KOTLC Sokeefe One-Shots, Alternate Endings, etc

Grief (Edaline POV)

When they arrived, a massive fire was destroying Brant's home. Brant had multiple burns, including several marring his face.

"Jolie?" Grady shouted, trying to get Brant's attention. "Where's Jolie?"

No answer, just Brant falling to his knees, sobbing.

"NO!" Edaline screamed, lunging toward the house, her only thoughts bent on finding and saving her daughter.

A hand reached out and grabbed her. She'd assumed it was Grady, pulling her back so that he could go in instead, but it was Brant.

"It's too late," he barely managed to choke out. "I already tried. She's gone. She's..."

But he apparently didn't have the strength for any more words.

Elwin arrived, satchel slung across his shoulders.

But Edaline barely noticed as he began asking questions.

Didn't know when Elwin forced a sedative down Brant's throat in order to make him stop thrashing around.

Didn't see Elwin begin to treat Brant's burns as he hailed the Council.

Was completely unaware of all twelve Councillors arriving on the scene, putting out the fire, talking with Elwin.

All she felt was the way that everything she'd ever known was fracturing.

Grady clinging to her, his shuddering sobs matching her own.

It wasn't until Alden and Della arrived, throwing their arms around their friends and sharing in their grief, that Edaline realized the fire was out. Apparently one of the Councillors had hailed Alden.

And the grim looks on the Council's faces was enough to tell Edaline that she really didn't want to walk into what was left of the house and see what they'd just seen.

All that mattered was that she would never see her daughter again.

Eventually, they found themselves at Everglen.

Alden and Della had leapt with them, not trusting them to be up for leaping alone, and not wanting them to have to face Havenfield just yet.

Elwin offered them sedatives so that they could get rest to face the next day, but they both refused.

Della, with tears streaming down her face, wrapped an arm around Edaline's shoulders. "I think you should listen to him. This will be difficult enough without adding sleeplessness on top of it."

"No," Edaline said with more force than she'd have thought herself capable of. "I won't allow any moment where I'm not thinking of her. I don't want to forget. My baby..." she began to sob again.

They hailed Juline and Kesler, asking them to come urgently to Everglen. Edaline knew Kesler would have refused to visit a Vacker home if he hadn't been able to tell something was very seriously wrong.

But they hadn't expected to hear that Jolie had died.

The shock nearly knocked both of them off their feet.

Having to say the words aloud seemed to almost be Grady's undoing.

"No," Juline had whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. "No...she was about to get married. We were going to have children together...let them face the scorn of being the children of a bad match together..."

Eventually, after many tears, hugs, and words of lament, the sisters embraced again. Kesler--usually so jovial--kissed Edaline's cheek with quiet sobs and squeezed Grady's shoulder wordlessly. Then, they leapt back to Rimeshire to process and grieve in peace.

Edaline found she couldn't stand the idea of going home. Not yet.

Grady, like Edaline, had hardly spoken. He'd had a quiet strength, answering questions Edaline didn't even seem to hear, but otherwise he simply let the grief overtake him as he held his wife.

Alden and Della sat with them. Wept with them. At one point, their young son Alvar had come into the room and asked, in a trembling voice, if he should ask the gnomes to fix them some food.

They all declined, but Della pulled Alvar into her arms and thanked him. "You need to eat, though, okay?" She whispered to him.

He nodded, but Della held on to him tighter, not letting him go.

I'll never hug Jolie again.

That thought brought on sobs so deep, so guttural, that they sent Edaline rushing outside to vomit.

The Council would be sending out scrolls that evening, announcing Jolie's tragic death and the planting that would take place the following afternoon.

Jolie's planting.

Edaline supposed they'd have to go back to Havenfield the next morning to get dressed in their green attire...and pull a strand of hair from Jolie's hairbrush to wrap around her wanderling seed.

This can't be happening. It's all a big mistake. Jolie can't be dead. We don't die. These things don't happen.

Alden and Della sat quietly with them, doing and saying nothing other than the occasional "we'll see you through this", holding their hands, hugging them as they cried.

The Vackers had known and loved Jolie as well.

Eventually, the tears slowed as dehydration took over.

But even though the tears had stopped--for the moment--grief had not.

She thought the pain of it might suffocate her.

She kind of wished it would.

And she would let it, if it did.

She'd let it and be grateful for the release from the torture of grief.

But that was something she could never admit.

Never articulate the fact that a very small part of her was now wishing for death too. Rest would surely be better than facing millennia without her daughter.

"I'm exhausted," she mumbled after some time. She needed to push those dark thoughts away.

Alden and Della's grief was simultaneously touching and draining to be around. It helped her and Grady feel less alone, but also pressed in on them, causing Edaline to desperately wish to be alone.

"Please stay here tonight," Alden implored them in a hoarse voice. "Don't feel like you have to go home yet."

Grady nodded and took Edaline's hand. Della lead them to one of the guest rooms and bade them goodnight.

"I don't think I'll be able to sleep," Grady admitted to her as they climbed into bed.

Edaline shook her head. "Me neither."

They found themselves weeping again, holding each other close. And eventually, sleep did find them.

But there was no reprieve. No release. No feeling of newness or a fresh start when she awoke after a few hours, the sun streaming in the windows.

There was nothing, nothing, nothing but the heavy weight of grief.