I was “home” again, as home as I ever get. Back at the grove, where at least the Mother Tree doesn't judge me, even if everyone else does. Passing through, from killing things south of the Grove to head out and kill things further north. Time for some new foes, some new battlefields. The churned up earth and the pyres just fascinated me then.
She was there, as I made my way along the path, sitting by a pool of water with her back to me. Pale, white-blue leaves, and delicate, so delicate. There was this, this feeling about her – it filled the air nearby, so calm and sweet and pure. I stopped walking. Heck, I couldn't help myself, I walked right up to her and asked her name.
“Ifanwy,” she said, not even looking round. And then – and she still hadn't looked at me you know – she said: “You've come a long way to reach me.” She looked round then, and her eyes... There was no judgement there, just something else, something I didn't understand then and still don't, not really. She never did tell me what she was thinking that day. I still wish I'd asked.
She took me as I was though. Never did judge me, not even though we were like night and day. Even her skin was soft - soft and smooth from her youth and her life, all of it spent under the branches of the Tree.
We used to sit and share our memories, talk about what we'd seen, and what we thought. Well, I guess I did most of the talking. I was six years old by that point, and she barely one. I'd seen battle, and other races and places, and she had spent her time tucked in the safety of the Grove, learning and helping those who came and went. But she was never as sweet with the others as she was with me. She never gave them that look in her eyes, or held them close, not moving, not speaking, just standing there, arms wrapped round me, head on my shoulder.
I used to watch her as she patched them up, those travellers who came home sick or injured. Once or twice it was me getting the poultices and bandages, but even though she never understood why I went out there, put myself in harms way, she never asked me to stop, never asked me what I was doing.
She was my hope for the world, there waiting for me back home after the blood and the death and the fires. But I was a damned fool. Oh, I told her what I did, how I mowed down the undead with bullets and blade, how it was kill or be killed, how it was dangerous. But she...She never understood all that. She never got hardened to it like I had, never got used to the constant watch you put up for danger, the way your senses sharpen to danger until you can smell it on the air.
She just followed me one day, and like the fool I am I didn't make her go back. Of course they got her. They were hot on her trail the moment she left the shade of the Pale Tree. Someone as sweet and bright as her, how could they damn well resist? I should have made her turn round, walk right back into that Grove, and damn the argument. But, I could never be hard around her. She brought out that last little softness, the light and the joy, and I loved her for it.
They knocked me on the head first. Took my guns, took my knife, tied me good and fast. It was half over by the time I woke, anyway. She would never have been the same. But they weren't done. They're not like anything else. Not like battle. In battle, you go to kill. You kill one, then then next; you're a machine, killing without thought until there's only one side left. You don't play around with death, drawing it out, making them scream, making them weep. Ain't how a person ought to be.
I snapped. Nothing was going to hold me down, not even the ropes around my wrists. Not even the pain as my hands were scraped and battered by pulling them from the knots, and from loosening the bonds around my legs to move.
He never saw me coming, never saw until I grabbed my gun and cocked the trigger. Turned round just in time to see who did for him. Just like I got there in time to hold her as she died. I think she smiled there, right at the end. But she didn't speak. She never got a chance to say those last words people talk about. Just died in my arms as I reached her, before I even managed to say goodbye.
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