|
He walks slowly and silently to where she sits and reaching down to her finds the bottom of her chin with his right hand and gently lifts her face that he might look at her. “Sof’ya,” he smiles, all harshness gone from his voice, “Sof’ya ush’a ha’shama’im.” Taking her hands, he walks with her away from the log and turns her toward the blush of dawn. He stands behind her, wrapping his arms around her and breathing gently over her. “Her name was Kye’ri ri’essa – laughter under sun,” he speaks simply and softly. “She was among the first to be taken by the Devourer’s hunger and it took great delight in replacing the laughter of her name with the whispered terrors it awoke within her .....” His arms tighten around her and he pulls her close against himself. “I do not know what else to say. The invasion of her spirit was so sudden and so complete and from such an unknown source that nothing could be done for her. I could only watch ..... and ..... listen ......”
Again he falls silent allowing the sadness of this speaking to wash over him. “..... Maria would have come to the same end had we arrived much later than we did.”
“Laughter under sun,” he says softly once more, “Kye’ri ri’essa. Because she has died, her name is not lost to me, although her voice and her touch are only mine in memory.” He stops speaking, watching the sun climb above the treeline sending the golden lines of its rising washing across the sky. “Sof’ya ush’a ha’shama’im,” he whispers over her as he turns her around to face him. “I do not know what those whispers meant about a true story as I do not know the stories they told you.” He looks intently at her. “Know this, however. The great secret of its power is that the whispered speaking of this Wind does not lie and does not invent terrors which do not exist already within the person to whom it speaks. Its truths may be partial and incomplete but there is truth to be found in what it says.”
His hand caresses her cheek and his eyes, blazing with the same fierce acceptance of that night upon the mountain, find hers. “Is it really so difficult for you to believe that someone can accept you?” She begins to speak, but his lips find hers and, cutting off her words, silently speak the strength of his acceptance.
|