The Grieving Process

Blaze stood out in the glade in the fading late afternoon light. She could see Marcus in the distance by the lupinar stones, his figure faintly silhouetted as he crouched beside Graea, both of them before the Luna stone memorial.

It wasn't particularly cold yet a faint whispering breeze rippled past, lifting her hair from her shoulders to flutter for a moment, her arms drawing about herself. She closed her eyes as lifted face to the sky, features bathed in the new glow of emerging sliver of crescent moon overhead. It should have been an empowering moment, even if subtle and gods knew she needed it. But instead was a slow creeping sensation of being overwhelmed.

Pained breath drew in over her lips, long and mournful shudder expelled with a sigh as lashes slowly parted revealing burdened and tired blue sheened gaze. She watched the sun fading as dipped beneath the horizon then with last look toward the occupied gravestone she turned sadly and wandered away from the glade, deeper into the forest and finding a secluded grove of trees she sunk down to curl within the grass.

She took another deep breath, trying to focus upon the ball of tension in her chest, sooth it away, breath it into calm. But it lingered and tightened like a snake slithering its body over itself within her, coiling tighter, constricting about her heart.

Head lay to the side, gazing without any real focus across the terrain, watching the shadows slowly creep across the ground; small flecks of golden light began to rise up and dance within them. Softly she smiled, remembering fond times and special places; allowing herself to be consumed by such there was a craved sense of comfort but never enough.

Slowly she outstretched her arm toward the lights as if feeling for something just out of reach, her blue eyes hooded and betraying of exhaustion and a quiet grief of her own. Softly her pulse resounded in her head, lulling and stealing away her sense of alertness and of perception. A heart that beat in solitary searching of its missing mirror strum.

"I miss you" she murmured into the relative murky quiet. "I miss you more than I ever thought bearable" whispered to herself feeling her eyes prickle with tears, gathering warm and wet before splashing down her cheeks, falling freely with no effort to wipe them free.

Upon her finger her ring glistened, the moonlight filtered from above caught at the elegant elven twist of metal and sparkling stones, like a fallen star lain within her hand, winking of special secrets. Gently she moved her fingers, dancing them up and down in slow surrender to soft melody she began to sing under her breath. It held no words to discern just a lilting haunting nature of running notes and vibrating resonance of emotional, eventually fading whisper.

Her head turned, hair spun out like shiny raven wings about her face as eyes turned back up toward the sky, the cluster of surrounding trees seeming to lean outwards all about her to provide an un-obscured window overhead. And there the first pinpricks of distant stars began to appear as sun made its final descent in way for the rolling purple haze of dusk.

"Where are you?" she wondered aloud though her voice barely a whisper. "Are you out there, somewhere...do you watch me? Hear me? Feel me?" sliding her arms about herself, embracing the nothingness before her with so much desire to feel familiar elven flesh. She could happily die in his arms right now if he would only filter down from the sky and scoop her into eternal embrace.

"Why did you leave me?" she asked desperately, cracking edge to her voice as shoulders shuddered with first consuming sob. "Without you I am but half here" cried softly into the audience of stars in far off galaxies.

"I've tried to be strong...still trying. But it's hard Brego...it's so hard. Everyone needs me...but I need you...I just need you!" her breath poured out of her into a whining whimper. For a long moment after she was quiet, eyes gazing but speaking nothing, barely breathing though her chest rose and fell in slow rhythm.

Overhead the clouds drifted in, the curved waning moon hidden from view behind swirl of backlit lavender mist. She watched it in somewhat surreal wonder, breath, a new soft sweeping breeze rustling past her, tearstains upon her cheeks drying as if kissed with warm loving breath.

"Alastair..." she murmured, her heart flooded with sudden intense aching yet her eyes widened in surprise as the clouds seemed to swirl and morph, filtering into shape of a small wolf, spirit in form and with its head turned toward the waning moon as if in admiration.

Caught in the moment and feeling a strange sense of comfort she reached out with careful fingers, tracing the shape in the space between, almost tenderly. "I love you" she whispered "Wherever you are...and I'll wait for you...wait for you to come take me in your arms and if you cannot...one day...our day...I will run to you and never look back"