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The setting sun shone through the canopies with its brilliant crimson rays, making each leaf a vivacious virescent; the ebullient spring was glorious and energetic, chirping birds and coloured blossoms dashing among the emerald colours of the forest. His wintery icy eyes fought the urge to yield and surrender to a waterfall as he cursed and hated the liveliness of that afternoon. The nature around him conspired to go on vigorously despite Tamlen, a sarcastic reminder that life would go on without him. It was outrageous. Invalid. Painful. Wrong. The sky should have cried as well, in stormy hues of somber grey; the air should be foggy and heavy as his heart was; all should be cold and silent, as Tamlen was now. Frey had been mutilated from his love, how could he perceive life around him and not feel offended of its insensitiveness? His feet slowly dragged him away from the fire, a body so empty he felt almost insubstantial, made of shadows of what he once was when they were. Dozens of red puffy eyes followed him, their gaze unable to beckon him near. Tamlen was now a memory, a funeral without a body; Frey was just a body that hadn't received a funeral.
Struggling to hold his shoulders up despite the weight of the grief, he hushed his cry curbing the tears that threatened to flow. His eyes fell slowly towards the ground, refusing to seek the red light of the sunset. Silently and slowly he paced towards the clearing, aching and bruised inside. He remembered hearing Marethari saying she felt numb by the pain, and he envied her; in his chest there was so much anger and disquiet; the restlessness of refusing to acknowledge the finality of Tamlen's death squirmed inside him. How could he accept that he would never look at his smile again? That not once another time he would lose himself in his embrace, that days and nights would go by and he would not ever again be surrounded by Tamlen's love.
His hands cradled his head as he tried to hold inside the raging feelings. Finally, he broke, his body unable to carry the weight of his pain, his knees touching the ground, his scorching red hair sticking to his face as he cried. Not a desolated sobbing, but an almost silent flow of tears, dignified and stoic, that evaded him carrying all hope from inside of him away. His eyes finally lifted towards the sky, his locks of vibrant ruby burning with the setting sun like burning lava, alive and angry. In despair his hand reached for the cold metal of his blade, as the other held in a handful of his luscious vermilion strands. Shaking, he stood, his hands still gripping tightly around the thick bunch of hair and in a swift and aggressive movement the edge of the sword dropping its cutting kiss on his scalp. A fine trail of blood sprung where his sanguine locks once were. Red persisted. Like life. Like Time. Like Memory. He repeated himself, angry and determined, exposing more and more of his skin. For nearly the better part of two decades he had grown his bloody veil, that hair had been covering his head his whole life, it was an intrinsic part of him, simply a part of who he was, how he would recognize his own reflection. As the ruby strands coloured the floor like a spreading ivy, his movements gained momentum, his blade assaulting his scalp bellicosely, movements as heavy as his heart, making the red ivy forest at his feet denser and denser. Finally, as there was nothing else to be grabbed and cleaved, his blade fell to the ground, heavy like a badge of silver triumph over the red jungle of hair.
His eyes met dusking skies, nature yielded its red into a cold and mourning indigo. Frey gulped in an enormous breath, swallowing his grief to the depths of himself. His hands acknowledged the nakedness of his head, doused blood, sanguine reminder of who he used to be. There were waves of anger still crushing inside of him, threatening to take over him entirely with every breath, but he persevered, sovereign of his own self, his gaze upwards as the first stars of the night came to witness his transformation. Frey refused to live as someone at the mercy of his own ferocity, he had always been a mind over his own matter. He knew Tamlen’s absence would always nibble at his inside, carving an ever growing emptiness, should he not take control over his feelings. And so he did. His feet carried him away from his cardinal spot, and marched his way back to the clan and Duncan. He did not waste another gaze back, his sword has conquered him free to a new beginning, to a new him. Once grief had ran its course for good, like a turned page, it would become only history. Spring would go on. And life. And him.