Iilarius

A lone figure stood shattered upon a dusty plateau, her whole frame distraught with loss. Her immaculate robes fringed with the finest Orbis gold silk fluttered like abandoned window shutters and were dirtied by the thousand year-old dust swept up by the wind. Tears rolled down silent cheeks, collected the earth in them, and fell down the cliff face, propelled by eventuality and bitter reality. It was nearly poetic, the way the wind tried to purify her, as if her pain could be wafted out through her auburn hair. Earth and wind. “Stubborn change, why do you, even now, continue?” she thought, adding to her tragic collage of reminisced moments. He, buried in Perion soil, now spoke to her, his spirit becoming the very grains that cut at her face and kept her from falling into oblivion. Why, Dokren?

“Iilarius,” one of the three arriving figures behind her said gently, his voice churned by the wind. When she did not respond, he called to her by nickname, “Little Leaf, it is time.” The two men on his sides walked forward slowly, respectfully. As they reached out to take her elbows into their own, she turned, violently.

The vehemence on her face clearly registered. Then, with a sudden gust of wind, her features softened to a bittersweetness that arose from regret. Several seconds passed and then she looked at the handsome, regal elder whose eyes mirrored her regret and showed compassionate understanding.

“Forgive me, great one,” she said, looking at and through the man who called for her.

“Goodbye, Little Leaf, may your journey be peaceful,” the elder sorrowfully smiled.

Tears sprung forth from her silvered eyes, and just after, an aura of peace came across her face, as if she already felt the extinguishing breeze that would eternally soothe the suffering of heart that she had endured her entire life. The wind called strongly, its power lent to it by the earth below that also called. She leaned backwards, arms extended outwards, hands towards the heavens. The two men leaped to grab her, but could not hold her spirit. Her reddened strands of glory burst into an ephemeral flame and instantly freed her of tangible possession. The sun and its scorching rays both now seemed somehow irrelevant, all their majesty dwarfed by the purity of being that now was at the edge of the cliff. Iilarius closed her eyes and let the wind take her.