Eight Intertwined

82 - Anguish

After the travelers left the church behind, they opted to do what they usually did when their main business in a town was finish: split up to spend time on their own. For Primrose, this meant going to a bridge near the center of Saintsbridge to admire the gentle flow of the river that pulsed through the town. She could smell the salty air of the ocean below, and a gentle breeze rustled through her hair all the while. After all the activity of the day, she needed a break, and this seemed like the perfect chance to get it. 

"Hey, Prim."

The dancer perked up at the sound of her name, and she turned to see Alfyn walking over to her. "Alfyn," she greeted casually, rising to her full height for a moment. "What are you doing here?"

"I was on my way out of town to try and get some herbs from the forest near here, but I saw you along the way and figured I'd say hello," Alfyn explained. He leaned over the railing next to her, and Primrose returned to her previous position of hunching over as well. For a long time, neither one of them spoke, but Alfyn broke the silence to face her. "How are you holdin' up?"

Primrose couldn't hold back her shock at his words, and she turned to look at him with a light frown on her face. "What do you mean?" she asked warily.

"I know that a lot has been happenin' today, and I wanted to make sure that you were okay with it," Alfyn told her. "It's just... I know that the topic of dead parents is a tough one for you, and I wanted to make sure that you were alright with it all."

Primrose hesitated for a moment before she nodded. "Yeah... I'm fine," she assured him. She knew that she was only feeling so alright about this because Ophilia was the primary one who had taken care of Derryl. If Primrose had been pushed to do that, she knew that she never would have felt as neutral as she did now. She knew just how brutal the idea of grief could be, and she had seen it a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, but the first time she had ever understood it, then it had been with her mother. 

"It's sad, isn't it?" Alfyn asked after a few more beats of silence. "Thinkin' that a kid so young lost everything without ever really having a chance to understand what it's like to grow up with a family."

Primrose nodded. "Children deserve to have their parents around... And I wish that Derryl didn't have to face the world alone now that his mother is gone," she murmured. In the back of her mind, she wished that her mother had been there to help her through the struggles of the world. She didn't have anything to hold her mother close either, and for a fleeting moment, Primrose wished that she had even something small to remember Dahlia Azelhart by. 

Alfyn stared down at the rushing water, and he sighed before shaking his head. "My mother passed away not long ago. I still think about her a lot. The last thing I did before leavin' Clearbrook was go to talk to her," he said. "I wish that she was still around to look after me, but..."

"She's not," Primrose finished for him, and Alfyn nodded. She wished that she had more to add, but she knew that it wasn't going to be that simple. No words could ever quite encompass the grief she had come to know all too well over her many years of life, and that included her thoughts on Dahlia. 

Alfyn nodded. "Yeah... Exactly," Alfyn murmured. He continued to wash the flow of the river below before turning to look at Primrose. "I'm sorry that your parents were taken from you so early... You deserved better than that."

Primrose reached for the dagger hanging at her hip, and she touched it gently before finding the courage to pull the blade free of its sheath. She stared at the steel for a long moment before sighing. "I'm going to make sure that the men behind my father's death pay," she whispered. "After all they did... I'm going to find the other two, and I'll make sure they see justice."