[SWE] Festival of Lights 311 PC

Noah

It wasn't the woman that Noah did not want to see that appeared as he placed his lantern, in fact, it was the opposite. The woman Noah wished he could bring back. The presence that left a void in his heart--momentarily filled. The hunter gasped when he felt her hand on his shoulder. The winter winds brought her in, in life and in death. He hesitated for a moment before turning his face to her, his gut reminding him of how she died.

But she was beautiful.

He looked upon her face, surprisingly unmauled, and the tears brimmed in his eyes. They washed down his cheeks without control. Noah did not even try to hide them. He had been vulnerable coming in, and now he stood in the presence of the only person he could be truly vulnerable with now. He wept. He smiled.

"I'll keep you with me." He finally said, swallowing down the lump in his throat. He reached up to touch her shoulder in turn, her ghostly figure so different and yet so the same from what she was in life. He wiped his tears from his cheeks and the droplets from his beard with the sleeve of his other arm. "I'll remember you always."

He wished, as he looked upon her, that Korbin was with him. He didn't know where the boy was, and the realization stung him: "Do you have both of your brothers?"

Am I a prisoner to instincts or do my thoughts just live as free
And detached as boats to the dock?