We had the grim task of deciding how and where to dispose of the bodies. Despite the necessity of using weapons that could obliterate the bodies of the dead, I could see the horror in the eyes of those who sat there with me. The fire-scars left behind by the battle cut dark swathes through our souls. It haunted all of us, all those eternal lives cut short with such brutality, and when I decided that instead of burning the dead we would bury Lyraniorn in mass graves and the soldiers outside the garrison, for the sake of having somewhere to mourn, no few of us wept.

The grim task of digging those graves began, all hands who could be spared turning to it, and I sent people Earth-side to buy us some nice, powerful magnets for collecting the iron nails we'd used for traps and shrapnel. I tried to volunteer myself to help dig, and was told in no uncertain terms that my duties remained in the Antlered Palace, and that it would do more for our people to see me helping them here than to see me digging trenches for the dead.

Dain roused in the late afternoon, in something of a panic, and I left in the middle of a discussion about how to plan for the task of dealing with the trail of destruction between here and Lyraniorn to go to him. Wild-eyed, he shoved me down onto the bed and flung himself over me, burying his face against my neck and wrapping the majority of his limbs around me. I petted his hair and made soothing sounds until he managed to wake up enough to recognize that we were safe, that the war was over, and to remember that we were balanced soulmates and that I wasn't going anywhere.

He let me squiggle out from under him with reluctance, but when I promised that I'd come back to bed later he settled down and fell back asleep. I stayed with him for a few minutes longer, anyway, and after some prevarication took off my shirt and left it next to his face, so he'd have the comfort of my scent. Nobody dared comment when I returned to the sitting room clad in one of his shirts, instead.