Redhawk Caldera Say it soft and it's almost like praying

He stared out over the snow-laden horizon, though his gaze was distant, unfocused. In the still silence that he allowed himself, he wondered...How was he supposed to manage? How did anyone manage, when all lives would inevitably come to an end? Was there a point in becoming attached to others and holding them close when some day fate would tear them away and leave nothing but pain? So suddenly and cruelly both Toad and Desdemona had been killed within days following the cougar attack on the Caldera. He could have easily lost Fennec and Alyx both. He went through the names of his family and friends- all those he loved. Would he have to suffer through their deaths as well? 

The grief pulled a chord in his heartstrings that had sounded before, and it made his memories of those he had already lost burn again. His earliest memories of his father, of Elwood and Finley- all now pulled back into sorrow's touch by the loss of recent friends. He considered the pain he felt in thinking about them- and now would have to face the fact that he would miss two others as well. The pain of losing his father was quiet, from the passage of time- but ever-present even if it was little more than a whisper at the best of times. But in confronting the death of more he loved, he found the embers had been fed with fresh, dry kindling- and he mourned them all, all over again. Would this grief ever go away?

The morose thought made his throat clench, and he wondered if he could simply hold his breath until th world went black, just to make these thoughts stop buzzing. He wanted a break from it- but he ended up inhaling softly when something caught his attention. Silently, a cloud-white feather had fallen to land only a few inches from his face. He lifted his head to look at it, and felt his heart lurch suddenly. 

It was a sign.

In that moment, the coincidence felt too uncanny to have been mere chance. So when he looked up with glossy eyes and saw the most magnificent bird he had ever seen, he gasped. He felt a surge of what felt like pain and relief at the same time. Some small gesture it had been for the bird to loosen and drop a feather toward him- but its significance did not go amiss. Who might have sent the owl? Was it simply one of them, or all of them together who saw him in such pain, and had sent it to remind him of the beauty in the world? With a voice soft and fragile, he bid his trembling lips to speak. 

"Thank you."