killsmarkers:

     【✖】

          _{There were so many  things she regretted. So many lost
          changes and missed  opportunities.  Things  she  could
          never say… She wasn’t  sure why she’d come,  sneaking
          away from her camp  with  Duncan in  the  middle  of  the
          night to return to the ruins he’d found her at. Both he and
          Marethari had told her that Tamlen was lost. Consumed
          by the taint that now coursed through her blood. It would
          kill her too, they’d warned,  but  could  she  honestly  say
          she cared? Tamlen was…}

          _{Bare feet carried her  through the ruins,  the  corpses  of
          the creatures she  and Tamlen had slain were no where
          in  sight, as if the whole  thing  had  been  a  bad  dream.
          As  she  wandered  through  the  barren  halls,  she  half
          expected Tamlen to burst  from  the  shadows  in  hopes
          of giving her a fright, big stupid grin plastered across his
          face.}

          _{A tightness grew in her chest, as though a hand held her
          heart in a tight fist. Nothing stirred within  the  ruins  save
          for the leaves she disturbed with her passage. He would
          be here, she told herself. He was waiting for  her  in  that
          room, and when he heard her  come  for  him,  he  would
          turn and smile and ask her what took so long. She would
          laugh   and  apologize,  and  they’d  go  home.  Everything 
          would be fine.}

          _{An eerie light reflected off the Eluvian where there should
          be  none.  The  fist  tightened  around  her  heart.  Tamlen
          was no where to be seen. Listlessly, her feet carried her
          to the mirror, though she refused to touch it. She wanted
          nothing more than to smash it into tiny pieces.} 

          _{❝ Tamlen? ❞ Her voice  sounded  hollow, a  tremble  in
          the  pitch   the  only  emotion  she  could  muster.  Tighter
          and tighter that  fist  squeezed her heart until she thought
          she would die  from  the  pain  of  it.  Sinking  to  the  floor
          before the massive looking glass, she gazed hopelessly
          at its strangely reflectionless surface, as tough hoping to
          catch a glimpse of the one it’d stolen from her.}

                          _{Do you want to watch the sunset with me?}

          _{Unbidden, the words came to her mind. He asked her that,
          just the other night, but she’d  been  too  caught  up  in  her
          studies to make time for him. And now he was gone… out
          of her reach forever…}

          _{Wetness touched her face, tears she had  been  unaware 
          she’d shed rolling down pale cheeks. If was like she had
          been walking around in a state of comfortable numbness,
          and  it  was  only  with  the  realization  that  her  childhood
          friend   was  gone  that  her  grief  crashed  over  her.  The 
          young Keeper’s First curled in on herself, hands clutching
          at   her   chest where  she  was  sure  a hole gaped in the  
          place where Tamlen once resided.}

          _{Sobs and half choked please echoed through the stone 
          ruins, but no one answered. And no one ever would.}