TW: Depression / suicidal ideation.

Now that Oswald was safely delivered, her final mission completed, Roisin turned herself toward the Ridge’s namesake. Her eyes traced the familiar outline of that rugged peak, and she remembered the last time she’d braved those drops. She’d been so close to giving up last time, so sad and afraid that she saw no path forward.

Now, she saw the path forward, saw the listless, apathetic life she would lead… and rejected it. This time, it felt less like giving up, and more like a gift. Her own little present to the world. A removal of the mediocrity she would otherwise embody, and – selfishly – an escape for herself. She didn’t want to see herself become forgotten while she still had air to breathe; to see those that she loved continue to choose others instead of her, to seek relief from her presence while she pined after them.

Dusk was almost done falling, the sky nearly black save for a highlight of brilliant red-orange at the horizon, before Roisin started her trek upward. With Oswald’s keener-than-usual hearing, she wanted to make sure that he was asleep before… just in case. She didn’t want him to find her, after. To know what had happened.

By the time she reached the highest crag it was barely light enough for her to look down at the lower foothills, now forever altered by the mudslide some years ago. Roisin had been gone then, but she could see the aftermath: the muddy shoreline, and the growing cave where the water continued to eat at the mountain. She could see it now – the joyless leap into the void, the water that would close over her head, the oblivion that would find her after the impact or the loss of breath.

And yet she hesitated, her gaze lifting to the horizon as the red leeched from the sky, leaving only a faint smudge of fiery orange behind the distant treetops. She hesitated, and she did not know why.