By the fireplace

Winter set upon Eternia, a frigid chill setting in the air. The week of the festival was beginning, the darkness bringing with it a more fearsome cold that nipped at the inhabitants of Eternia as they settled on different ways to keep themselves warm. Some of the residents of Eternia like Nyxia, sought to hide from their past. While others like Alecto wished to bid adieu to it as many others do when burning bits of their own sylk, while all the same helping to warm those around them. Nyxia and Alecto took to their small wooden cabin, both with different aspirations for  what this year's festival will entail but both ultimately not being a fan of the more social side of it. They would prefer to stick it out in their cabin, nestled near each other in front of the flickering fireplace. Watching the flames flicker as Nyxia seemed unresponsive towards the display, Alecto on the other hand being enthralled by the performance shown. The smoke billowing from the chimney above their home carried away the bits of Alecto she sought to remove as she said goodbye to her past, and gave herself to keep her and her friend warm. Nyxia was never one to partake in this ritual, she was never a fan of the past but saying goodbye to it seemed too cruel, though she knew her hiding from it and ignoring it had ever happened was just as if not more cruel than letting it go. The flames dying down as the two nestled closer to keep warm, the fire still going into the seemingly endless night as both dozed off, continuing this cycle of falling asleep to the embers of a dying fire to wake and watch it burn once more. There days even during the lit ones were never much of an extravagant adventure, so today, and the day after, and the day after that during the festival would be no different. As the week slowly came to an end, Nyxia sighed. Knowing what was coming, she always partook in this part. She couldn't let go of the past, and that included traditions like this apparently. Making her way with Alecto by candlelight towards the base of the tree of life, not that their candles were needed for long as the area seemed alit with all the new denizens joining them for this year. Nyxia looked up to the dark sky, she didn't need this to show unison as she had the people she wanted and they had her without something like this, yet every year she found herself returning to the base of the tree to partake and standing there long after the spectacle that painted the sky with the colors of each and everyone subsided. She stared, upwards to the new dark sky knowing that the sun would be replacing the colors their union had painted onto the sky as the last of the traces of magic that shot up flickered out. Alecto gently tugged at Nyxia, snapping her out of her stupor as they began the walk back to the cabin in silence. They did not need to speak however, as those who remained at the base of the tree and those who ventured back to their own abodes engaged in chatter for them, breaking the silence that had befell their home for the dark week. Nyxia with the sun rising against her back, its radiant beams poking through trees as it arose once more ensuring another year but this time, maybe it’ll be different, maybe she will be different. Returning to their home Alecto went off to her room, tired from all she had spent this week both of her own sylk and now of her magic. Nyxia however wandered to the fireplace, the fireplace where lies just a few crackling embers still from the fire that had warmed them and kept them from the dark all week, Nyxia pulled off some of her own sylk, tossing it in. The fire was not enough to burn it quickly or at all as the embers could not do much of what she had intended, but all the same she was already content with herself for what she might do and how she might change.