Narrative points on the path of the Wandering Star.
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Death, in words.
It's the last thing he sees on the noticeboard, on his way out of town. Long fingers brush the paper, pressing curling edges flat to little avail. 'Kin or close friends,' two categories of which he is neither. There will be others, and of this he's certain, turning and following his route out towards the north-eastern gate. Sore hands adjust the heavy bag over one shoulder, the scent of woodsmoke following his departure.
He has already seen this. He reads it anyway.
It's a long hike, and in the pre-dawn light the world is a dimmer place. Quiet as through leeched of noise, a pervasive undertone of grey.
The Jousting Grounds have not changed. Ash and weeks-old blood mingle freely, and as he passes through, there is nothing new. Without the cover of fog, the slowly-bleeding light of approaching dawn leaves even less room for doubt. He knew of the premonition and still came too late. Nothing left to save.
He continues east. Open plain gives way to rocky hills and more occasional tree-cover, his bow drawn once or twice as he walks for the shoreline. The horizon lightens, and his steps quicken, pushing himself harder to get there in time. In those last few minutes, he breaks out into a run, breath coming quick and short as he barely avoids tripping over roots and stones that would have sent him tumbling not two months prior. Blurs of green, streaks of the sky blooming to life everywhere that the leaves part.
He makes it.
He stops as the trees part. At the edge of a steep incline, the waves crash a few hundred meters ahead. Against the ocean's horizon line, haloed by spectral fire, the sun peeks out. Were he younger, he may have thought it was saying hello. He lifts his hand, anyway, in a little wave.
He lifts the bag off his shoulder. It's not very graceful, but he can manage gradual, as he retrieves a small metal tin. Little by little, he scatters into the wind. Rousing songbirds sing fragments of melody, and in short refrains he whistles along to their key. No name he can keep in mind, not for the woman he does his best to lay to rest. Only of the name on the notice, as he sings a single song in full.
A lullaby for lonely children.
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It catches his eye, late in the afternoon.
A lovely shade of green. Furry stems, oval leaves with serrated edges. He'd come here for mint, and a little pot of it he'd picked out, and yet. He lifts his head, calling clearly across the way to the gardener nearby as he stares at the label held between his fingertips. Perilla frutescens. "What is this?"
She lifts her head, brushing back curly strands of grey as she comes over to his side, trowel in one hand angled out as she rest her palm against her hip, "Ah, deulkkae." Through her syllables that accent which feels so strikingly familiar weaves, "Irian perilla, maybe, if you're from Valkia." She lifts her hand, tapping its pot with the metal edge of the tool, "Difficult to find over here compared to back home, but I like the reminder."
Soon, the mint has its own home inside, newly tucked on a shelf in front of the kitchen window. Outside, in his small yard facing the east, a second plant finds a place amongst the menagerie.
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"Perhaps it is. Or maybe it's not. The fact you found them at all is something to hold to, I'd say, as much as the reasons themselves. As much as the people, too. I was reminded, recently, that although oblivion waits at the end of it all, the moments on the way there are still as real as the ending. Little things, everyday. The fact that the deepest miseries of our lives are happening parallel to the dawn every morning. The pain endures, but so does the sun."
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