Iylaine goes to the willow

The stone was covered with a sifting of fine snow, like all the rest of the world, but there was no doubt: it was pink, and it was there where she had left it three days before.

Iylaine had been so weak and so weary all through the month of November that she would scarcely have had the strength to make it to the willow, even if she had been allowed to go out.

But three days before – or three nights, rather – she had lain in such an anguish of fear for Vash that she had made up her mind to go anyway. At night she could sneak. At night she would not be seen. At night she could take her time and rest along the way.

She had found a stone in the hollow of the willow, and she had rejoiced at first – but it had been black. He did not want to see her, not even to explain the strange happenings in that earthen dungeon, nor even to demonstrate to her that he was still alive after what she had seen.

And then she had realized that it was more likely that the stone had simply lain in the hollow, waiting to be moved, all through the weeks of her captivity and all through the weeks that followed. Vash had simply been the last one to visit the tree before she had been captured.

She had left a pink stone for him on that night, but its presence here now at the base of the tree seemed to prove that he was gone. He had never let the stone lie for three days.

Three weeks had passed since she had seen him fall. She was beginning to understand that the last glimpse she would ever have of him was that sickening image of his limp body sprawled across a beautiful, blood-​​red floor.

She rose awkwardly and went staggering along the bank of the brook.

She had carelessly tossed the black stone away three days ago in her search for a pink one. She had carelessly tossed away the last gift she would ever have from him, and now she wanted to find it again. It was only a stone, but at the sight of a pile of such stones, Kiv had once scolded Vash for telling her love tales. In truth, he had never told her the tale, but she knew it was not only a stone.

There were innumerable black stones in this brook, brought down from the black cliffs. She was beginning to understand that she would never lay her hands on that stone again, though she wandered up and down the bank all the rest of her days and tried to touch them all.

And she was weak, and she was weary, and if she spent them wandering her days would not be many – but she did not think it mattered.

She had not felt so alone since she was a child. Her loneliness was aloneness. She was not the only elf, but she might as well have been.

Iylaine did not wander long before she gave up in despair. She fell to her knees and began to sob. She was beginning to understand that he would never come again to dry her tears.