The thing was, with Sorey gone, Rose had somehow expected the seraphim to go with him. Not with him, with him, because the whole point had been to restore the seraphim and everyone's knowledge of them, but she expected things to go back to how they were. She knew what life with a seraph you couldn't really see or talk to was like, after all. Things would change and she was prepared for that; even if she didn't go back to the Sparrowfeathers the way she'd been with them before, even if she still travelled and found a way to purify hellions on her own, even if she had nothing else but to settle back into a life that seemed so small to her now. She would miss them, of course, but without a Shepherd to Squire, they'd be lost to her.
She expected it to be quiet, but to still know that they were there, though not be able to hear them, not to see them. Somehow, she hadn't expected to feel so alone.
She barely slept; the first night of her walk back was punctuated by silence, for even the bugs had known to stay away lest they be drawn into the malevolence, and she's not used to it any more. It wasn't the people sounds she listened for, though after years of travelling she did notice that there weren't soft rustles and thumps or breathing. She listened for the seraphim, quietly talking because they thought they couldn't be heard; she even looked for a normin, as if there would be one this far away from anything, but there was nothing. It felt solitary in a way she couldn't easily identify, other than to say there was an absence of something she'd grown used to and learned to care for.
For a moment, when she'd seen the white light and the coloured auras coming from it, she'd thought Lailah would come back, and she had been happy. But as she walked, and there was still nothing, even though she started to see signs of people again, and could sense a domain, though not whose it was. For a moment it was comforting, to know she could still sense seraphim, that it wasn't just that being around the Shepherd made it possible for her, but she was still alone.
It was when she reached Ladylake, and everything around her was normal, though noticeably lighter, cleaner somehow, that she understood that what she missed wasn't just being around them, but being with them. With Lailah, if she was honest with herself, which she was not with everyone else. The questions came frequently, and not always from people she knew - those were the people who knew to give her space, that she was confused and grieving and adjusting. She looked inside the sanctuary, as if Lailah may have returned to the place where she'd slept, waiting for something that might never come, but it was as empty as her heart.
Sure, she wasn't happy that Lailah sometimes forgot to come out and scared her by talking without being there in front of her, or the endless conversations around her rather than just saying things directly, or how she got distracted and it wasn't always a deflection. They were things you adapted to, so you could be around someone who made you feel stronger and more like yourself, as if they held a part of you that was missing before they'd been there. Rose found, as days passed, that she'd adapted too well; she knew what she was missing now, not a family, not a community, but having Lailah close, and knowing that even if she didn't say what she meant, she meant well by what she did say.
It's not how she expected it to be at all.
She catches herself staring into nothing sometimes, or looking after a dark shape that could have been a hellion, but she can never tell if she's really seeing it or wishing she was; of course, nobody can tell her they saw it too, because they think nothing is wrong. They don't know what changed, or that Sorey's gone, and he took her friends with him, and she can't make them understand why she's different now, or how she knows some of the things she knows. Her instincts were always good, that was why she made the decisions, but now she understands why; the thing Lailah taught her without her even realising was that she could always see the malevolence, always feel it, and that was how she decided who would live and who would die, avoiding becoming tainted herself.
She didn't even get to say thank you, and sometimes, even if she sleeps, she wakes up choking on a scream, so nobody knows that she came back with all this inside her and empty space around it where she used to always be able to feel that Lailah was there. The others, too, but it was Lailah she noticed the most, a shadow of the warmth that echoed within her as a Squire, a lightness and a wisdom, or perhaps just confidence.
Sometimes, it feels like she could just reach out and pull Lailah back in, as if she's right there and it's like before, when she couldn't see, except now that she knows she could, if someone was there.
If Lailah was there.
It's subtle at first, that sensation, and not the same as what she lost; it's around her, fleeting, brief, soft. It could just be the sun, because the sun in Ladylake is brighter now, and it reflects off the water into her eyes, sparking fiery visions if she closes her eyes against it. It's a fire in the inn, giving warmth against the cold night and meant to create a cosy homey atmosphere that instead reminds her of open skies and paper flitting in a breeze, burning to ash and falling to the ground, leaving a trail nobody would know to look for. It's a noise behind her, so close that it could have been a whisper in her ear, but there's nobody there when she turns.
