She is gone again now, and there is only Genia and me at home. Funny, how the house seems quieter than before. It was only the one night. Just one. But, seems to me now that I realise something - a man is only the sum of the people he knows. He is the company he keeps and the kin he finds for himself. I'd forgotten what my voice sounded like, while there had been no board to sound it off. I had allowed it to sit fallow in my own throat.

I feel as though the rug has been pulled out from beneath my feet. That's how it feels. Like some terrible wrongdoing has been dealt to me. I mean, it hasn't really. It's just life and all its trials and tribulations. It wasn't deliberate, or nothing like that. But it does hurt me to have remembered, only to have to forget again. And I don't just mean her going. It's everything else and all. Suppose she just reminded me of it all when she came, and I'm remembering again now that she's away.

But it lit a strange hope in me. Daft and foolish. Had no business hoping like that. But for a split marc I thought mayhaps if she found her way back, then others would too. I won't write the names. But, it did cross my mind. Found myself walking by a familiar span of the forest, and craning my neck for a glimpse of chimney smoke. All of that has been snuffed now.

I know I need to find new kin and all of that. But seems to me that I'm old now. Not in body, but in spirit, like. I'm all worn out. Only benefit of her going, is that I don't have to worry about Genia no more. Been a long while since she's been elsewhere. Years and years in fact. For a marc I did worry that they'd start setting her off again. Memories do that. Old faces. Might've sent her on the backover. So, suppose if I am grateful for anything, I'm grateful for that.

Grateful for that, and for the turn, spent with my cindered old friend. I've seen soup clearer than the grey bathwater that Kairiel Bosburn left behind.