Why I shouldn't write at midnight, the umpteenth example. I actually like Nowi quite a lot, she doesn't really bug me and she's more interesting than some of the other manakete that I've seen in games. She has more depths to her than what it seems like at first glance.
The lines in the middle are my lyrics to Terra's theme, which I was listening to on repeat while I wrote this.
Another grave, another lost home, another empty space in her heart. She likes to play, she likes to laugh, but she can't pretend that she's a stranger to sorrow, to saying good bye. It still hurts just like the first time every time she says goodbye though.
The stars are cold, the night is cold. She holds the cloak that's too long for her tightly around her shoulders, trying to keep out the darkness and the sadness for a few minutes more. The stone that is all she has of her family hangs around her neck, digging into her chest.
She wants to not be alone anymore, but after a thousand years, its hard to imagine not being alone at the end. Tears run down her cheeks as she stands in front of the grave, no words on a stone to give meaning to who lies there, a dear friend who had spent all their life with her.
The stars hold no answer as to where she should go now. Only that she should go.
Standing all alone in the cold night
Looking at the sky to find my light
Searching for a way to find that day
Somewhere far, far away
Nobody thinks that she's anything other than what she looks like, a child who runs around in ribbons and scales, laughing and ignoring anything that might very well show the end of childhood. But she knows underneath that while its not a farce, it's not all of her either.
The stars lead her to another group of people, even when they're unhappy, they still accept her into their circle, calling her one of their own. They know that she's a manakete, that she will look the same the day they're lowered into the ground, but they don't seem to care. Some of them play with her, or talk with her.
She's not alone now, but it can't last forever. Nothing lasts forever.
Wanting just a home, filled with laughter
Light and love and warmth, no tears left there
Where there is no death, only life left
I can't see, can I be?
She meets another like her, older, wiser, but still clinging to humans just as she does. She doesn't mean to eavesdrop when she hears the older manakete tell her friend that she is used to loss, but that does not mean she doesn't ever want to have. That even though her lifespan is but days compared to her own long one, that doesn't mean that she won't cherish and treasure the time they've spent together.
It gives her hope, to think that it's not a flaw in her, but something that they all do. Something they all yearn for. In immortality, it's easy to grow detached from life, forgetting that in the end, everything dies. The fact that another can see it as she does makes her feel a little more hopeful.
Each day that the stars aren't alone with her is a day that she wants to remember.
Standing all alone in the cold night...
Another grave, another lost home, another empty space in her heart. As she knew it would, nearly all of the Shepherds have passed her by, following each other into death so as to not be alone. This time, the body buried is not a friend, but a lover, a partner who made her happy for the years they had.
The stars are cold, but she only stands alone till her daughters come, one from a time that ceased to be, another from this one. Though they are both half-blooded, they still seem to share her long life, they haven't changed much in the years since they reached adolescence.
Maybe someday, she'll be able to explain to them why its not wrong to seek and find companionship in a human, even knowing that they will die long before they do. For now, they follow her and stay with her, baffled by her living every day as if it would last forever, seeking out the humans who see her not as a foolish child, but as a woman who lives the only way she can thrive, accepting loss and pain. Maybe it will be long enough for the stars to crumble and vanish, but someday she will understand the end of life as they do, and she will see all of her friends again on the other side, waiting for her just like she's waiting for the ones yet to come.
Why do you yearn to live, knowing all living things must die?