“Ruins of Melancholy”

Parker spent almost a hundred years in the ocean, isolated and exiled, before he finally just gave up. He did not feel that he could keep going. He beached himself, entirely intending to let himself rot there and die.

But he’d beached himself near a town, and he was soon found by a man named Ernest.

When Ernest found him, he was already so broken and listless he figured he was going to die and there wasn’t much he could do about it.

So he just stayed with him. He visited him, talked to him. He picked out debri and dirt that fell into his broken, wounded body.

And that was enough.

This is Lewelling, looking pretty in the spring with his cherry blossoms.

His role in his group is that of an oral storyteller. Dryads never developed written language of their own (and a lot of them are still illiterate even after their introduction to the writing systems of other sapients), they rely on individuals like Lewelling to memorize and re-tell their important stories and history.

“Youth”

Agents physical forms are a reflection of their minds, their mental history, their feelings about themselves and their own personal symbolism. Older agents are fairly stable in their identities, so their appearances are stable as well - but young Agents, young agents are something else entirely.

When they break out of their larval bodies, they are exhilerated by their new senses and emotions, and full of curiosity about the world and themselves, having no set identity or symbolism, everything is in constant flux as they make new discoveries and change their minds.

Brennan was once bonded to a cottonwood tree. If you aren’t familiar with them, they shed fluff like this.

A Thousand Layers Of Glass

Approximately what The Autumn Man sees when he looks at Eve. (or anything else)

(I wanted to add a close-up view)

A Thousand Layers Of Glass

Approximately what The Autumn Man sees when he looks at Eve. (or anything else)

The Light and The Leaves

Here, have a few detail shots from “Drown”

Drown

Enka I think there’s a leak there.

11 was once one of her hive’s major thinkers, thinking was her job. Later she decided she wasn’t up to being such an important part of hive decision making, and stepped away from it. She felt guilt for the mistakes she made, and though her intelligence was never in doubt, she doubted it herself.

So she is now a forager, spending more and more time daydreaming aimlessly with no particularly mentally challenging work to focus on.