Duck Lake I want to see you smile but know that means I'll have to leave

At the end of it she felt a bone-deep exhaustion; a realization that she could not go on like this. Reverie had resolved to stay for Lestan, even at the cost of her own happiness, but the goal had been his happiness. Was it truly better to stay and make them both miserable?
Bjarna soothed these hurts with words of love, and she made it seem so simple that it hurt. Mainly it hurt because Reverie knew it would never be so simple for herself. She was learning that the most sacred spaces in her heart often molded themselves to those who filled them, and in the wake of loss never quite recovered that same elasticity. Rose had been her sister, more than any of the others, and Rose was gone.
Try as she might, Reverie could not quite bend the empty space to fit Bjarna's slim silhouette.
Just as no one would ever take Lestan's place, even as he cut his way free of it in withered silences and achingly awkward mornings. I want to come back to Kvarsheim, Reverie said tiredly, tucking her face into Bjarna's plush fur. Not now. Not yet. But soon.
I'll learn Icelandic, and maybe we'll go on trips together, It brought her comfort to plan like this, when it felt like all the planning and hoping she'd done based on the promise of a future with Lestan was slipping away from her. Reverie didn't know if she would keep to these plans. But in this moment, she wanted to. We can see the ocean. Dance in the water. I've never seen that much water before...
Perhaps she would lose herself in it, and finally meet Mother Rain, if she truly existed.