I believe the end of an era has come: they tell me that Joshua is dead. Not that it has not happened in an earlier time; before he was Joshua Anderson, while he was still GhostWulf, he had also been killed, and in those days, death was a rare thing.

Ah, but in those days, soon after the first Turning of this place we know, while death was mostly a stranger to the halls of the Stronghold, the world was a different place. Where one person might errantly take a life, I bear witness that the collective will and sufficient sacrifice could pave the way for certain wrongs to be righted.

The world has changed, growing colder and darker. I am not certain what we have become in adapting to this shifting climate. I am not certain that in this time and place we might safely undertake the undoing of what has come to pass. And my selfish personal druthers aside, I cannot say whether the spirit of Joshua Anderson would desire to leave whatever reward he has found to return to this time and place, even assuming such a return would fall within the realm of possibility.

How many times must he die? How many times will I require him and others to endure the goodbyes, put his affairs in order, make his peace in the world? And for that reason, no matter how much I might desire otherwise, what is, is... and out of love and respect, I do not believe it necessary or right to make things otherwise.

Some would say that his spirit has moved on to a better place. That the spirit has left the shell from which Joshua moved, laughed, and loved becomes manifest in the still and cooling clay he left behind. In truth, I suspect he has moved on to the next place he needs to be, and by virtue of his being there, that place has become a better place.

And what of those of us left in this place, where he walks no more? For some, because we knew him, the world was perhaps made a better place. For those who did not know him, but who know us who knew him, his memory and example implore us to continue to make the world around us a better place for all.