Lysary's Lament

Once, in the Oldrian, there lived a man whose voice could make flowers dance. The woodsmen spoke of him in hushed tones - Lysary the Heartsong, they called him, though none had seen his face in many years.

His cottage stood in a clearing surrounded by gardens that defied nature’s design. Roses bloomed in winter, lilies swayed with no wind, and morning glories opened to moonlight as readily as dawn. For Lysary possessed a voice that could breathe life into the willing earth.

Each morning, he would walk among his beloved flowers and sing:

“Little blooms beneath the sky,
Lift your heads and do not cry.
Though the world has turned away,
Here with me you’ll always stay.
Sleep, my darlings, sleep so deep,
Dreams of love, yours to keep.”

The melody was sweet yet melancholy, but the flowers would tremble with delight, their stems swaying in perfect harmony. In those moments, surrounded by their simple love, Lysary could almost forget the ache that had driven him to this lonely sanctuary.

But the heart remembers what the mind tries to bury. Years had passed since his family had cast him out. They feared his gift, whispered that it was unnatural. One by one, they had closed their doors until he had nowhere left to go but the wildest places of the world.

He had become the forest’s saint, its gentle guardian. Lost travelers would find mysterious paths lined with glowing blooms. Children who wandered too deep would be guided back by singing flowers. The Oldrian itself had grown kinder, touched by the presence of the Heartsong.

Yet in the quiet hours before dawn, loneliness entered Lysary's cottage like a seeping fog. He would wonder if his family still lived, if they ever spoke his name.

The decision came suddenly. One autumn morning, Lysary looked around his garden and felt the weight of all his unshed years. He had to know, even if it meant leaving everything he had built.

He packed nothing but seeds from his most precious flowers. At the garden’s edge, he turned back one final time. His flowers seemed to sense something; they trembled not with joy now, but with hushed anticipation.

With tears streaming down his face, Lysary sang to them one last time:

“Little blooms beneath the moon,
I must leave you, far too soon.
Though the darkness calls me home,
You must flourish here alone.
Sleep, my darlings, sleep so deep,
Love is all that we can keep.”

The melody carried a farewell more haunting than any ghost’s wail, beautiful yet broken. As his voice faded, the flowers began to sing the words back to him, their voices a whisper-soft echo from somewhere beyond the living world. The song rippled outward until the entire clearing hummed with his melody, transformed into an otherworldly harmony.

Lysary walked away then, following paths deeper into the Oldrian than he had ever gone, his figure growing smaller and smaller, until the forest swallowed him whole. Behind him, the flowers continued to sing, their voices carrying a wailing, eternal sadness.

No one knows what became of Lysary the Heartsong. The woodsmen speak of singing that drifts through the Oldrian on quiet nights - a song that no human voice can sing, but something that makes the hair rise on their necks.

In a clearing where a cottage once stood, wild gardens still bloom with impossible beauty. And in their ceaseless chorus, you can hear it still:

“Little blooms beneath the moon,
I must leave you far too soon.
Though the darkness calls me home,
You must flourish here alone.
Sleep, my darlings, sleep so deep,
Love is all that we can keep.”

The flowers remember. They keep the Heartsong alive in a melody that sounds like childhood lullabies mixed with funeral dirges. And sometimes, when the wind is right and the moon is full, the flowers’ song carries a harmony that sounds almost like an answer - as if somewhere in the vast Oldrian Expanse, Lysary still sings along, his voice joining theirs in a melody that speaks of solitude and darkness, of all the things that sleep so deep.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​