Silvertip Mountain You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast

@Cortland

The priest's breakdown was evident to any. Poet spends her time trying to soothe him, bring him back from wherever his religious fervor has stolen him. She grooms him and plies him with lavender, with rose, but to no avail. She does not stop him from leaving. Perhaps that is her failing.

It is unlike Phocion to be gone for too long, and as the hours melt into days, reality begins to dawn on her. 

Cruel practicality has always been her stalwart companion. She does not dare leave the Mountain, remaining in their fragile claim as many days as she can allow both her and Cortland to hold onto hope. She attends to him in silence, lulling herself to sleep at night on the gentle caress of poppy. 

She wakes up weeping and knows: this is the end. 

Had she loved Phocion? In a way, yes; in a way, given time, that could have blossomed into something more, something she desired but did not let herself admit. (If she'd told him, perhaps... but it is too traumatic to trace that line of thought.) Here she lets herself feel it, in the stifling heat of the summer morning, retreating out of the den to spare Cortland her sobs. This is her moment of weakness, earned. And when it is done, she will make their beds and bring them back into the light, just as she's always done.

gives up and uses narrow for cort too

Phocion's absence had been a slow-cutting knife; each day the priest did not return, the blade dug deeper into the Mayfair's chest. He felt its presence constantly, serrated and scathing. He focused on little else. Things like regret and doubt loomed heavy in the back of his mind, spitting possibilities when he did not need or want them.
Cortland had withdrawn into himself, scarcely leaving the cave of crystals except to sleep and to keep Poet company when he felt obligated. That was more often than he'd have liked. He made no attempt at conversation; they both knew, he thought, they'd both known the day Phocion had left. Neither of them needed to voice their pain for it to be known— he'd seen Poet's tenderness with their friend, and himself had realized that once, the knife in his chest had been something else entirely. It had been something soft, something warm, and in the priest's absence had turned icy and sharp.
The knife lurched as he awoke to the sound of Poet's retreat, her sobbing. He swallowed back the razors coming up his throat and rose, trailing her like a ghost. There was no need for words as he approached, gently nosing her shoulder; they both knew. The priest they'd both loved was gone, perhaps returned to the stars he so adored. In a way, Cortland hoped that was the case. The other scenarios he could imagine only twisted the knife deeper.

Her solitude is broken by Cortland's gentle touch to her shoulder, undeserved but graciously accepted. She swallows her cry, letting her ragged breath settle in the morning air for long, solemn moments before she can bring herself to look at him. Perhaps this is a truth they can both admit to each other in the silence: they've loved him, they've lost parts of him to each other and now the whole of him into nothingness. There will be no homecoming.

A sigh finds its way from her mouth, the realisation still too raw for her to grasp. Poet looks at Cortland and thinks: it would be easy to hate him now that Phocion is gone. And perhaps she shall hate him, but he need not know that. She will care for him in hand. 

"We cannot stay here," the ex-priestess announces to him, her rusted voice startling calm despite the flow of tears that has just subsided. Another deep breath pulls her chest higher, shoulders straighter, as she finalizes her decision. "We will find somewhere new." That will not smell of him. That will not make them think of him. If Poet has one specialty, it is scorching the earth so she may begin anew, and she will bring Cortland with her in this.