Some stay for a bit. But when they start seeing signs of the void energies affecting them, they all leave fairly quickly, thanking me for my hospitality. It is one thing to have some sort of chiropteran person tell them that they'll regret staying here, it is another thing entirely to see those same warned of effects on their bodies. Their hair becoming dark where it was once bright. Their flesh showing the tell-tale purple cracks that makes it obvious that the void is inside them. Few are those who've dared to stay long after that. And mostly, they've burned. I thought this was to be my life until death. Helping lost travellers, warning clever and cunning people of the dangers of this place, petting murkbunnies, riding night mammoths around. Not a bad life, but not one likely to change.

But now it seems that this place have brought forth an unexpected change to my life. I am no longer as young as I were. And any potential romance I would ever have with anyone here would be unlikely at best due to my unusual appearance; one that is only accepted by the lost travellers due to how confused they already are. And due to the fact that none could stay here long, even the time it did happen, it would always result in me ending up alone, no family to speak of. Until today. Much like how my large adoptive family of scholars and mages told me, a small horde of beasts have appeared at my doorstep. Fractal tigers grinning gleefully, shadewolves twisting and turning their two-dimensional bodies like crazy. And two night mammoths, their snake-like trunks carrying two bundles in them. Infants. Already bearing signs of healthy adaption to this place. Gently, I reach out my long beastly arms, and take the two tiny things into my hands. They're warm. And young. From the trees I hear the moth-calls ''Two and two. Boy. Girl. Void fed and void born.'' Usually the moths only mutter about the lack of light in this realm. But for them to speak clearly, like this, is unusual.

Nodding to the beasts, who are already on their way to do whatever beasts do when one does not observe them, I walk back into my large home. Born here. Just like I was. If their parents come for them, I shall give them over freely, provided that they are not too bound to this realm yet. I am not as jealous as the void is. But shall their kin never claim them, they will be my kin. They will have a home; and that home will be my home. And unlike those who raised me, I will not leave them. I will not burn as they watch. I will be there for them, until my flesh goes back to the cool embrace of the void, until my soul will depart the Voidwood, the realm-between-realms.

/r/ApocalypseOwl