6 – 5

Edith took to planning my departure with such enthusiasm that I, for a shameful half-hour, thought her eager to be rid of me. In that doubled-handful of minutes that the closeness we shared, woven in gossamer threads, had been supplanted by well-hidden dislike and resentment. The dreaming hours we shared, the joint salvation of her hometown, and the advice she'd given to this confused, smitten fool all proved themselves irrelevant. I know not where it came from, nor why it was so hard to uproot, but its grip on mind was strong. It lasted until the end of dinner, when we gathered around the waning embers of the cookfire to bask in its warmth and gentle glow.

We'd settled in to the slow, dozing regard that can only be found in watching a fire die out. She took a stool and sat to my left, Clarke on a seat to her right. From the corner of my eye I had spotted her lifting a fist to her mouth and clearing her throat. “Of course,” she said, and those two words were so thickly given, that my shameful thought was plucked, root and stem, and cast away. “Ye'll stops by fer a visit on yer ways to the Port.” She meant it not as an invitation but as a command, fiercely given.

Her eyes gleam wetly in the ember-light she won't look away from. In the hollow of the uprooted thought, there settles a realization. One that hurts as much as it fails to surprise: she's not coming with me. A trembling breath mists in the autumn night's cold air. Mine, or Edith's? A piece of firewood cracks, collapses, and in shifting the pile sends a cloud of ashy sparks curling up into the air. It's soon blown away on the lake-born breeze. She was never going to leave Valdenwood. I knew that, and have since our first night together, and yet had found myself hoping until now. I too have to clear my throat to speak. “I will,” I promise.

Edith nods. “Good.” She sniffs. “Good. Be sures to–” The wind shifts, just for a moment, enough to blow smoke into her eyes. Why else would she close them and press the heels of her palms to them? I wait, and wonder: will it be more advice, planning, or instruction? Or will she say something else, more true to how I should think she feels? She says, “Be sures that ye do.” Then, after a moment, adds, “I'll miss ye.”

The fire is too low, too banked for any smoke. The sting in my eyes, mirrored by the thron in my heart, can only come from those small, honest words. I look at my friend, whom I hold dear. She looks down at her lap, at the twist-and-tangle of her calloused hands. Her short, pale hair hangs loose, wisps catching in the breeze. I reach out, touching her shoulder to draw her eyes up to me. In them I see sadness, resignation, and guilt. “I–” There's a knot in my throat that I must swallow to move. “I'll miss you.”

“So will I,” Clarke says, quietly from her side. Edith covers my hand with hers and holds it tightly. With her free hand she swipes beneath her glittering eyes and forces a laugh.

“Oh, looks at me,” she laments, “All sorrowfuls and such, and ye've not even left yet!” I match the fragile curve of her mouth with one of my own. If her good humor is as much a pretense as it seems, I'll not add to her pain by refusing to follow along with it. I should tease her, give back what was given me over my watch for eels.

It's only that, when I mean to try, no words come. My mouth opens and closes without a sound. Whatever light jibes I had for her are stopped from ever forming by the ache that is growing with every beat of my heart. It isn't loss, nor is it sorrow, but some strange mix that becomes its own breed of hurt. I have no other way to express it than how I already have, moments ago: I'll miss her.

Less than a fortnight on my walking road, and already I've left so many behind. For a time I was able to forget the empty places around me, where my family once was. So much happened, and so quickly, that the pain of leaving them behind simply slipped away. Only now, upon realizing that I'll soon have another achingly empty space around me, does it return.

Is this what it means to be of the Lost? Is this feeling what it means to be from nowhere, and call it home? Will my life amount to a long and winding road, with nothing to accompany me to its end but places in my life, in my heart, where people I love used to be?

I could forsake it. It wouldn't be hard. All I would have to do, is stay.

So why can't I? Why can't I think of a lifetime in a town like Valdenwood without feeling panicked and entrapped? Why do I still wish stand at the foothills of the Icewalls and crane back my head to see their clouded peaks? Why do I still want to lose myself in the streets of city-kingdoms, see their historic centuries with my own eyes? Why do I long for the desert's heat, for its rubied sands to spill between my fingers, knowing what it will cost?

Why did Clarke, when she said, 'so will I', look at Edith, and not at me?

