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She looked almost serene sitting there; idyllic and decadent. Completely heedless of the agony that’d since followed her abrupt slumber.
There she sat, kindly arranged in a chair at the base of the Haligtree, tranquil in a repose Finlay could not hope to understand. For the unparseable unconsciousness her lady had fallen unto during the attrition of Caelid; a blooming cataclysm in its inception, had persisted throughout every countless day and night she had spent carrying her home, and not once had Finlay been offered any indication that she would wake from it.
But now Malenia rested, there amongst the pale flowers; a splash of beautiful red against a sea of wispy white. There she finally rested, and as much as Finlay may have yearned for it, she could not join her in that long sought reprieve.
Her duty remained even after her long journey; to protect her lady until her rot ate her from the inside out.
But how Finlay ached for it still; to fold her weary and broken body bonelessly against the legs of her lady, to press the side of her rotted cheek against a cold metallic knee and weep. She would weep for her fallen comrades, left in festering decay within the distant wilds, weep for the newfound bereftness of the Haligtree, suffused with an echoing silence she had never once known. She would weep for her lady who would not wake for her, no matter how much she wished or begged.
Finlay could not yet rest, even after traversing the entirety of the Lands Between for her love. Finlay could not weep, because she knew that her tears would not prompt Malenia to rouse, no matter her hope, because she could think of no greater anguish than to allow herself the impossibility of hoping.