This isn't your home,

A process of construction that had begun a long time ago... well, that was nearby. There were old stones there, and Madhukar could not have stayed no matter how hard she had tried, a ghost among ghosts. Stones aren't the same as ghosts, they don't grace you with a semblance of company. What they do instead is haunt you with the apparitions made from the absence of presence. They make your heart ache. Madhukar was not built to tremble.

So she had built a small den of some kind, among the flowers and bees, and the wind she could listen to when no one else was talking. It settled her, somewhat, to know that life still buzzed even as she did. Maybe she fit in with them better. The thought often crept through her mind like cyanide — sweet and poisonous. That's because that is what truth tastes like, and that is what truth does. She ignored it — and me — and built on. A small, patchy garden of specific collections of flowers existed just outside the den, but it was difficult to tell them apart from any other. Wildflowers, a gardener's training wheels. She had specifically chosen the ones that seemed to attract the bumbling rainbow bugs.

it's mine.

She clambered into the den, a small hole covered incompletely by leaves and mud. Madhukar was not much of a builder. She had an assortment of things down here: metronomes, a large and familiar feather, a music box, and more. There lay an empty nest for sleeping in and an empty space for a missing costume. Madhukar was already beginning to feel its apparition, too.

She set the stone down in her nest, and then ran out. She returned with a few plants from the forest. They were young, small things, kept within clods of dirt. Madhukar took the stone and held it up to each one as if... testing. Seeking out something. A pattern, possibly. Eventually, one seemed to lock in place.

Madhukar would place a few things in the ground. An oak, a maple, a handful of carefully collected ghost flower seeds. It was just a beginning. She then stood back and channeled, as best she could, her focus and energy. She held the stone in her good hand, hoping it would help.

They grew rapidly. Madhukar could feel her energy draining fast, flooding the new life, expanding it. Not her best work, not perfect. Didn't have to be. She'd have to find one for each of the others... but not yet. First, you. She attempted to create at the base of the two trees a ring of familiar white cap mushrooms.

Then... you. She looked at the emerald in clutched in her paw, then at the patch of ghost flowers. She had always spotted them near mushrooms, in dark spaces. They were speckled black and white. Familiar. They felt forlorn, somehow. They certainly didn't always feel like they belonged with the rest of the forest. She would try to mimic that environment for them as best she could, but... well. She would do the best she could.

She placed the emerald among the patch.

I can't bring you back. You never knew this but I... I was supposed to have two... She didn't have to complete her thoughts to understand their meanings.

They- it never worked. Worked ou- it— I can't do it. But maybe, um... Maybe I can find someone who can.

A forest would grow out from the forest beyond. An oasis of death in a desert of life. Hopefully Twisted wouldn't mind this temporary, fleeting monument. Hopefully she would forgive Tahi's oak and James's maple, the assimilation into this ecosystem of Madhukar's mind. She wouldn't have to stay forever. Hopefully. We're throwing caution to this chorus of wind with our hopes here. It's all we can do.

Madhukar turned out into the world she had been drifting through. What else could she do, knowing now that she had a promise to keep?

She left, one step at a time, uncomfortable and bare, into a new age. Maybe she wouldn't stick around long. Maybe she would finally tire herself out this time. Maybe she would get a new mask.