[center][h2][b]Ophelia[/b][/h2][/center]

"Skinner wanted nothing more than to live, and we put him down because he became nothing more than a rabid dog. Irreverent Izzy no longer, just his flesh inhabited by one who gave into Beasthood rather than die. But Ludwig... Ludwig was generations ago; how long did Izzy survive down there, in the Old Labyrinth, only for us to end him as the Skinner? Ah, but you [i]have[/i] met him, I think, Gerlinde. He mentioned an immortal Hunter he couldn't kill that he found terribly tedious--I'd imagine that was you? I suppose it doesn't really matter, now, does it? He is dead, and we are not. Many more will suffer that fate, immortal as we are. [i]Many[/i] more at Yahar'gul." Ophelia commented, looking at Gerlinde with a thoughtful expression as she spoke. 

"Though I'm loathe to even embrace such a rune, there's something I feel impelled to try..." Ophelia said, requesting the runebrand and branding upon herself the Hunger rune. The phantom pain, much like Gerlinde and Victor before, did not cause her to so much as flinch--each note of discordant sensation was divine, and in that divinity there was knowledge. She listened to the sweet notes of it ring inside her mind, felt the rune take hold, and imagined for a moment what Skinner must have felt. She stepped away from the birdbath, taking at least six or seven steps back before she decided it was enough, and beckoned the Messengers forth to retrieve the Kos Parasite. She reached her hand into the bowl and gently caressed the thing within, offering it her communion. This, she reckoned, was the last chance to feel anything at all of Mother Kos. Ophelia had been immured in death for as long as she could remember; she reckoned, with all of that experience, that we all died two deaths--the first in flesh, and the second when the last being who remembered us forgot. In this way, Mother Kos was still alive--for Ophelia would nestle her love close, and beckon it forth, and let it into the deepest corners of her heart.