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The day was misty, fog trailing on the ground in the early morning. Dew clung to her ankles, a mild inconvenience that she was grateful for. Sage grinned, glancing around. The forest was thicker behind the reservation as it went deeper into the woods, the greenery vibrant from the showers the night prior.
She was alone, but that was okay. Clouds were thick overhead, and it was a bit dark, but Sage managed. She pressed herself over logs, tucked away from snakes, and was consciously aware of how human she was right now, her back slick with sweat, her hands shaking with exertion from the trek.
There was a part of her that knew she shouldn't be out there, but she needed to see what she had been looking for--what Sam had said he had done.
Her smile wavered, unsure. At her waist, her hand twitched, almost searching for his. Sage cursed herself, and continued walking, frowning. If she pushed herself a little harder until her lungs were aching and her breath short, that was only to serve as a reminder of what she gained in Aro's loss.
When she got to the clearing where she had died and come back to life, where everything started for her all those years ago. Sage glanced around. It was green, but slowly dying as the throes of autumn grabbed a hold of it. Yellow spread through the green, crunchy underneath Sage's boots as she slowly walked towards the obsidian gravestone tucked in the treeline.
As she passed, she stepped over some living blossoms, white as the moon and as silky as a feather. Asphodels. Sage grinned, her hands grazing the soft blossoms. Her eyes roamed over the field until she saw in front of her, about seventy feet away. It was shadowed in the treeline, but she could make out the fresh dirt where the grave had been dug, little flakes of grass growing out from it.
Her legs dared to buckle underneath her, but Sage remained upright as she walked towards it. It was obsidian black, she noticed, caked with moisture in the morning air. Sage pulled her jacket closer to her, frowning at the way her heart hammered in her chest at the thought of seeing it. Of it finally, after three weeks of being back, being real.
But it was real. The tombstone sat there eerily almost, the fog coming off it and towards Sage in such a way that it reminded her of Alec's gift. The obsidian was dark enough that the name 'ARO VOLTURI' shone through the darkness like a beacon.
Sage's lips twitched as she stopped in front of it; Sam did say he kept it simple. She figured that he would only write Aro's given name--if that. His last name being on there was both a blessing and a curse. A reminder of who he was and what he stood for.
She grazed the damp, cool stone with her fingers. The condensation collected on her fingers, dripped off onto the forest's floor. She fell to her knees a moment later, her breath stolen from her lungs. Underneath her, the dirt was damp on her jeans, malleable almost in the morning dew. It made her uneasy, to know that the once strong Aro was now reduced to nothing underneath where she sat.
