[!]
He left quietly, the way he always did when something old and heavy stirred in his chest. There was no dramatic goodbye, just a brief glance toward the portal- bought by a favor owed by the Matron of Ravens- before he stepped through it as though it were a threshold to somewhere far older than the world around him. He didn’t explain much before stepping through, only that they were going “home,” the other home, the one spoken of in half-remembered songs and dusty ancestral scrolls. A place of cliffs that knew his name and winds that carried his lineage. He said it softly, like speaking it too loud might wake something that shouldn’t be disturbed.
For a week, his absence left his home feeling hollow in a subtle way. Not lonely- just quieter. The air felt cooler without the low, instinctive heat he carried around with him. The rooms held stillness like they were waiting for a shift in pressure, for that strange thrum he gave off when his thoughts wandered too deep. Life went on, but it moved differently, careful around the space where he normally was.
Then one morning, he returned. Not with fanfare, not with fire in his eyes or some grand self-revelation- just stepping inside with a soft exhale, as though shaking off the last bit of distant wind from his shoulders. He looked… lighter. Not cured of anything, not transformed into someone new, just eased. The tightness that usually lived between his brows had loosened. His voice, when he finally spoke, carried that faint, warm gravel it had when he was once at peace.
He didn’t say what he found there, or what called to him strong enough to pull him back to whatever ancestral weight lived in his blood. He simply sat in the familiar armchair again, worn with love, shoulders dropping, warmth gathering around him almost unconsciously. And in the most unassuming tone, like it was nothing more than a small errand completed, he said,
“I think I needed that.”
Drenmir was gone, then he returned. Ho-ho.
