Phoenix Maplewood gold and seide

Jorunn prompted her to finish her sentence. The muscles in Druid’s jaw jumped as she clenched her teeth. She always kept her darkest thoughts to herself. Why would she unburden them now, on someone she barely knew, must less trusted?

Nonetheless, she found her fist loosening as she sighed the words, I just want to run away and be alone. If I don’t have anyone, I can’t lose anyone. Nobody can leave me, if I leave them first. But, Druid was hasty to add, I wouldn’t do it, I…

She huffed, eyes dropping to the forest floor. If she was stapled to Rivenwood, Druid was utterly interwoven with Sequoia and Witch. She could leave the former. It would hurt, but she could. But to leave those two, it would unravel the very fibers of her being and destroy them all.

Druid lapsed into pensive silence, her thoughts eventually wandering down other paths. She caught herself thinking of Laurel and her children and murmured, To care about others is to suffer. They can be taken, like Abel and Indra, or leave, like Mahler et al. I wish I could stop caring, she whispered.