her eyes and threatened to show a weakness she spent years trying to suppress with cheap whiskey and near suicidal jobs.

Tallis had persevered through and unshakable feeling of not truly belonging... She understood the responsibility her family constraints put upon her, and while Lana knew Tallis's heart trembled and raged at the perceived indignity of it all, she had grown up into a charming, beautiful woman with shoulders that refused to bow to a world that demanded they should.

Life was strangely glorious like that sometimes; just as it could be cruel and unforgiving, so could it be a mysterious wonderland of unexpected joy and chance encounters.