Guru Clef's Journal

The palace was not normally such a quiet place, especially not at this time of the afternoon. There were usually formal teas for someone to attend, banquets to be arranged, princes to be fetched from the woods and scolded - not so much right now. There were not even servants or maids bustling about in the hallways, only the faint 'shh' sound the train of Clef's robes made, trailing along on the floor behind him as he walked.

The hall he walked was open on one side with a row of columns that looked out onto a large central courtyard. The floors were made of a rougher material than in the rest of the building so that they wouldn't become slippery during the light showers this area was used to, but it tended to collect puddles in heavier rain than that. Such storms had been unheard of before a few years ago, but Clef had found himself almost completely avoiding these hallways lately as they had been getting more and more frequent and it would be inexcusable to get his robes wet. They were dry at the moment, though.

Not for long. A gust of wind blew through the hallway, billowing his robes almost as though he was not even in them. (There was just more cloth there than person, and even he would admit that.) He stopped and turned to stare out into the courtyard, not even at anything in particular. Even the birds out there had stopped singing, and the light coming down through the clouds was a shade of green that Clef might have admired if not for the circumstances. Without thinking he stepped through the archway and down the steps onto the soft grass to stare up at the sky. He could just about pick out the emotions that had brought about this particular storm - guilt, worry, self-hatred... nothing he said could take Emeraude's pain away, and it hadn't been for a lack of trying. The one thing he hadn't done was addressed her love for Zagato directly. Even if it were his place to do so, he couldn't tell what she might do when faced with her so-called flaws as a Pillar.

This one would be pretty bad, maybe even the worst they had seen so far. She'd want to be alone, anyway, so there was nothing for him to do but watch the storm gather.