Chapter Text
And then, as if it had all been little more than a dream, Jarek was back in Sharlayan, back in his rented inn room.
Alone.
He hurt.
His friends had stayed with him as long as he could, none of them wanting to leave him so emotional and vulnerable. But, they had eventually had to leave, their own beds calling them. They had a long day ahead of them and a monumental task.
He bore them no ill will on their leaving. How could he?
He sat on the bed that felt a little too big, prosthetic lying on the table beside it, and looked up out of the window.
And, suddenly, the moon felt very, very far away.
It always had, he supposed. But tonight, he felt the distance like a physical ache in his chest.
The loneliness began to sink in. His heart buckled under the weight of its jaws, his lungs frayed at the edges.
He raised his hand to his linkpearl in his ear.
He knew it wouldn’t work.
And yet, when his private channel with Urianger was met with nothing but static crackling, he felt his heart break .
He did not sleep much that night.
Haunted by the static in his ears, a field of dry leaves of gold and orange under his paws. He thought of the days when he had Urianger had wrapped up warm, scarves around their necks and thick jumpers covering their torsos, and they had walked through the Gridanian woods in the Autumnal season. They had waded through crackling leaves, not able to take a step without a noise following it. He remembered how one particular leaf had caught his eye, a nugget of gold amidst a thousand others like it. There was a familiarity about it that had made his heart soar. ‘Your eyes, Ducky!’ he had shouted, holding it up to the Elezen. ‘It’s like the colour of your eyes!’ And Urianger had laughed and worn the leaf in his hair for the rest of the day.
Surrounded by a bed that felt simply too big . He thought of the days after a trio had become a couple. It had felt much the same. The bed had been made for three, yet there were only two left to occupy it. And yet, in a strange twist of fate, this time, the feeling came after the eternal bonding of two souls. He wondered how many happy couples could say that they had not spent their wedding night in the same bed.
He rose the next day with a weariness in his bones.
But he pushed forward, ever forward.
Thus must we struggle. Haunted by ghosts of those we have lost. Clinging to those we pray we can yet save .