Chain of Regrets
From Within[edit]
Our home has had many masters over the years, each as solitary and secretive a man as the one before. The passage of ownership is sometimes the product of love, but more often, it is marked by blood. When the former occurs, the old master and the new arrive together, the old guiding and protecting the new through the dangers that surround us. When the latter, the new master arrives alone and must fight his way through the clutching, strangling vines of thorns, the quicksand traps, and the other pitfalls that have formed from the partial diversion of the manse's essence. If he survives and bears the stone that grew from the heart of the cove, my sisters and I accept him as the new master.
I enjoy these transitions, one master flowing into the other, just as the pools of the Chain of Regrets connect via the small streams that pass between them. Five years or five hundred, eventually ownership passes on to the one who needs it most. In the meantime, we watch, we guard, we tend. One day, the master will leave, and a new pool will form in the Chain to remember him by. Soon after, the new master will come. And we will do the same for him.
-- Salass, Naiad of the Chain of Regrets
From Without[edit]
Breathtaking. It’s the only way I can describe it. One moment I was fighting the jungle for my life, great masses of thorn and sap trying crush me and tear me to pieces; the next, I was standing on the edge of a pool of water so clear that I could pick out the individual stones at the bottom. There are dozens of these pools, each connected to the other, the water feeding into them from beneath the ground and vanishing at the end in the same manner.
After the pools, I noticed the trees. As the essence of the manse has twisted the flora outside the cove, so has it strengthened the plants that dwell within its borders. Varieties of trees from every corner of the East flourish here, though cypress and willow dominate, their long branches almost touching the water in places. There is no scent to speak of, merely a cleanliness of air that is unmatched even by the restive Plum Blossom Retreat.
Then, there are the Naiads. Initially, I suspected they were part of some internal defense of the manse, or that they would be jealous of a newcomer seeking to claim their source of essence. For their part, though, they were polite, kind, and kept their distance, obviously used to dealing with the sorts of suspicions that I held. I spoke with them for several hours, and I could detect no malice, no duplicity. When I was satisfied, they took me by the hand and led me to the heart of the manse.
-- Leaf Shakes the Wind, Night Caste spymaster
