"Then I bid you farewell, Alistair," Kristen said. She tried to lift her eyes from their downcast angle to look at him one last time before parting but a sudden weight made the attempt half-hearted, and she did not.
"May you find your happiness."
And at last she could stay no more.
Kristen began to descend back down the hill on foot, alone, both the seclusion and the length of time it would take to return to the camp intentional. Night had spread across the sky now, and that last rim of westerly light was now gone. In this gloom she walked for a long time as one driven by a singular purpose, forsaking all else. She walked as though it were for the mere end of walking itself. She walked and walked and walked until at last her hands began to shake and there came a great hollow emptiness in her chest and a bellow of sorrow finally burst through. She wept openly, her breaths loud and stabbing and never enough, and tears flowed from her eyes and mucus from her nose and no thought was spared as to the wretchedness of her face. She stumbled at some point and fell to her knees and there for a time lacked the strength to raise herself up. There she cried with the hand Alistair had made clapped over her mouth.
But, in time, she did rise.
She rose and, shaking with a feebleness the terrible like of which she had seldom felt before, wiped at her face with many parts of her cloak. Her head rolled back on her shoulders and her hair hung down as she looked skyward. For a small time she stayed like this. Looking up. Seeing no stars in the black firmament of clouds.
Then she started on again.
And as she approached the camp, she had for the most part cleaned and composed herself. But she knew she would not be able to hide the redness from her eyes.
Alistair Krixus
