Adam didn't waste any time.
He followed Xel'Shaar through the gloom-choked paths of the Blighted Marsh, his boots sloshing against toxic puddles, until they reached a strange path...
Silent, almost untouched by the swamp's decay.
No insects buzzed here, no twisted reeds coiled underfoot. It was still.
There, in the middle of the mire, was a worn wooden chair that looked like it had been plucked from a countryside porch and dropped into the swamp like a forgotten relic.
Sitting upon it was not the childlike form of Celestia he'd encountered before...
But an aged woman.
Her silver-white hair was braided back in a neat coil, draped over one shoulder.
She wore a robe of deep forest green layered with stitched patterns of constellations and veins... half cosmic, half organic.
Her skin was wrinkled but firm, her eyes glowing with the same unnatural calm, timeless and unreadable.
