Powerful and laced with grains of truth as the murmurs of Vestec were, they struggled to resonate with the dry, meat-speckled bones of the accursed corpse goddess.  The attack made to him, enough to crumble mountains and reduce to atoms any living thing not granted eternity through godhood, eluded any remnants of sensory power Slough might have had even more deftly than it eluded the laws of physics.  Jvan calmed herself to examine Slough, and by an eccentric definition of ‘unhurt’ decided that she fared well enough.  On the heels if this pronouncement came a torrent of creative power, exuded from the all-beauty’s consciousness and bestowed upon the lifeless tangle of former plantlife that pervaded the Craglands.  Given new strength and purpose they surged to immerse themselves in poison far below, birthing from an association never meant to be a new, waterlogged forest in the grim shadow of the sepulchral cliffs.  Even a beast so primitive as Slough understood the animalistic urge to embrace what bettered oneself, so the pursuit of a medium antithetical to needs -be it made by empowered roots or a fleshy aberration beyond nightmares- would have baffled her.  Fortunately, the portion of her rotted brain not yet eked out through the holes that signified her ears could not fathom this unintuitive conundrum.  

Were it so easy that a soothing deluge, meant in comradeship and love, could negate a virulent curse!  When the bones of the Deepwood Ghoul floated to the surface of Jvan’s kindly bath, they displayed an appropriate paucity of life, but their solemn visage masked at least a glimmer of fortune: the bones did not drift apart, and remained united, as any worthwhile testament should.  Though faultless in her consideration, Jvan had erred.  The pit served as Slough’s prison no more than a riverbed did its river, or the soil the roots of a tree.  Around the singular spot where she fell the Forsaken Cragland had arisen to accommodate her; the roots lay as her own bed, and the Aimless Time as a grave sigh, product of her last ragged breath.  There lay a question, unasked and unanswered: from where did Slough’s malignant curse originate, if not from Galbar?

Banishing all pretenses, the muse, having arrived, poetically emulated a leaf on the wind, for only whispers and unhelpful flutters accompanied her presence.  Even if she could not help the Rottenbone, however, she gave comfort still: in song, at least, Slough could be immortalized.  No bard would sing of the brief age of stagnation, but his matron knew, and in memory would preserve she who was responsible.

Next to pay his respects came the lord of time, though he offered his affections strangely.  From Jvan’s basin of blue he raised the cleansed corpse, and with no doubt good intentions he wreathed her in incomprehensibility.  Into this divine envelope, secured as it was against all outside intrusions, he placed fragments of his power for Slough, like a skittish woodland creature scurrying to a backporch at night, to feed upon.  His gifts did not go unnoticed.  The cocoon cut Slough off from the world that, more than any god, was her lifeblood, leaving only her most singular and profound essence, that untapped and troublesome life-power, so wonderful in potential and catastrophic in consequence, behind.  It devoured bark, and wood, and time—that poor, unfortunate soul.  

To Slough, the time and events that passed outside mattered nothing.  Perhaps nobody would remember Vestec’s conquest, or Niciel’s gift, or even the horrific despair of Jvan.  The circular cocoon of the Rottenbone seemed to be an epicenter for spheres, orbs and eyes both.  In truth, it wasn’t long before the egg of life began to crack.  No fissures ruptured its surface, however.  When the time came, the entire shell simply melted away like ice in the summer, or ash in the wind, or a dream in daytime.  In the clearing, empty but for rotten things once called eyes and vigilant motes of light, Slough emerged.  Within the cocoon she regained a semblance of her former shape; she was a deer of wood.  This gnarled, gnobby, gray-green wood, however, seemed of the Deepwood Sepulcher more than anything fashion by Vowzra.  Root spikes were her teeth, branches her horns, and trunks her hooves.  From her back extended two great fans of wispy roots, crude and cruel imitations of wings.  More unnatural by far was the light in her right eye.  This white eye shone with an intensity not of this earth, brighter than the stars in the night sky as Slough turned her head upward to peer at the heavens.  She felt a conscious pull to a certain point in the sky, but she began walking south.  No time could be wasted on this perilous but necessary journey.

[hider=Slough, Fed Up with Retirement]
-Slough gets out of her cocoon
-Her resurrection might not have gone exactly as planned
-She’s going somewhere purposefully[/hider]