The void in his stomach whirled violently.
“And he’s leaving it for some shady guild we know barely anything about?!”
Like he was going to tell Ascon what they were about.
“I know you mean well, buttercup.”
Ascon’s tone suddenly went soft and sweet, the way it always did for Hayle.
“But you just can’t keep defending him! He needs to stop being so selfish and disrespectful! Always keeping secrets, why doesn’t he tell us anything? How am I supposed to trust him when-”
Right, so no breakfast. He wasn’t touching that. Tora grabbed his coat off his desk, swung it on, and reached for the window. His room was on the second floor of a swirling complex of woody pods nestled in the back of the Pale Tree’s branches. The only way down was by a series of vines hanging by his window. Like rainwater, he slid down them and landed in the grass below with barely a sound. Ascon had yet to figure out that he could do that. Ascon was not going to find out.
The house had quieted. Perhaps Hayle had managed to finally quell Ascon’s anger. Now all he could feel from the house was disappointment, shame, loathing – but was it Ascon or…?
Tora felt a sharp tug from his stomach. Home had always been… tumultuous, even before he’d joined the guild against Ascon’s wishes. A constant barrage of anger, shame, loneliness, sorrow, and so much loathing, even in its quietest moments.
Hayle told him there was love too, but he could never find it. He wasn’t sure he knew what love felt like at all. Could other sylvari feel it better? Did his home seem brighter to them? Or could they tell his home was a dark hole too? Was that why they placed them so far in the back of the Garden of Noon that barely anyone else was around?
Or was it because…? Tora stopped at the wooden sign placed out front.
“Ascon, Special Care Mender for Special Needs Saplings” it read.
Tora stared at the familiar words etched neatly into the wood. “Special Needs Saplings” meant saplings that were mistakes, Ascon made that clear enough. Maybe the rest of The Grove thought that too…
Does it even matter anymore? With a sharp inhale, he broke his gaze from the sign and started making his way to the nearest waypoint.
It was a long walk, and not one he was fond of. Getting out of The Grove was always the hardest part, and the sea of feelings would swallow him as soon as he was far enough into the city. He stopped only once to check his reflection in the large pools of water at The Grove’s base, the point where the sea was weakest.
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