took the stars from our eyes

AMALIA

THE SHIELD OF SAFRIN

i think it's beautiful how a star's light

travels the universe long after it dies

Don't mince words- and Amalia knows she has to say it, owes it to her, that the goddess needs this as surely as the girl needed to help her. "I promise," she whispers, tears in her eyes, her voice quivering as she says the words. "If I cannot find a way to cure you, I... I won't let you stay that way. I'll end it."

The hands on her shoulders tighten and clench, and Amalia finds herself falling down, her knees hitting the ground as Safrin pulls away. Fingers clutch at the absent goddess, reaching for her as she disappears, the blight rising up where starlight once was, the light again eclipsed by dark. Like the moon banishing behind clouds, Amalia watches as Safrin vanishes, leaving the girl shrouded in darkness, shivering and shaking and clinging to hope.

Kneeling in the snow, tears on her face, the Shield watches as Safrin clutches the rose inside her fist and grinds it into sludge. The goddess is gone, but she was there for a moment, and it is that moment to which the girl must hold, that flickering light which will guide her forward as darkness continues to fall.

"I'm sorry," she whispers into the snow, unable to look back up at Safrin, to see the darkness in her face. "I promise I won't forget."

That's what I want to be in this world —

someone whose light lingers after I'm gone