Time seemed to slip by for Aidan more and more swiftly as does the fluid rush of a river's current as it approaches the Sea. It was something that moved with enough swiftness that the aging elf could almost imagine it passing through his articulate fingers like so much sand. Only that each grain was at first another day, then another week, then months and finally years.

As he stood now on the battlements of Loreil, his first return to The Keep in time unmeasured, it was that sensation that he most keenly felt. Where had the time gone? This place, rivaled only by a handful of others, had occupied a place in his life where it was posessed of an uncommon importance. Here, The Glade, The Song of Sunlight, Eska Rochtura, he thought, and not without a vague sense of wonder. Those four places easily witnessed some of the happiest times of his life. All of them still existed, were still accessible to him to some degree. In point of fact, he still retained ownership of two of them, which was an irony he reflected on with some chagrin. And yet they were never visited. The Song had long since been shuttered, turned utilitarian, its fires and its merriment mere whispers in the past. The ranch was maintained now without his supervision. The Glade, ah, the Glade. The Glade had never been his to begin with and he would be as much a stranger there as we was in Loreil. Perhaps even moreso, no matter how much it had once been otherwise.

But it was on the battlements of Loreil's Keep that his boots now rested. They were battlements that, no matter how old he felt, predated him, as did its now slumbering Sovereign. Caern Harbor had been rebuilt, his far-seeing gaze took note of. Of course it had. Decades had passed since its razing.

Clad in a black that was not that of Loreil's, but one all his own, his hands were pressed flush against the small of his back. It was a black that he'd worn previous to his Investiture, a black that he'd worn after his retirement. Digits were entwined with digits, twisted and clutched tight, as though merely being in this place brought all the old tensions back. He had fought many battles here, both real and imagined. Always in the defense of Loreil, or so he had felt. His blood had been shed on and around these walls, he'd lain sick and near death on more than one occasion. For all that, though, the smile on his lips was genuine, the complacency in his heart no less strong. He descended from the battlement.

He fancied himself an elf who had found complacency. Balance. Now, as he paced the halls of the Keep in silence, he wondered if he wasn't simply an elf who had entered the last stages of his life. The white shocks of hair at his temples told that story, didn't they? It was a bittersweet realization, as such thoughts must be. And while nostalgia was not generally part of his make-up, but it was nonetheless a sentiment that he felt as he paced these halls. There, once, had been Maralayna's office. And, in that now dusty room, he had sat and shared tales with Warden Tayl. Ah, but the names of the departed were assorted and many, too many to mention here. Indeed, he could recall walking these very same halls with his wife, Lurielle. And though their ways too had parted, as had his and so many others, she remained a cherished woman, forever near in thought and feeling.

He paused outside the door to what had once been his own office. Even now, he could have found it blindfolded. How many times had he walked this very stone corridor? His hand touched the worn oak of the door and surprise registered when it opened. His expectation had been for a locked door. But it was not locked, not even latched. It swung silently on its hinges, opening to reveal the shadowed interior of the room within. With the sun down and no fire to light it, it was a dim thing. And though someone else's belongings now populated the room, someone else's papers now littered the desk, it was easy for the tall elf to imagine his own belongings where they had been. It was easy to imagine the surly Warden Damascus standing in the very spot that Aidan was now, chastising him for some infraction or another. That brought a smile to his lips.

It's the past, he thought as he pulled the door closed again in silence. And, indeed, it was the past. In that way, this foray was a bit like looking at his former life in painting that hung in a museum; interesting to study, to ponder the rich colors and textures, but forever frozen, a world he could never enter. The Loreil of today was in many ways, he knew, quite different from the Loreil that he had known. And, for that matter, he knew on the basest levels that he was a much changed elf from who he had been when first applying for the Apprenticeship. Had Loreil done that to him? Perhaps. But the major contributor had always been time.

"Time," he muttered softly as he turned to continue down the hall. His measured steps had gained purpose now.

He was going home.