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There was a long, heavy silence. Liamel’s shadow turned, looking wistfully out onto the village square and at just the right angle, it was almost as if he was staring right at me.

“It was just like this,” He spoke up again, gazing through me, and drifting a slow trembling hand across the empty air. “The quiet, the emptiness. And for a long time it stayed that way. See, only a sparse handful returned from the battle, with my mother being one of the many, many exceptions… and I was alone, and I was angry, and I… I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

“To great effectiveness,” Adalia affirmed, her tone empty with sympathy.

“Understood,” Liamel sighed. “Not the most fascinating tale, I’m aware. I’ll spare you.”

Yet even as she said it, claimed it, I could see she didn’t exactly mean it as much as she believed. Her gaze was tilted slightly in his direction, falling into that old familiar habit of cocking her head at all things that had roused her interest.

And in this case…

“You don’t look angry,” She muttered to him.

.....

His silhouette chuckled, throwing his head forward in amusement. “No, I suppose not.”

“Should I try and surmise why?”

“Feel free.”

“Your anger had simmered. You finally saw things as they were, as they are. Accepted your futileness, your own weakness. You’ve learned to move past it, to be at peace with the way things are. And as such, since you’ve learned to bear with your own powerlessness…”

“You will too,” Liamel finished, nodding once.

“I am dying, you fool,” She said to him almost in exasperation. “I am supposed to be at peace with that? That soon I will breathe my last and no longer and nothing for me to do about it. I’m to simply accept my own demise?”

“Well, haven’t you already?” He tilted his head back at her. “Is that not precisely why you’ve given up?”

“I…”

“You will die, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re angry. That’s okay, be angry. You should be enraged. But you cannot stay that way forever, you know? It’s better to let it go, to accept. Anger is reserved for the living, Adalia. Sadness, bitterness, all those emotions, only those that still brim with life aplenty should be burdened with feelings like those. In your own words, you will be gone soon… so why aren’t you letting go?”

“Enough. You are making no sense to me,” Adalia muttered, shifting restlessly in place. “You are not allowed to dictate how I should feel. My emotions are my own. If you claim anger is unnecessary, then what’s the alternative—happiness? Why should I cling to that, if I am to lose that too? Utter nonsense. If I choose to remain bitter to the end, so be it then.”

“But I don’t believe that’s what you want for yourself.”

“And once again, just how would you know exactly what I am—?”

She was ready to snap at him, already had an impatient rasp in her throat addressing him, but the moment she turned to him, staring at the indiscernible expression etched on his face, Adalia fell into a swift silence.

If I had to guess, Liamel looked empathetic again… and this time, it seemed she genuinely believed it.

“I may not be dying, Adalia… but that does not mean I had not wished for it every day. That I still do not wish for it… someday… one day…”

“You want to die?”

“I want to be of use,” He corrected. “In battle, in servitude of all, death is the greatest pride that one is able to achieve. To die without purpose, that is the last thing I want to happen.”

There was an almost haunting echo to his words. So sorrowful, so yearning… yet simultaneously, so accepting.

“But I have no purpose, I have no use. As such, I have no death solely because I have no life. As I am, I just simply exist. Just wandering, just persisting, hoping that one day… that death will finally be allowed of me.”

The parallels were striking. They shared the same sense of inferiority, with their anger and bitterness surging within the same vein. So similar these two, yet at the same time, they couldn’t have been more of a contrast from each other.

“You claim you wish to save me…”

“Help you, Adalia,” He corrected her again. “Never save you. I can’t save you. It’s as you said—how am I to save anyone being the way I am?”

“Fine—but what purpose does any of this serve?” She asked in haste. “Help me? How is this helping? In what way is this supposed to be helping me? To insist I abandon my anger? To instead pass over with contentment—why? Why should I?”

“I do not insist you do. I just advise that you should. I sense your whole life has already been consumed by spite, hasn’t it? Would you really permit it to taint your death too? And what of your sister? Do you truly wish for her to always bear in mind that you have spent your final moments still wallowing in regrets?”

“Do not speak of my sister.”

Liamel smiled, or at least I supposed he did—the way he was gazing at her right then.

“At the very least, you can die knowing that you are still so deeply loved. That is more than some can say, more than I can say. Is that not some comfort for you?”

Adalia squirmed a little, her hands slowly stroking themselves over one another. It seemed this thought had never occurred to her.

“And rest assured, when that day, whenever it is, does finally come,” Liamel said. “Know that I shall also grieve deeply for you too.”

Her head gave a stiff turn. “You’ll mourn for me?”

“As I said, you’re one of ours, one of mine. Maybe not as friends, maybe not even as acquaintances, but… as a kindred soul,” He nodded at her. “Truly, Adalia, I sincerely wish I’d had more time to get to know you. If only I’d knocked on your door when I should. If only I’d help you sooner… but as things stand—kindness, as always—that is all I have to offer to you.”

It was here I noticed Adalia wasn’t heaving as hard as she used to. The strain and fatigue she once exhibited were completely nowhere to be seen—she even looked slightly better, not as hunched and not as rigid.

“Kindness…” She slowly shook her head at him, uncomprehending. “How—why kindness? When the world has shown you so much grief? When your life has been nothing but agony? To be so acutely aware of your own weakness, and yet do away with your anger, your bitterness regardless… how do you do it? Why do you do it?”

I was rattled hearing that. After so long, it was the first time I’d heard any semblance of emotion in her voice. I could hear her desperation, her curiosity burning, the confusion growing. The always astute, the always diligent Adalia, for once, left utterly befuddled. And of all things—kindness. It baffled her.

He baffled her.

Yet despite how perplexing and grandiose her tone had made it all seem, once again, in contrast, Liamel’s answer was as straightforward as can be.

“Because I am weak,” He reminded her, answered her. “And so I must be strong.”

She threw him another silent stare.

“Kindness, against the cruelty of this world…” Liamel continued on. “To still love and care, despite the odds, to not succumb to hatred… until I find a use for myself… this is how I choose to be strong.”

“Kindness…” She whispered again.

“Yes. And I know, without a doubt, Adalia, that you are stronger than me,” He gazed at her, a ghost of a smile imprinted in his swirling darkness. “And as such, I know that you can be kinder than me.”

She wasn’t questioning him anymore unlike all those other instances before. No derisive words, no scornful scoffs. Just a contemplative silence, as her darkness peered into his… and she cocked her head again.

“You are quite the strange individual,” She paused. “Um…”

“Liamel,” He sighed, slightly disgruntled. “You forget again.”

“I did,” She confessed. “Yet I’ll take care not to from now on.”

“Happy to hear it.”

“As I was saying though,” She Adalia cocked her back upright. “You are a rather peculiar individual… Liamel.”

“A-And what a rather interesting woman you turn out to be,” He stammered, voice giddy with satisfaction, which soon quickly fizzled. “Yet if only I’d had more time to know just how interesting…”

The wind blew colder. The sun shone a deeper black. Evening was falling fast, ringing his sentiments with an even greater sense of sorrow.

“Alas, perhaps it is still not too late just yet,” Liamel’s tone suddenly perked up again, and he awkwardly shifted himself again, twisting around, then, leaning his bare knuckles up against the bark of the tree, he gently rapped at it twice. “Knock, knock…”

Adalia’s silhouette looked just about ready to up and leave right there and then. Yet in spite of it, for some reason, she stuck around, hung her head, and heaved a not-so-dismal breath.

“Come in.”

It finally happened then—what I anticipated would happen so long ago, and right when I had just lowered my guard, eager to see more of the scene before me unfold, much like her anger, like her grief….

The darkness gradually faded away.