Silvertip Mountain You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast

Her solitude is broken by Cortland's gentle touch to her shoulder, undeserved but graciously accepted. She swallows her cry, letting her ragged breath settle in the morning air for long, solemn moments before she can bring herself to look at him. Perhaps this is a truth they can both admit to each other in the silence: they've loved him, they've lost parts of him to each other and now the whole of him into nothingness. There will be no homecoming.

A sigh finds its way from her mouth, the realisation still too raw for her to grasp. Poet looks at Cortland and thinks: it would be easy to hate him now that Phocion is gone. And perhaps she shall hate him, but he need not know that. She will care for him in hand. 

"We cannot stay here," the ex-priestess announces to him, her rusted voice startling calm despite the flow of tears that has just subsided. Another deep breath pulls her chest higher, shoulders straighter, as she finalizes her decision. "We will find somewhere new." That will not smell of him. That will not make them think of him. If Poet has one specialty, it is scorching the earth so she may begin anew, and she will bring Cortland with her in this.