The sanctuary remains empty.
She wakes up one morning to a face, hovering so close over hers that she can see nothing else, and she yelps and scrabbles away, back to the wall and hands on her daggers, but she can't bring herself to draw them.
"I thought you'd take forever," someone says, from off to the side. "It was getting boring."
"Shush, Edna," Lailah says. "If you're not going to be useful, go bother Mikleo."
Edna goes, though Rose barely saw her in the first place.
"It did take some time," Lailah says, thoughtfully. Rose can see her, and it's like everything she thought she was making up is real all at once, and she has to remind herself not to cry.
"I'm sorry," she says, instead.
"Oh, no, it wasn't you," Lailah says. Her voice is so clear, so light and still so soft. "We had to rest a bit," she says. And Rose gets it; the emptiness, the small signs, the not-quite there feeling she sometimes had to hide.
She tries to hug Lailah, but it doesn't quite work; there's nothing quite solid enough to hold on to, and instead it's like pulling a candle close and feeling the flame near her skin, warmth flickering and puffing unevenly, though with Lailah it's much more encompassing, more steady, more wild.
Lailah doesn't say anything, but Rose doesn't need it.
"The job's not done, is it?" she says, finally, sensing something in the way Lailah can't quite make her appearance as polished as it used to be, as delicate and unmoved; it's as if at any moment, she could disappear.
"It will take some time, yes," Lailah says. It's direct, which is almost unusual, except Rose knows enough to know that it's not all of the truth, that she may never be able to understand everything that Lailah has had centuries to refine.
"You need a new Shepherd," she says. "I'll do it. I can do it, right?"
"Yes," Lailah says.
The idea that Lailah may have planned this from before Sorey even drew the sword, made a plan and somehow drawn the people she needed to her, occurs to Rose in one small moment when everything seems to hang still, as if the world is waiting for something to happen between them before it can move on. The idea that Lailah let Sorey be the one to go first, to essentially die, and that Rose would be the one who was there after, for as long as it was needed, as long as she could, is immediately overwhelming and yet, somehow, it makes sense.
She doesn't ask Lailah if she's right. She doesn't want to be sure that's what happened, or know that somehow, her actions weren't entirely hers. Instead, she holds on to the fragment of the idea, that Lailah chose her, and she nods.
"So how do I make a contract with you?" she says.
Lailah smiles, and for a moment, Rose believes that Lailah could truly be there, solid and real in a way she hasn't ever been before. She flickers, though, and Rose can see how tired she is.
"We don't need to do the whole thing with the sword right now, right?" she says. She means something else, and somehow, Lailah gets it, as if they both know the art of saying one thing and another thing beneath it, hiding years of pain behind matching smiles. Lailah's hands are warm around her own, and when she closes her eyes against the light, she sees Lailah how she was before, how Rose thinks she's meant to be, when she's not so tired still.
She opens her eyes to the room and she is no longer alone. Before, it was barely more than knowing the warmth was there, that she could reach out to Lailah if she needed and ignoring her at those times when she became so distracted it was incomprehensible.
Now, she can feel Lailah inside her, not just an aura, but her flame and her emotions. She almost feels exhausted herself, feeding off Lailah's weakness, and she imagines perhaps Lailah is sleeping inside her, knowing that she can regain her strength now that Rose is there to protect her. Even at rest, Rose feels stronger too, just knowing that Lailah is within reach again, and that power is hers too.
Rose, wishes, for a moment, that she could do more, that there was a way to be more than a vessel, a Shepherd, a partner for Lailah. For now, she locks the door and goes back to bed; it won't stop Edna, but it will give them privacy from people, time to adjust again to being extensions of the other.
"You're thinking too loud," Lailah says, in her mind, and that will take getting used to, as does the way the mental yawn makes her yawn too, how the bed feels soft but she can also feel that the sheets are rougher in some places, where they've been less worn, and how there's a ghost of a sensation that follows just after her touch, as if Lailah is reaching out too.
Rose finally sleeps, and in her dreams, Lailah sleeps with her, and Rose can touch as much as she needs to assure herself that this is her path, and that it is true.