The weight of the past few hours lays heavy on her chest and she cannot shake the feeling that no matter which way she turns, she will be making a mistake. There are no right answers left to her. Life has become a game of figuring out which path would hurt the least number of people that she held dear.

Their bodies press together as the sum of her sins is laid bare, delivered into his open hands with the air of someone going to their final judgment. It feels as though these moments, these precious few moments, are her only chance to bring him back to her. To regain some sliver of what had once brought her so much fulfillment, even among the pain.

His nickname for her brings her amber eyes to a slow close as she clings to the salt-touched scent of him. How could she bear to part herself from him again? It was one thing for him to leave her in the unknown, for the unknown held some sort of potential for reunion. But if they parted now, Siobhan knew that it would be the end. She would forever be rending the part of her heart she had given to him from her chest, and it would be the end. Could she truly separate herself from the man who had healed her heart once already, and seen her come from her darkest depths back to the light? Even now, as her heart grew to encompass Ailill too, it was Bjorn's face that she dreamed of most nights. It was his touch she craved when the memories of her first daughter threatened to swallow her whole. It was for him that she wandered the Ridge's empty beaches at night, searching for him.

How could she survive without him again?

You are my everything. Hope blooms in her chest at his words and a tremulous smile flutters on her lips, daring to believe that he had changed his mind. That he would place them above his need to take the Inlet, that he would value their relationship over whatever it was that had driven him to the Inlet and Nyimara. Confusion colors the hope in her eyes as he heaps praise onto her. It is undeserved, she knows and it sours the sweet taste of him in her mouth. Siobhan's courage in the Lagoon had been as much by accident as by design, and while it is true that the Lagoon's raid had awoken in her a darker part of her heart than she was comfortable with, she was no match for the likes of her grullo lover or silver queen. Their taste for blood was one that she would never understand.

The tension inside of her builds, until the note of finality in his voice as he points her to the sky crumbles the fragile hope she'd been harboring. Never forget, he says, as though this is the last time they will see each other. As though this is the end.

An ugly choking sound slips from her lips as she holds back the sobs, resting her gaze on the stars he pointed her to for only a moment before fixating back on his face. If this was to be the last moments she would look upon him, then she would spend every last fraction of
each second drinking in every detail of his face.

I can't. Again he turns her down, and Siobhan shudders in place, her whole body trembling. Her words are barely audible, but she cannot let him go without trying again. "You can."

You belong here, he says, and it is almost enough for her to let her pride crumple and anger go. A part of her wants to cast everything to the wind, if only so that she can be with him. Her place should be at his side, against his body, giving and taking from his strength so that they were both more whole together. But she cannot. There is too much between them now, and she knows in her soul that Roisin would be in danger on Tinuvel with no winter coat to speak of.

Where it is safe for you to raise your children, he continues and it breaks her heart to hear him so removed from her family. He doesn't even claim his blood daughter in his parting words, but then, why would he? After all, he had already left Roisin behind for most of her childhood, why not sever the connection completely? Forget that she and her daughter ever existed so that he could go on to create the war-torn legacy he so craved.

The anger that had simmered low beneath the pain of heartbreak and torment of hope flared again, and stiffened her knees to prevent the steps she would have otherwise taken to follow him. It locks her lips from more pleading or desperation. He reaches for her and she returns the caress, scarcely breathing to hold back the ugly sobs that make her bones rattle in their crimson cage. Siobhan leans into him, drinking deep the scent of her love, but lets him retreat from her.

She lets him go, and part of her dies for doing so.

She stands as a frozen sentry as his form wades into the ocean, as unmoving as the rocky spine of the Ridge that rises through her jungle home. It is only when the dark spot of his mane is no longer distinguishable from the waves that she breaks. She crumples to her knees and screams her sorrows into the sand.