Witch's Marsh Death doesn't let you say goodbye

She continued walking, the purpose of her journey partially abandoned. The herb would be here somewhere, and she would return with a collection of its properties, yet her want to find the plant paled next to the barrage of all she pondered. The silence outside her head was a comfort to her; she did not break its cover, nor did she stray from the shadows. Nanook willed the dim light to catch her in its embrace; she felt wholly at home in the shadows the darkness cast.

Her path was unnatural for one so carefully calculated - seemingly aimless - yet even in her spontaneity, she moved with purpose. In places, the mud slicked to barriers of ice, and she braved these, just as she chose the harder road, the one less travelled. Her path wove a pattern as twisting as her thoughts, and as convoluted as the feelings still buried in her chest. They oozed like the mire through the cracking ice, but she did not wish to see now; she would let herself feel, later

For now, she willed her thoughts to run quiet, and told her heart to rest. There were things beyond the difficulty, and the healer chose to turn her focus outward, to the world beyond her narrow one. Eyes which saw the sinking glow, the tired branches beneath the snow - and there, between the boughs, for a moment...

...she saw his ghost.