What an excellent ending!  Well done.

Can't wait till the next segment. 

It was fun to write 

This is the journal of a Lost Syl's change into the same sprite that they thought they killed. 

There were secondary messages in a few of the pages hinting more strongly that the original sprite wasn't completely gone, found in the first letter of each line break

Page 10 - Thank you, Windbell

Windbell's sole request of Mirithiel was to be brought back to her home, and this is about when they did arrive there

Page 15 - You are safe

The remnant of the original sprite trying to reassure Mirithiel that she wasn't in any danger. At least from the sprite's perspective. 

Page 22 - We are one

The point where there was no longer a distinction between Mirithiel and the original sprite - as Mirithiel became more saturated with fae magic, she became a sprite herself, and her now compatible energy blended with the residual energy of the original sprite that she had been carrying with her. 

Additional behind the scenes details are as follows.

With the strong connection made between mirror sprite and mirrored Sylvari, when the sprite was dying, it made a wild gamble and dove into the one reflection that remained immediately available to it. The reflection in Mirithiel's eyes.

Too weak to do much more than imbue Mirithiel with her essence, the sprite still decided that was certainly better than dying. At that moment, Starflower felt Windbell's complete disconnection from her dream, and began calling the mirror sprite with the name it had last assumed. To call them home.

And that is also why they were calling Mirithiel by the name Windbell - not specifically to force a change, though they were certainly happy with that outcome.

In this particular case, the fae motivations are not so inscrutable  

You've had me musing a lot on the fae of late.

Way better than the HC stuff that also takes up my brainspace.

I love your brain!!!

Thanks for the behind the scenes! I'm looking forward to my re-read with that all in mind

So far, I have one word in fae - A'nia

From this, I can break it down into particles and roots

nia - dreamer
niorna - dreams (derive from modification of 'nia')
rna - craft/creation/art (derive from the other half of niorna)
rnia - artist/maker of things

a' - particle - related to or belonging to A'nia, similar to the use of 'royal' as an adjective

A'nia - queen/mother/dreamer
A'niorna - the world of dreams; the Wyld; the fae realm
A'rna - the lesser fae of all kinds
A'rnia - the greater fae dreamed by the A'nia, those with significant power

If I add another particle as relating to the "undreaming world" as the fae would call it (Audalis)...

o' - particle - related to or belonging to O'rnia/Audalis

O'rnia - creator/deity/shaper of the undreaming world
O'nia - an oxymoron to the fae - from the fae perspective, the deities of Audalis don't dream given that they've let what once was their shared dream/world become so different. Used as a word for 'impossible' or 'inconceivable', ie in similar cadence to 'when pigs fly' - "Like an o'nia? Hah, as if"
O'niorna - archaic word in fae used to reference Audalis - specifically 'the old world'
O'rna - Audalis of the present time - "the undreaming world"

This is all pending further thoughts and considerations but, first steps in trying to make a fantasy language, maybe?

I LOVE it.  I love world building, I love languages! 

...and I'm a Reralaholic! 

Great  stuff, Butterfly! That's pretty much the exact same way I started with Kazari! Love seeing the thought process in action!

The word A'nia loosely comes from Titania if you tilt your head to the side a bit and instead see 'The A'nia'

Yes, I wanted that reference in here somewhere

I. Cannot wait. To run around in this world.

I'm with these guys, I love love love looooove world building and language, so watching this process is an absolute pleasure and I am so impressed every time I come here.

A cross reference of the two sets of words shows some strange differences. A'rna are the lesser fey, where O'rna is the material plane of Audalis. How did this happen?

In my mind, I considered it like this:

Originally, you had the A'nia and the O'nia of the shared dream, the fae deities and the outsider deities, in a manner of speaking
The individual denizens of each referred to as A'rna and O'rna, the people of the fae and the people of the outsiders
Then the denizens of power that could create and destroy on a smaller scale, the A'rnia and the O'rnia. Greater fey and high grade spellcasters.
At this time, niorna as a word didn't really exist. There was another word at the time for dream
Then you have the exodus of the fae, where the A'nia withdrew from the material world, building together their world of dreams, the A'niorna, where niorna was a blend of denizen and creation, a place for denizens, later adapted to simply 'dream'
At this time, the A'nia held the O'nia in contempt for letting their shared dream falter as a result of the denizens they influenced; the word o'nia became something to laugh at, and the entities that were the O'nia were grouped together with the O'rnia
If the A'nia made A'niorna, then that only meant that the domain they had left would be the O'niorna
But over time, the fae came to associate O'niorna with what they had left behind, the old world, the world some would like to see once again
O'rna, now in disuse because there were none in A'niorna, came to reference not only those denizens, but the world from which they hailed, the material plane of Audalis of the present.

I don't know how well this will mesh with the history and language evolution in general, but this is what went through my mind as I formed the words and assigned meanings to them

Winter arrived early this year. Crops froze with the frost, and the lake had completely frozen over. There was no snow, but it was surely a matter of time with the bitter chill in the air. Without the bounty of the harvest, the village seemed as though it would falter. Perhaps even starve. A few townsfolk left to see what goodwill they may have been able to receive of neighbouring villages.

Yet as they left the area, they found not only were their neighbours unaffected, but the cold itself faded the further they went.

Many families left, coming to believe that the area had become forsaken by Kith-Jora, or perhaps wrest from the proper flow of the seasons by Khamaruz for unknowable reasons. Other villages did provide aid to the people that stayed, and tales of the winter locked village spread to the city, especially with the appearance of snow without any clouds to carry it.

Such tales caught the attention of the Eyes of Creation, and a few of their number gathered to visit the afflicted settlement.

It took them little effort to learn that what afflicted the town was caused neither by Kith-Jora nor Khamaruz - it was something else entirely. Something old, from a time long forgotten. Something that had taken up residence in the nearby lake, now shrouded by a shimmering mist at all hours.

Seeking to understand, to see what they would, the Eyes journeyed to the edge of the lake. There, the mists parted at their approach, revealing the frozen lake, but nothing visible upon it. They looked and looked, but though they knew they were where they needed to see, they were not seeing anything.

Then, one of them stumbled upon the icy surface, and cried out, pointing down into the lake.

On the other side of the reflection stood an icy castle, large enough to blot out the sky from the lake's surface...

For an individual fae, their name holds particular meaning to them. In a realm of chaos and dreams, names provide stability to form and mind. The A'nia, in particular, hold very literal names. Songstorm looks like a storm elemental with music surrounding her; Starflower looks like she is made of starlight.

Mirror Sprites are sprites that assume the name of a mortal, and use that to steal and embody their reflection.

If, on a mortal's name day, they give up their name and accept one offered by an A'nia, they become irrevocably connected to that fae. What happens to them then is up to the A'nia who named them. Some might not do anything, simply taking idle watch over the mortal's antics in their and other domains. Others might reimagine the mortal, turning them into a fae themselves to join in the revelry of the other a'rna in their domain.

For a mortal to survive a'niorna unchanged, they must not lose their sense of self...

So, in a way, the A'nia have the potential to be the Audalis equivalent of the Borg?

Remind me to never, ever, ever, piss off the fae.

There are some similarities with the Borg Queen in further thought. 

And not just because one of A'nia's translations is queen  

Thankfully, assimilation is not an obsession of the A'nia in general