T00th had done it.
She opened the door. Past curtains and chains of code and firewalls there it was everything The Borogov had ever been. All it had taken was holding hands and letting her look, and when the Borogov opened their eyes, they could see it too. Years of memories hidden in the dark.
Most of it.
Their name is Lyriwyn. Their people dancing around the fire pit, mead and merriment at a long table, fireflies glowing among the storytellers and the laughing people of the earth.
The Borogov tapped iron-tipped fingers along a length of their iron jaw. They remember what they looked like when all that they were was flesh and bone. They were shorter. They were physically weaker. They were certainly better looking, could speak without pain and dance without stumbling.
They remembered doing magic, once upon a time, but could not remember how it felt. They remembered a lot of emptiness now. A lot of sadness, and they couldn't connect it to a specific memory.
As if they didn't want to remember.
The Borogov was used to being afraid, but their comfort zone had been beneath the ground for so long that they were uneasy in the tall, swaying trees and gleaming, glowing loam. They hadn't ventured this far from the ruins and the rebel camps before.
The Borogov trudged onward anyway. It shouldn't be far now. They glanced back at their friends. Some had offered to go with them, others they had asked. Their presences gave The Borogov strength, and there were so many of them. Kind souls all, surprise friends found in dark places. The Borogov smiled back at them, growling roughly through jagged iron clamps,
"N0T F4R N0W."
And as if some greater power was listening, the forest opened and spilled into a clearing, overgrown with gleaming mushroom caps and silvery moss. At the center was the great, charred claw of the Tumtum tree gathering post. It pointed with accusation up at the sky, broken at the center with it's charred surface peeking through the glittering growth. The Borogov tore their eyes from it.
"Th3 F1r3 c1rcl3 w45 th3r3..." The Borogov pointed. A small bowl remained in the earth where the pit once was. Strange, red-capped fungus spilled out from the center of it like drooling flames. They crept outward from the sunken pit like veins, curling around fallen rocks and sapling trees.
Feylio would beg for stories to be told before feast time and elders would meet to discuss a hunt or a festival. We would talk of the other creatures in the wood and those strange humans beyond.
The Borogov turned away, walking slowly further into the clearing. There were more then a dozen lumps beneath the verdant mosses. So much smaller, shrunken upon themselves, shriveled like prunes. They pointed to the one second from the far right. "...Th4t w45 my h0m3..."
Sage bread cooling on the window. Glittering lightning glass, dangled from twine in the doorway to catch the light. My mother's amulet resting on the stone shelf by my pallet...
Blue capped mushrooms with lengthy stalks, short, squat green ones with yellow spots, glowing pink and orange... It was certainly beautiful. They did not know what they had expected - a graveyard? A scene of destruction, after all this time? The earth was reclaiming the land. It was almost comforting.
Just past the first line of mounds, old homes of Borogoves they used to know and laugh with, they stopped. They gestured ahead, and shadows began to creep into their mind.
"4nd th4t 15 wh3r3 w3
How long? How long had it been? Since someone came into their life and everything changed? How long since Their Heart had betrayed them all?
The Borogov felt it all rush towards them like a mob of angry ghosts, bombarding them with the images of a losing battle, of imprisoned friends, and scientists. Scientists in white as if they were pure, treating Their people as if they were the unclean ones, in this place, this revered place, a place of spirits and ....
A dance in moonlight, unfamiliar steps and laughter, a blush. Stories about adventure in the wilds and crimson haired spirits. New faces and excitement at their strange ways and fascinated questions. Join us, join us for feat time, we would be honored if you stayed. How long? How long did they stay among the Borogoves, with their notebooks and questions and inquisitive eyes? An age? I don't know, but I know ... a heart beats differently in time with another, a dance, a blush in the moonlight...
There was a toxin in the food. No one had noticed until little Feylio fell over during the games. The little ones fell asleep first, then the elders... The scientists got up, and used strange devices, and then more came, more in white, more with iron chains and cages, and as I stood there, asking why, pleading why would they do this, you answered -
You answered with an apology. I could feel the poison in my veins, leeching at my magic, turning to lead in my veins, even as I tried to fight them. But it wan't enough. They took everything. They took my friends, they took my father's circlet--
They took you.
I had failed. I failed them all.
The Borogov shook their head. They looked down at themselves. Encased in iron, bound with wire and steel, leaving hollow footprints in the glowing plantlife. They were kneeling now, clawed hands planted in the wires in their hair. Slumping as if exhausted, The Borogov dropped their heavy iron limb into the moss and a chiming 'clink' answered the gesture.
The Borgov peered o the ground and gently parted the mosses and mushrooms, reaching for the item that had made the noise. Shining silver answered, and the Borogov withdrew -
The Circlet. Their father's circlet.
The Borogov clutched it to their chest, and every wire-ending and fastening joint and iron clamp burned in protest to the proximity. When they couldn't bear the pain anymore, the gently dropped the circlet back onto the ground before them. They gazed around them, lost in a place they once called home.
What am I now?
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