Book 2 Season's Change Spring's Revenge

Part 36 Moonflowers & Light

Time moved slowly for him when he was angry. It always had. Avriel covered his aching heart with anger and hatred. Stitching the torn and rough edges together again with thread tarnished by a grief-driven need for vengeance and pure hatred. He found reverie or rather it found him as the moonlight shone down around him and comforted him in its smooth and warm embrace. How he needed the rest. He hoped to sense Katana there. He didn't. It hurt him every time, but he refused to not reach for her. He walked the road moving as fast as he could to catch up to the caravan before it got to the third city. The last one that he knew it would stop at. From there it would be a guess of north or south and if he guessed wrong the results would not be good. He had to catch it. As he sat by the fire and prepared food for his animal companions and himself his lip curled in anger. "Fet. I want him, want him dead. He took her from us. He took our Katana." His teeth were clenched as he spoke. Logic had escaped him. They never would have met Katana; he would likely not even be alive. Chancers were, he never would have been directed south from his home. He could not know just how connected to her his fate was. But he felt her loss more keenly than he did anything he had ever felt.

He simply could not see just how tied everything was. He was blinded by grief. His pain made him angry at life. His guilt at surviving ate away at his soul. His situation made him desperate. He stared into the fire as he sat and his mind churned. He had to catch that caravan and traveling the road the same way as they were would not help him. He stood abruptly and kicked dirt into the fire. The sudden movement startled his companions. They hissed and growled. "Fuck!" He waved at the darkness around them. "Why do I have to be human and limited by these stupid eyes? We need to make up for the lost time. We can't do that traveling when they travel and moving only as fast as they move. We need to move faster and travel longer. They are three days ahead of us. Do you think we should have searched for her longer?" He straightened his shoulders and put his hands on the hilts of her blades. He drew them and moved away from the animals into the darkness.

His movements were still graceful and smooth, practiced. He stepped over the fallen branch that would have tripped anyone else that was night blind. "We need to keep going, running. We can't run on the road. People are stupid and they won't understand why we are running. But I cannot navigate at night because I cannot see. It is not like fighting. I can do that without my eyes. I don't need them to guide my feet in a fight or my blades, but at night I am useless without light. Curse my human eyes for they are flawed! We are approaching moondark. We'll be stuck in place once the sun goes down. He sheathed the weapons and plopped back to the ground. "We're never going to catch them. Not at this rate. How fast and how long can you run, Fet? Can you keep up with a horse? We need a good horse; one that would carry us both if need be. I won't leave you behind. I can't lose you too." He reached for the fet and it walked around the fire to crawl into his lap. The ferret walked off the fet's back where he had taken refuge and made his way to play in Avriel's hair. He took the small ferret in his hands and touched noses with him. "Othello." He smiled at the ferret and the peacefulness that his companions instilled in him as he set the ferret against his chest so he had a free hand to run over the fet's back. "Fet. This suits you. It is the first thing she called you." A tear escaped his eye and the fet whimpered. "I know. I know." We should rest.

As he closed his eyes and sought reverie, he did the one thing he had yet to do. He thanked the Goddess for the time she had given him with Katana, for the friends he had found and the love he was given. He knew he would never love another as completely as he did Katana nor would he ever be loved so honestly and completely as she loved him. He knew there was more to love than what he knew of it; a whole other element to it that had gone unexplored because of honor and duty. But he knew despite that missing element or perhaps because of it the love they each held for the other was rare and true; honest and pure; blessed. He thanked the Goddess for the lessons and the strength and for guiding them together. He knew it was her hand. For the first time since Katana was taken from him, he was grateful to have had her with him while he did. His heart was broken, shattered into a million tiny fractals and he had no way to heal it except through anger and hate. But gratitude for what once was, was his first true step toward honest healing and his own destiny. Rest came much easier with his companions tangled about him Katana's cloak wrapped around them.