He stood by the hearth that night, stowed away in the corner of the tavern like a conversation piece too risky to leave out in the open for fear of what might be said about it. He stares down into the flames, watching the heat and light until it fizzles out to nothing more than ashen embers. The hearth slowly grows cold and empty. He wonders if he had also gone the same way.
Sometimes he feels a hand on his shoulder and a voice speaking to him; sometimes he can’t tell who it is. When he can see a dimly lit sun through the darkness hazing his vision, he knows it is Mallossel. The paragon of virtue, the sacrificial lamb with the same dead eyes as his, hollowed out on the inside like a stone tomb, weeds pushing through the cracks, and carved with a beautiful epigraph.
Cardanith, with the stars on his brow, an exemplar of strength and courage, offers words of wisdom as if he himself is not also drowning once again beneath the passage of time.
Ithilwë, with his eyes full of pity, of guilt, the only one who's voice could fully drag him out of his own mind, whose words are lined with honey sickly sweet, whose intentions are pure, but who's not ready to embrace the fact that they will never be the same again.
The others, their eyes dart over him like he is a shadow they do not want to acknowledge. A ghost in the corner that is best left alone to his madness and his rambles, a relic of tragedy that is best put aside so the rest can heal from the loss of another. Was it his fault? Was the blood of death on his hands? Was their grief his to bear also?
The hearth stays quiet and cold, ashes dancing along the wooden floor beneath his feet. The silence was an answer, he decides. That it was not his fault nor his grief, but it was still his to bear all the same. None but Ithilwë ventured for his sake. The others all went on behalf of another.
So be it. He was an appeasement; a retrieval, an item brought back to pacify Ithilwë because they could not live with his grief. So be it.
The world is dark now that the fire has died. He is cold now that the warmth has faded.
