by Grass(Lit)
A trill came from behind her. She did not need to turn to know who was there. He touched her neck as delicately as a leaf fall, a claw barely extended, the tiniest prick.
"Now?" she breathed.
He dropped her pack on the ground beside her.
She wavered. "I haven't said goodbye to Tony, to Stella!"
Silence.
She had said goodbye. Every hour of the past season had been goodbye. Father James had given her his blessing only this morning. There was nothing left to say. He touched her once more.
"I must finish this," she said, bending above her letter.
... We did not become. We did not change.
But change must come. Risk must come. God knows there are enough of us that we can afford some losses! Why else are we so many? And though the grass be numberless as stars, there must still be a first shoot set out to make a garden...
She had not said goodbye to Persun, Perhaps better that she not say goodbye. Considering everything....
One of the foxen and I are going on a journey. No one knows whether we will arrive anywhere or be able to return. If we do not, someone else will, eventually. There are enough of us that we may go on trying, as long as it takes.
His claw touched her again, teasingly.
She sorted through the pages, setting them in order, knowing they wouldn't tell Rigo what he wanted to hear or even what she wanted to say. There was no time to write another letter, and what could she express otherwise? Perhaps, if things had been different along the way, Rigo would have been with her today. He had chosen to go back. She had chosen to go on. There was no blame in either choice.
She looked up at the city, seeing the wind-thrown shadows move among sun-dappled trees. The letter could be left here in the desk. Tony or Rillibee would find it and see that it was sent. She had never intended her departure to be ceremonial.
Now, He said like a trumpet. Now. There were others with Him, a great many others. Whether Marjorie had intended ceremony or not, the foxen had come to say farewell.
She wrote the last few words and signed her name, as she knew it, wondering whether Rigo would be relieved that she had gone or annoyed that she was past pursuit. What use would he make of these pages? She set the desk on Mainoa's grave. Duty was done, but there were still promises to keep.
They were all around her. She mounted the familiar mirage and arranged herself. A hundred yards away, the Arbai transporter glowed with bubble light, nacreous glimmers, a veil of mystery within the loop. There was only one way to test it: by going through. Decorum, she told herself as they approached. One should go toward one's destiny with decorum.
"Marjorie," she said aloud, voicing the last words she had written so she could hear how they sounded. He did not know her as Marjorie. This might be the last time she heard her name.
Marjorie,
by the grace of God, grass.
Amen.
The End
