Stone Circle Exitlude

Kristjan moved hollowly in the funereal march to the great stones, head low and expression utterly ill-tempered for the first time in his young life. Every action felt hazy that day; all of the world seemed covered in a fog of black pyre-smoke. His emotions simmered, too, bubbling and hissing just below the surface, unable to meet a single wolf’s eye from beneath his mourning shroud.

At some distance, in a far-off pinprick of light at the end of a very long and very dark tunnel, there were Tauris’ words at the place his father was to be buried. Her voice came in muffled, like sounds through drywall being heard from another room. Kristjan struggled to hear her.

Gunnar was a father to us all.

He listened more closely now, each of her statements driving another nail into his father’s coffin, every word piercing him with a sickening realization. They were meant to move on. They were meant to accept this. They were meant to carry him, not physically, but in their hearts…

It was all stupid!

Some kind of cruel joke, but nobody was laughing. Kristjan felt the sadness well up inside him; a sickening sort of pressure that threatened to overflow and spill from his eyes, his mouth, his ears, his nose. He felt nauseated – a cauldron of discomfiture boiling in his gut – and he could not fathom a single instance of relief that might touch him.

He stared at the ground, speechless and unseeing. He was exhausted from crying. There were no tears left in him, he thought. But there was another feeling: something that felt no better than the sorrow, yet he preferred it.

It’s not fair. This shouldn’t be happening! Why is this happening?

Stage two: anger.