Damn them. Damn them all, and their needs, and their platitudes, and their plans. They would never, could never, understand. She’d lost her best friend as well as her father; she had been cheated out of years of things that they all took for granted.

How could she possibly ever “get over” that? There would be a great, gaping wound in her for the rest of her life that would never be properly filled!

Except with tears, the tears that never seemed to heal anything inside her.

She had tried, these past moons at least, to do things that would keep her moving, keep her busy, keep her too concentrated on things outside herself to think. For a while, the sheer desperation of having to learn how to rule, of having to outwit her Council when they tried discreetly to shunt her aside or maneuver her into something she didn’t want to do, had filled that need to keep moving. She would work and plan and learn until she fell asleep, exhausted, and wake early to work again—and that had helped, at least, to keep things at bay. Keep moving, keep busy, keep her mind full, keep it all at a distance. Then, just as the urgency of all that began to ease, there’d been the preparations for the Festival to fill the silences, to force her to work, think, and not remember.

But now—now she had awakened this morning, knowing there was nothing, nothing between her and that vast, aching void that used to be filled with her father’s presence.

And anyone who found her crying like this would just never understand. They’d wonder why, after yesterday, she could be unhappy. Even if she tried to explain, they’d stare at her without understanding, then tell her that it was time she moved on, that it was time to leave her grief behind her. As if she could!

:Of course you won’t,:. Caryo said, very, very quietly. :And you shouldn’t. That would be wrong. How can you leave it behind you when it’s a part of you?:

The feeling that Caryo had somehow put comforting arms around her only made her sob harder. But Caryo didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with that.

:They keep telling me stupid things like “Time will heal it—”: she said, around the sobs that shook her entire body.

There was an ache in Caryo’s mind-voice that matched the aching of her heart. :Time doesn’t. All that Time does is make it more distant, put more space between you and what happened. It doesn’t heal anything. I don’t know how or what does the healing, but it isn’t Time.:

:Oh, Caryo, I miss him so much!: she cried.

:So do I.: