Ink and paper given!

It's certainly improved, but it's still very much an Eren original. Gawain pours over it, eyes flitting over the details and pointed "nails" tracing the lines, before he sits back with a hum and subdued look on his face.

...Yes, yes, the guardian. Hardly could recognize the beast now, he'd suppose, no more than the old girl would be able to recognize him. The Fae thought that she'd have fallen in battle before she let herself fall to ruin, but--

Well, he says wryly, Amser had a strong will in a lot of ways. It simply was her undoing this time. While normally this would be a story for another day, Amser is entwined with the old lands, with Fae history itself, so Gawain's hands are tied; he said he would tell Eren and he doesn't break his word.

The heartland was bright and golden and beautiful.

It flourished, feeding off the magic of the land and returning it in kind, and the Fae tended to their grounds and the inhabitants of it. In the same breath, the land allowed the Fair Folk to live and flourish as well – both courts, mind, not just one. Nature's a fair deal less judgmental in that way. Gawain waves his hand a bit, then continues.

The side he hailed from was what the people here might refer to as the Unseelie Court in their little stories passed down from yonder hence, folk not too fondly looked upon unlike their Seelie counters. Called wicked and manipulative, more likely to take your life than save it for a favor's cost, that sort of thing. Bunch of nonsense, obviously, Eren's dealt with Gawain for a minute enough to know that there's at least one Fae who doesn't quite match that description. In any case, the Unseelie favored the night, certainly, and quite liked it when the stars were at their brightest in the chilled months, but there's nothing wrong with that. Amser protected them, and that's proof enough that they belonged well where they did – even if those uppity Seelie thought otherwise, huff.

He can't say he knows a Seelie Fae, all of 'em to his knowledge landed more to the west of the forest nearer to a city that befitted their... lavishness, we'll call it, but he'll give a kind word so long as Eren promises not to repeat it to any he finds. That kind word being that in the end, no matter their courts or families or what have you, they were True Fae... and that simple fact means that they're still missed.

(He takes a sip of his tea, pausing with a sigh as if it was really so hard to get that out.)

Where was he. Amser, the guardian. Roamed around the heartland, well-loved and loved well, a creature they raised themselves for the purpose of protection from all those who'd do them harm. She had all sorts of bits to her, scaly bits and furry bits, maw claws teeth and tail, the wisdom of a dragon and none of the pride that put others off from them. Oh, and when Gawain says that she protected them from harm, he means in every sense–

The minute the infection got beneath the chitin of his kin, she turned on them too.

And then, in her own dealings with that Cwyld business, she began to have the same symptoms. "There wasn't any hope when that happened; it's then we knew that the heartland had truly been lost, and those of us who could escape managed somehow."

However few.

"Dear old Amser turned on us then, too, her mind warped past the point of recognition. She must've thought she was doing good, protecting those of us she could – well, in a way she was, protecting the ones who were the same as her – and casting away anyone else." Gawain hums, an oddly somber look on his face. "And there she's remained since, I suppose. She's quite the long-lived girl, isn't she. Yes, yes," he continues with some pity in his voice, "I'm sure she could do with a nice rest after all these centuries."