Alone in the darkness the Idol Spirit sits, its head pointed towards where the forest lay. Today its head is raised and steady, no longer is the small being curled up in a ball of pain. Today seems to be a good day. On the other side it could sense sunshine, a change after the seeming grayness of the other days. It imagined new sprouts climbing towards that sun, older trees stretching their leaves out, new seeds falling to the forest floor. It thinks of the fish circling around their clear pond, dodging lily pads and curious fawns. The small birds that came from time to time from the rock place, the hover of dragonflies in their corner of the pond and the swaying whisper of the weeping willows. All that life...going on long after it'd left. Continuing as it had not. It was not bitter over this, life went on. Always. That was the way life was. It had no grudges towards life. It was simply a part of a whole composed of thousands of living things, it played its part as did the rest.

It wonders at the near constant distant echo of pounding hooves, the apparent crash of bodies against each other. There had been fights from the before days but this seemed somehow different. Structured and not at the same time. There are new energies now, hardly any of the old ones it knew remain. Only the fox is always there...the fox! It misses her so. Something is different with her aswell, on one visit it sensed great happiness and on another such great sorrow. She has not visited much recently, it wonders what's occupying her days now. How had she fared in the rain? It had sense a trickle fall through the porous surface of the crying mother. The fox didn't care for rain if it remembered correctly. Or snow. The vixen hated snow. The cold months were coming soon....where would she find warmth? It did not know where she went when she was not here. Even now it knew almost nothing about the world that had become its home.

It's head tilts to one side, mouth pulling into puckered frown. The Voice had said that they had made mistakes once, bad ones. Ones that they'd fixed later on but bad ones nonetheless. It wondered at what The Voice had told it, that they had come to take it home. They hadn't been able to in the end but they had tried. Someone it'd never met had come to help it. A stranger. That baffled it. The only ones that had helped before were ones it knew. Why would someone waste time on a weed? Why? Because some weeds were beautiful. It half-blinked quietly, tiny little tears welling up. It was touched. Even after all this time...the others it knew had remembered it. They had seen this long before it had ever considered such a thing. It remembered that the Old One had said that you only knew how many lives you touched after you were gone. It knew now. It had been gone far too long. It missed them. It missed its home.

Another one had come back. The butterfly doe, the fragile one. It remembered her, the black eyed butterfly. It knew she was sad. The last visits it got had both been sad. It could sense the blame she'd put on herself. This wasn't her fault, it was Ird's, and no one else's. It wanted to tell her that, give the one that thought no one wanted her a hug. That wasn't true, everyone was wanted by someone else. Another thing it had not realized until now. It wanted to hug everyone, thank them for not giving up on it even when it had given up on itself. It loved them. It wanted them to know that. It was lucky that it had them. Now it didn't think it would ever be able to.

It sits straighter all of a sudden, mouth opening in a little 'o' of surprise. Why couldn't it? Why couldn't leave? It'd walked in here right? So why couldn't it walk out again? Well...not walk exactly, crawl more like but still...why not? It wasn't sad anymore and it wanted to go home. Wasn't that the first step? Then it thinks of the others seeing it and cringes. They did not know how dead it looked now with all its grass brittle and brown, flowers long withered. There were holes in it now, gaping ones. It was no longer quite alive and blind to boot. It droops at the thought that it was ugly now, the others may not want it once they saw it. No. They had been there for it, it had seen them go through rough periods too. They were never pretty during those, and never was it. Appearance shouldn't matter right? It certainly never had before given how strange the little creature had been before.

They'd welcome it back. Maybe not at first, it didn't mind having to try again. The Twins knew how hard it had been for Ird when Jun came back and acted like nothing had happened between them. Because things did happen. No matter how much the Idol Spirit didn't want to admit it. Life had gone on around it. A lot of life. It knew fitting back in would be hard but it thinks of the days spent curled up with the fox under the willows and knows this will be worth the hardness. To see them all again! Maybe even the Old Tree would come back! Who knew right? But could it do this? Get up? Return? It decides to try.

Will this work? It takes a deep breath-tenses all its muscles and slowly lifts one leg. The tar stretches, grabs, it hurts but the leg is moving. And eventually the tar gives up its black grip on the ground below. In the darkness the Idol Spirit smiles, it was coming home.