somewhere along the line, after slipping back into well-worn paths of grief and loss, she'd gone further than she had the last time. she teetered on the edge of something, now, unable to fathom the way her life had come to follow the same tracks on repeat - grief, fall apart, rebuild, repeat. again, and again. Shale had told her she was strong, told her he would be proud of her. Her father had said so too. and they were both dead now, and the plains where ash and bones. The river below her roared, and she was dully aware of pain in her chest, keening and raw. 

She was thin as Shale had been, now, and the burns that just barely neared completion of the healing process were still raw and ugly as they wrapped around her limbs. She wanted to burn and yet she wanted to wrap the feeling tighter, tuck it next to the burning in her chest and keep hurtling along the well-traveled pathways of grief. Aditya, Shale, Grayday, their home and their strength. She could do it, continue as she was, and her breath settled and calmed - not quite. It was then that she realized that the burn in her chest, the breath that would not settle even as the sharp edges of her thoughts collected and grew dull, was somehow entirely separate from them. 

The rest happened quickly. Overbearing pressure, a release. And then, nothing.