That can't mean what I think it does. It can't. I already struggle under the weight of what I feel, each one piled atop another in a swaying tower. To add anything more, even something as lovely as hope, will surely cause it to topple. If that were to happen, I would fall with it. It can't mean what I think it does. I can't let it.

- - -

The piece of god's ice, wrapped in silver wire, lays dormant-dark at the hollow of Clarke's throat. What gleam that plays across its faceted surface comes from the warm glow of the ember-light. If there is any magic in my inability to look away from her, it comes from elsewhere. It seems she finds my stare embarrassing. A band of pink, made darker by the dim light, crosses her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose. “What?” she asks. It comes out as a whisper. I can't answer her. My eyes are wide, my lips parted. “What is it?” she asks again.

I shake my head, close my mouth, and look away. My gaze passes over Edith on its way to watch the last embers of the cookfire die. Her steel-gray eyes are narrow, suspicion glittering in her keen-edged look. It's her who has the courage, or the distance, to speak aloud what I dare not. To make possible what I can't let myself hope. She starts slow, saying, “Clarke, is there somethings ye want to say? Something ye mights be lookings for the right time to?”

I watch the fire, feeling Clarke's gaze pull away from me. “Hm?” She answers, as if to play at not hearing. It's a pretense not played into. Edith says nothing. A moment's breeze gives a flare of life to the ember-light, brightening its glow for that brief time. For a silence of aching length, there's nothing spoken. Then, haltingly, Clarke's voice breaks it. She says, “I was always going to – I had always intended, even before Zira said anything, to go myself, but...” There she stops. What is it, I wonder, that's left unsaid?

Edith hums, then asks, “Why didn' ye say anythings before nows?” There is sorrow in her words. Some sour mix of bitterness and resignation, too.

Clarke makes a helpless sound. “Because there wasn't – because I didn't...” she sighs. “I don't know.”

Ever since the fire, and the dreams that followed, there is honesty between the three of us. At first, it was because we couldn't hide from each other. By now, it is because we won't. That why Edith, instead of anything else, says, “So...ye'll boths be leaving me, then.”

“No!” Clarke's denial is fierce and immediate. It's been so long since I blinked that closing my eyes causes them to sting. Nothing to do at all with the crumbling tower in my heart. “Well, yes, but – but not both of us, and not forever! We'll be back by week's end!”

“So, what?” Edith challenges, voice thickening with tears, yet to be spilled. “We gets to do this all overs again in a week? Sure! We'll make an evenings of it.” A trembling breath mists in the autumn night's cold air. Hers, mine, or Clarke's? I wish I could say something, anything, to make this stop before it worsens.

Before I can think, Clarke makes a frustrated sound. She demands, voice rising, “Well, what are we supposed to do?!”

“Stay!” Edith cries. The tower falls. I grind my teeth together, battling the hot wash of tears. Too late, now. “Here, with me and gran! It's not the times to be taking risks, not for any of us!”

“Someone has to tell the knights!” Clarke insists.

“No, they fucking well don't!” Edith shouts back. She's on her feet now. Her steel-gray eyes are bright, tears unshed by force of will. “It's not yer damned responsibility, I've said its twice nows! Why don' ye listens to me?!”

Clarke's answer comes subdued, hushed by Edith's shouted and plaintive words. “We did,” she says, “I do. It's just that–”

Edith interrupts her, suddenly as cold as stone. “Ye thinks I'm wrong.” She sniffs and says, “Well...fine, then. That's – fine.”

Then she leaves. She turns her back on us and walks away. The autumn night's cold presses in around us as the last of the embers die, their light giving way to darkness. I hear Clarke breathe shakily nearby; once and again, before she starts to cry.

I don't. Not this time. A muscle flexes in my jaw from how much I don't. I stand and go to her, to take her in my arms and press my nose to the crown of her head. “I don't understand,” she confesses, holding tightly to my arms, face turned into my belly.

I have to swallow before I can answer. I say, “I think...I might.” She waits while I find the words. “I think she's afraid. I think she's jealous, and – and worried. I think she wants to come with us, and that she's sad she can't.”

“But she can!” Clarke protests, lifting her face up to look at me. Trails of tears glimmer in the silver-soft light of the stars overhead. “She doesn't have to stay!”

“This is her home,” I say, quietly. I push my fingers through her ink-dark spill of hair. “Of course she does.”