Broken Antler Fen may you find solace in the gentle arms of sleep, despite the wolves outside your door

"Rest well, friend," Wraen said, deciding that the best eulogy was the simplest one. She realized that apart from their two or three brief encounters over the years she had not known the man too well at all and now that he was dead, there would never be a chance to remedy that. She idly wondered, could things have been different, if she had not turned down his romantic advances and actually spent more time in his company, while there still had been time to do so. But then... death comes unexpectedly to us all. You do not know, how much time you have, and - maybe even at the very moment of dying - you may not be aware that your life-clock has been about to stop. 

***

Wraen remained by Tambourine's grave long after the two girls had left, feeling in her heart an idea forming into a story. One that could have been, but never was. We can compare life with a glass of water, where people are particles in Brownian movement, constantly in random motion, colliding with each other momentarily only to relocate somewhere else soon after. The elder did not have much belief in fate, even less in "things happening for a reason" and she rolled her eyes at the notion of "universe having a plan". No... with all she had seen in her life, she was convinced that chaos, circumstances and a game of hit or miss was in play. Brownian movement. People having numerous opportunities for a new story every day. 

And the same way we sometimes reminisce about an old crush (or a first crush, for that matter) and, what could have beeen (maybe), Wraen thought about Tambourine, a story that had had a potential, but had never been played out. Because after that first collision, they had wandered away from each other in the chaos of other particles. She had learned not to dwell much on old mistakes and regrets, but when it came to him, she could not shake off a sense of unfairness and a bit of a disappointment. A Master Storyteller and yet having no power over her story or anyone else's. 

There lied a friend, a maybe-lover, a could-have-been life-long trustworthy partner and all the Wraenburines and Tambouwraens that never were. 

There, buried under the fresh earth, was a story that could have been written together, a remarkable one, perhaps, vastly different from, what the paths their lives had taken them in this realm. 

There left to decay was all the would-be-love, trust-earned, anger and disappointments, hurts and joyful moments, heartbreaks and sorrow, arguments and laughs. Every single emotion - good and bad - that comes with choosing to entrust your heart to someone and devote yourself to them.

There disappeared all the moments of comfortable silences in each other's company, when no words need to be spoken to know that the bond is there. Iron-clad, unbreakable. All the little gestures, looks and tiny things that spoke of great mutual affection.

Wraen had had a lifetime of watching people finding each other, falling in love, creating families and, if at first she had found solace in the idea that it was not too late for her. Then later she had simply accepted the truth that far more people in this world remain single, they never meet that significant other, they never have a family or children and that they have to find different ways of fulfilling their life. It was not an easy truth to live with, nor was it possible to always silence that voice in her head that time from time asked "why me?" But she had ignored it and done the only thing she could do - live that one life she had as good as she could.

But, while listing all of the "could have been"s in her mind, she felt angry and hurt by the very notion that just maybe the life-story she had wanted and craved for had bypassed her altogether. That this man, who she had hardly known, but who she had liked and enjoyed to have around for however brief that time had been, had been the key and that it had been yanked out of her hands before she had had even a chance to see, what doors it may have opened. Instead her story had written itself differently and eventually brought Arthur in her life, who loved her with all his heart, and she could not return even a fraction of it.

Life in Brownian movement was needlessly cruel.

Of course, this line of thought, this story unfolding inside her mind was just a speculation, a fantasy - one she should have not beaten herself over with. And when the new day would break, Wraen would lay it to rest with Tambourine and never return to it. For now she mourned not only a friend taken away far too early, but a story with a "happily ever after" that may have been meant for her, but she had never realized it up until this very moment.