Ravenshook Cliffs rain falls down my cheek, i wish i knew better than i know now

she let herself succumb to grief.

constantine had gone with rowan, and she knew not who to trust with her heart any longer. she felt how very little she understood, now, and she felt like a great fool as she moved from donnelaith's borders when the rainfall began. the birds she had spoken to would hide her absence, her escape--she needed to get away, briefly, to breathe, to think, and in the storm to come she knew she had found refuge. 

thunder roiled. her eyes cast heavenward. 

help me, she breathed to the heavens. father, help me. what should i do? i am lost, i am lost! and the thunder split the heavens in two, and she threw her head upward and screamed for the loneliness that had at last taken hold of her. she was not immune to pain, but it had taken its time in touching her--

it tore her asunder. 

did others think her unable to suffer? her breathing was labored as she looked down, down, down, to the blackness the cliff offered beyond its reach. empty promises, but so terribly beautiful in its mysterious infiniteness that reached for all time! deirdre turned from the cliff face and stalked along its jagged path instead, feeling herself crumble with the earth beneath her. 

but she did not give into self-pity for her loneliness. she only let herself burn in her silence, burn, burn, burn to ashes--to be reborn from them, as the phoenix was. for she had heard in the howling winds a voice.