She set out due north, making her way through the narrow streets, past the village outskirts where lone houses lay scattered like forgotten toys, until at last she reached open country. The sky was darkening by the minute, and she knew she needed to make haste. It had been many years since she had journeyed this way, but her feet knew the route as though they had walked it but yesterday. She felt the old spring coming back into her step, a lithe energy she had last felt as a young girl, climbing rocks with her brother.
Her brother.
She still blamed him, even after all these many years. Blame had grown, become hardened with time, until it was the only thing between them. Yesterday the thought of him would have brought nothing but a bitter dry taste to her mouth. And yet here she was, traveling north, along the very road she had forbidden herself, even in her thoughts.
The entire sky was now a dark and ominous purple, all traces of sunlight gone. She glanced up with apprehension. In this eerie light the stars seemed somehow menacing. It was not enough that they had devoured the sun. The meal had merely awakened in them a fiercer appetite, perhaps a taste for any mortal souls foolish enough to fall within their hungry gaze. She hurried onward.
The landscape seemed transformed. Dark purple shadows licked and danced around once familiar terrain, like drunken creatures risen up from hell. “He will not want to see me, even now,” she thought bitterly. “I am a fool – a fool on a fool’s errand.” Perhaps the end of the world was not reason enough to breach the wall that had come between them. Perhaps some walls are higher than such trifles as the fate of planets.
She realized she would not come even close to her destination in the short time that was left – she was still just halfway there, and the wind had already started to blow, the dark wind that the poets had foretold. She pulled her cloak more tightly around her.
Suddenly she felt lost. In that moment she realized it was no use – even had he wanted to see her, there was simply no time. Wearily she sat down upon a rock by the side of the road, to wait for the end. For the first time in many a year she could feel a tear trickle down her face. “At least I have this,” she thought with a bitter satisfaction, “I had lost my tears, and now one has come after all this time, to keep me company in my foolishness.”
Lost in her thoughts, she did not even realize she was not alone, until she felt a hand brush against her cheek, wiping away the tear. It was a familiar gesture. How many times had he wiped away her foolish tears, all those years ago?
“You came,” she said.
“So did you,” he replied, and then he smiled. She felt the years of bitterness fall away, as if a dream. Looking at his face, she saw he was different than she remembered, more careworn, and yet the same, just exactly the same. The light in his eyes was as it had always been.
“Farewell,” she said softly.
He laughed. “You were always so serious. What could possibly be so serious?”
She stared at him, appalled. For a moment she felt a stirring of the old anger. He had not changed at all. She opened her mouth to speak, a bitter retort already on her lips. But instead she found herself starting to laugh. “Yes, you’re right,” she said with a giggle. “I am too serious. Much, much too serious. I’ll change from now on, I promise.”
Suddenly they were both giggling together, like children, far too lost in laughter and sheer delight to pay any heed when the dark wind, cold and furious, rose up at last to usher in the endless night and sweep the world away.
HA!