Addison Brandivere/Don't Walk Away
The word rang in Addison’s mind as if all else had been torn away and replaced by this one statement, it was all she could think, words caught in this horrible repetition in the emptiness. Resonant, as if it had been shouted in the vastness of a canyon, overwhelming her until she had to get away.
The poor barer of bad news is abandoned in the courtyard, a kind soul who offered support in the moments when grief had overcome her. When it had been too much. She doesn’t think about him though. She can’t think , not clearly at least, not right now.
“Tiege is dead.”
She tries the words on and doesn’t like the feel. The words are clumsy on her tongue. It’s all wrong, he isn’t supposed to be gone. He was supposed to be here, with her, making life as blissfully difficult as only he knew how.
Stumbling through the hall, she’s barely able to see beyond the tears that nearly blind her, the world little more than a blur of shapes and colors. It's only familiarity with the palace that guides her. Apologies are stammered at those she collides with along the way until she’s shut safely behind the door of her room. The stay there is a brief lived thing, only long enough to grab a bag, a few sundry items, to wipe away tears and collect herself, and then she’s gone again. Out of the suffocating castle, away from the city, the people, as far as she can get in as little time possible.
One moment she’s near the city walls, and the next, she’s being buffeted by the unrelenting coastal breeze.
It only takes a couple of minutes for the dizziness to pass.
It’s a small mercy.
"I don't want to go, Tiege.. I know I should, and I know you'll probably make me, but I don't want to. I'm afraid if I do, I'll wake up tomorrow and you'll be gone again, taken by someone. Every time I walk away, something happens.”
"I suppose that is an indication of something you should refrain from, as much as possible."
The memory is bittersweet.
Sentiments shared in a different time and place, but it had always remained the same. One left, the other found trouble, and they both came back with a story to tell. Only this time the equation produced a different result. An outcome that was always a distinct possibility and yet, had never seemed like it could really happen.
This time she had walked away, and he wasn’t coming back.
“I should have gone with them,” she whispers, words lost in the distant sound of waves battering against the cliff, the howl of the wind as it cuts through the trees. This regret, the lost chance to at least say goodbye, is one that stands out to her.
Minutes. Hours. She has no idea how much time is allowed to crawl by, the slow burning anguish of grief not allowing any rest and insisting upon the clarity of mind to think of nothing but the man that is lost. It’s with her eyes on the horizon that she watches the sunrise from the wrong side and curls up in the soft cush of the spring grass, using her small, lumpy knapsack as a pillow. She’s only able to sleep once the sun has climbed it’s way fully into the sky, and then only for a few fitful hours.
When she wakes, it’s the process of realization all over again.
