Time To Say Goodbye
There Sana stood, watching them leave as the wind kicked up around the remains of the slavers once proud encampment; a den of horror and savagery. The bodies of their foes scattered the ground. The emaciated remains of those who had been captured but not survived laid with hollow eyes staring out into the abyss of nothingness that was the death that had claimed them; their bodies having been crushed beneath the soles of those that had survived and that were now on their way back to the hopeful safety of the village that was several miles south. Small fires still flickered from the various fires that had been burning when they arrived, one was larger than the rest; the one that had claimed Sanas skin when she was brought down by the ravenous dog that attacked her.
The group slowly moved out of sight behind distance and trees and it was not until then that Sana turned and looked fully at the harsh reality that lay before her. It had been seen on their arrival but battle had ensued quickly and then there were other things that kept ones eyes focused away from the bigger picture. Now she saw the forest that lay beyond the trees. She knew she shouldn’t have stayed behind, alone to face this. Her emotional state was already so fragile but this was something that needed to be done and after the loss of her father and the knowledge that the rest of her family was
gone; the gypsy did not need those that did not know her around, nor did she need comfort at that time, Sana needed to be alone.
Life was full of twists and turns but it seemed that no matter how far you traveled you always ended up facing your past once again; no matter how long you had tried to avoid it. For as long as Sana remembered she had fled the life of the gypsy. She had rejected what she was, not wanting to be an entertainer, a vagabond, a courtesan and yet here she was staring at the very face of the one that had been the reason she was born into that world. Life had come full circle for her and her fathers last words rang in her mind,
I’m sorry I drove you away. Kneeling down she took his hands and placed them over his chest, “I forgive you,” she whispered; rising she sought out some means to lay her fathers body to rest, eventually finding a shovel she could only assume was there to bury the bodies of those that had not been strong enough for the trade.
Seeking and finding a quiet spot away from the tainted earth of the camp she began to dig, dust and dirt kicking up with each strike to the earth and in turn it being tossed aside. Memories of her life before her days on the road, before the years of loneliness, flooded her mind as she went deeper and deeper. She was not remembering the fights, the pressure; she was remembering the good of watching her father play and her mother sing; them teaching her and her sister through song and tale. With each mound of soil that was tossed over her shoulder was like a weight lifted off her shoulder. She was burying the past and coming to peace with it. With each toss of earth she found solitude in what she was as if it was an unveiling and acceptance.
Climbing from the hole she wiped the sweat from her brow and understood that she did not have to choose between being what she was and what she had been. They were both parts of her and that was okay. Shuffling over to her fathers corpse she hefted it up and moved it to its final resting place deep within the earth below. Pulling a silver arrow from her quiver she placed it over his chest and rested two copper coins over his eyes; climbing back out she did what was needed to cover the body that no longer held his soul. There would be no marker to make his grave known; that was how it was, how it had always been. Closing her eyes she said goodbye to him and her family, souls that she could only speak to now through memory. No tears, not now. She just needed to hold on for now, to hold on to get through the day and the night.
