It is a long time, it feels, since I kept watch on our tower. It feels lonely being at the very top with no company, but it is not a sad loneliness. It is that feeling of being the only one looking out over the lands. I like it. I feel closer to my gods and blessed goddesses here. And, thank all of them, I feel at home again rather than a visitor. The chill air woke me as Sunrifter faded from the sky. The first stars were straying across the sky looking rather like initiates wandering through Dundee to me. The shadows all seemed to have depth and clarity to them and I watched the land change shape as darkness fell.



I find it easy to think here in the dark. Thoughts are like companions and I have the leisure to stretch them out and really look at them properly - see what they really mean. Strange how some thoughts, when you look at them, seem so much less than they did when they were first picked up and felt heavy and how some, seemingly insignificant in themselves, turn out to be so very, very important.



My mind turns to Shirila: There is something I have thought long and hard over. My conclusions are sound - I will do what she has asked. There is still something…. hesitant somehow in her about it. Not the act itself, but….I don’t know - something. But that she is settled I can clearly see. She may not be frothing over with dizzy happiness, not in front of me anyway, but she feels safe and comforted. And very sure that it will ever continue. People’s happinesses are very different. This brings warmth to her soul and comfort to her heart. I wish I could hear her laugh instead of sigh though. I must talk with him and soon. Patience is a hard lesson to learn.



I feel that little pang returning but I dispel it with a sigh that lets it travel away from me along with the cold, sharp mist of my breath. Despite that tiny and brief sadness I hug myself with my cloak wrapped tight about me and think other thoughts; so momentous and so precious they can stem any darkness and I smile.



Thoughts are good but they are not arms to hold us. I wonder if they look out over the same sky keeping watch somewhere. I would like to think so rather than being below the ground in the treacherous places. I will close this book now and my eyes and try and stretch out with my feelings to them. Will they feel me across the dark distance?



How silly that sounds.