That brat, Phaeliisthia thought fondly. She’s grown up so much.
Truthfully, the ancient serpent dragon wasn’t yet sure how she felt about her own feelings. Tautological loop or no, she had to admit she’d taken quite the fondness for her trio of former students.
With a sigh like a storm’s gale, she stretched her wings, basking in the searing heat of the large, flat rock she’d perched on. Below her, the shimmering dunes and menacing rock spires of the K’tsch’kil stretched to the horizon. With the fata morgana, the rocks looked to be floating above sand hot enough to kill most weaker beings.
And behind her, to the north, the barren foothills of the Sekalln rose toward towering peaks. Over those, down where their height trapped rain and cloud alike, Issa and Kyrae and Ssiina were continuing on their journey.
Was it unfair of Phaeliisthia to interject herself so? To construct a way to keep an eye—perhaps a little too literally—on Issa?
Absolutely.
But Phaeliisthia lived for unfair. She missed her estate, her servants, even that whiny, buzzing noble girl who absorbed scroll after scroll of ancient texts with far too much zeal for someone of her young age. Most of all, she missed her moonflower grotto. Self-sufficient, that wonderful, heart-aching place would persist as intended: a living tribute to a dearly beloved forever gone.
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In a way, this was like moving on. Issa and her sisters had given light to millennia of simply existing, and now ideas with such banal notions as purpose and future were knocking on the gates of Phaeliisthia’s mind.
Battering against them really; even sunning herself couldn’t distract. The moment Issa passed through the barrier, Phaeliisthia had felt her connection to the carefully constructed array fall apart. It’d reestablish whenever Issa left, but the infuriating feeling of helplessness made her want to tear down a mountain or three.
Someone such as her shouldn’t be shackled by such feelings, shouldn’t even know of them, but Phaeliisthia was all too familiar. And for myriad reasons, many her own. Tempering temperament into punishing hubris into a liberation from duty that felt more like the arrival of a burden than its removal.
All that’s to say: she was restless. Incurably restless.
Nothing to garden, no damnable schedule to occupy her time…
She sighed again; she absolutely had hobbies! But they felt like, well, meaningless time wasters, avoidance, or like too many centuries of work to really get going.
Nice as this rock was, close to her array on Issa as it was, it was no place to spend a few years. Perhaps she ought to find something to do? Why then, was her first thought about what might be of help to Issa, Kyrae, or Ssiina?