As she went home, she could not shake off the way despair seemed to sink into her. It was growing almost normal, thinking that she would never see his bright grin again or dig her hands into his fur during a storm as he comforted her.
A sob came into her chest and she had to gulp it down. She needed to be strong. For the country he had loved, for his memory. Even if all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and weep. For the first time in her life, Dawn wished she had a close friend, just someone to talk to, who would comfort her. But the man who had made it his duty to do so had died on her.
She banked the griffin near to the capital of her country and looked over the water. It surely would not hurt to take a few minutes to grieve by herself, right? She sprung down and walked to the edge of the water her mind turning to her dead husband.
'Your eyes are sparkling. Do you like watching the waves? We can come out here more often, if you'd like. Anything to bring life into your eyes.'
The memory made her breath catch. It had been before they had married when he was just trying to help her heal some of the deep hurt. And he had, she had just been afraid to open up all the way to him, and she had hurt him.
Tears rolled down her face as she fell to the sand her eyes squeezed shut. Her shoulders shook from the anguish she could not stop. As she cried, she felt a resolve inside to never ever put herself through this again. She wished she could take it back, all the things she had said, all the ways she had hid her own feelings.
She heard footsteps and froze. Someone had heard her crying? A feeling of mortification rose in her, this could lead to people thinking that she was incapable of leading her husband's people.
She glanced over and saw a man standing there, head cocked to the side as if he was listening. Through the tears in her eyes she could make out that he was in a rather bedraggled state, with water dripping down from his long ragged, almost feathery hair which plastered over where his eyes would be. The clothes he wore were stained and torn to being nothing more than indeterminate rags.
She tried to stop her crying, but could not. She wished the man would go away and leave her in peace but he stood there as if unsure of what to do.
Finally he spoke, his voice hoarse and deep, "Are you okay?" There was a hesitancy to the question.
She wondered that he had not called her by any title, not even a miss. She struggled to get herself under control before speaking to him. When she did speak, she cringed at the sound of tears in her voice, "Who are you?"
"Well…" The man shifted uneasily, "I don't rightly know, miss." There was a bit of panic in his voice as he seemed to be agitated at the thought. "But, regardless about that, are you okay? You seem to be crying quite heavily."
No, she was not, but she was not about to tell some stranger that. "I'm fine." With a ragged breath, she forcefully stopped crying. She narrowed her eyes at the suspicious looking fellow. "Now, what do you mean you have no idea who you are?"
"Well, um, I do not really remember anything, but…" He stopped, "A face of someone who I assume was important to me for some reason, but I do not know why?"
There was so much confusion in the man's voice that she found herself inclined to believe him. There was no way he was faking that. She peered at the man closer. She noticed that his eyes were closed, and he looked rather faint.
"Why are your eyes closed?"
"They hurt to open, and I am blind, anyhow…"
She would have left the sorry mess of a man there if it was not for one thing stopping her. A sudden thought, 'Arrion would have helped this man…'
She froze for a second before looking at him, "Come on, I'll make sure you are taken care of."
He hesitated a little before following meekly. She helped him up on her griffin before climbing up herself and telling it to go home. Even if home was not home without her dear husband anymore. "Well, I know you don't know your name, but I'll need something to call you."
"I… just call me whatever you'd like I guess?"
A weird sense of déjà vu came to her. Only now she was the one picking out a name, instead of receiving it. It made her feel a strange sense of camaraderie with this man. She stared at him, and her eyes fell on his feathery black hair, "How about Raven?"
"Alright, whatever you would like, miss." His tone was polite, and respectful.