Bearer of the Curse

Thalia barely had time to catch her breath before Fel told her the bad news, plain and simple. Aureus had died. She hadn't expected Fel to beat around the bush and truthfully she was glad she hadn't. When it came to speaking about facts, Thalia had little need for small-talk. For a long moment she was silent, digesting his words. She'd dealt with death before, in a way. She remembered when Malleus had died, and she remembered the white-hot flash of rage that had started to bubble up when her brother had so callously brushed off his death. His death had meant something to her - to them - even if she'd never cried over it or properly mourned him.

The death of an Abraxas, a true Abraxas, was devastating and deeply painful, at least in a spiritual way. On the surface, the feeling was much stranger and hard for her to really decipher. She didn't feel the stinging of tears at her eyes, nor did she anticipate a sob to catch in her throat. Instead she felt like her brain was suddenly empty, a vacuum consuming itself, threatening to turn her completely inside out. He was dead. Gone. Perhaps in his death he might achieve more than he could ever hope to on earth, but still the loss felt all-consuming. The fact that there was nothing they could do about it made her feel terribly small and weak, quite unlike the wolf she'd been when she'd first explained to Eligos why she needed to come here.

"Oh," was all she managed to say, her tongue suddenly as heavy as lead. "Alright." The fact that her voice sounded millions of miles away was enough proof that she was suffering too, albeit in her own way. Oh. Was she wrong to have come here, to Abaven, she wondered now? Regardless, she needed to go home and attend his funeral. Theory would understand when she finally returned. Numbly she nodded and headed after her, certain that Fel would decipher her silence as well as anyone else could.