#no post next week as I prepare to move forward from this gigantic milestone in the story

[jorvikpov]

While you turned your eyes away for what felt like no more than a moment, the island stepped away from the firm, safe embrace of summer and into autumn’s melancholy gold. Now, the sun hangs low in the sky even though the evening is still early, and its golden beams shine with as much warmth it could possibly muster over the southwestern ocean. A gentle wind blows along the shore, rustling every leaf and every blade of grass in its way, and despite your coat you shiver just a little.

You do not think of how she would have loved this evening. You do not think of how she might have been standing right where you are, watching the last rays of sun slowly disappear from the ruins’ stone walls, or how she might have sat in her kitchen over a cup of tea lit up by the golden evening light, or how she might have been tending to her garden in the ever-colder breeze, taking special care of the roses as their bloom slowly came to an end. By now, of course, they have already wilted, but it was all too early this year. The gardeners knew something was terribly, terribly wrong, they said, when overnight their rose bushes withered and died, their thriving garden suddenly no more than a mess of crumpled, brown decay.

The ruins are filled with all those who loved her and all those she loved. At the edge of the cliff overlooking the Jarl’s tomb and spilling out into the meadow of wildflowers stands, secluded, a large group of Druids clad in the same sort of silvery grey robes as always, hoods pulled up further and hems sewn longer than you have ever seen before. By what once was the corner of the Abbey stands the stargazer—or, as he would prefer to be known today, Elizabeth’s closest friend—with his gaze fixed on the darkest point of the sky and something like anticipation in his eyes, as if expecting to see a constellation that wasn’t there before. The innermost circle of the Keepers of Aideen has gathered around the central altar, so completely and entirely silent that they are a stark contrast to even the rest of the gathering, and in the centre of the half-circle they form lies a lone red rose. It bloomed this morning in the lovingly cared for wild bushes outside her cottage, one of its kind in the crowd of withered flowers surrounding it, and it will remain bright for as long as it is remembered and loved.

Even long after the memorial ends and the sun sets, your group of five remains on the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. When you finally leave, all of the Abbey’s candles have long since burnt out, the stars are so bright and countless that all of them cannot possibly have been there before, and left behind on one of the many memorial stones is a small, pink crystal.

By morning, even though it is far too early for the seasons to change, the wind will have turned and brought in a thick, chilling fog, and every one of Jorvik’s countless trees will be a vibrant shade of yellow. You will hear it, then, as a whisper in the rustling leaves, just as clearly as you will feel it in the sting of cold morning air in your lungs and see it in afternoon’s golden sunbeams disappearing over the horizon far too soon: even the island itself cannot remain the same without her.