What she was, is no more there.
What she's now, is new again.

-Tales from the Underground Lake, Chapter 6, verse 27-28

en-no's arrival

When the sudden attack was over, en-no came down from the Forgotten Kingdom.
Her eyes gazed upon the wide fallow lands and the dense ivory air.
en-no's heart was one with the villagers, but they were nowhere to be found.
One night, she decided to investigate the vast southern woodland, at the center of which there was as a bottomless abyss of pain and shadows.
In that blackness, she felt the wind blowing on her face, the stones crumbling at her feet, and the rain rising from the far plain below. 
She fell. She slept. And at dawn she awoke renewed.
Hesitant, en-no stood up and wandered around the dark cave with a gentle breeze as her sole companion.
Luckily, after a few strides, she managed to find a way out by moving a smooth, but unstable rock.
Outside, looking back at her, there was a tall pale figure.
Higher than the mountains, prouder than the Lake, the figure asked en-no what her name meant.
And thus she understood: there was no answer to that question, because she was the only true answer to that question.
en-no was not there to follow the trails of the lost ones. The villagers were only lost in thought, just like herself.
But now en-no knew: she had been there with them the whole time.
And no one was lost anymore.