Grieve

The sand and the sea. Lagoon crystal arms on a sandstone clock face.

Something important was taken from us. When the wound bleeds the ocean boils red, staining mirrors. Responsibility attracts them.

I know. I'm disappointed too.

Grieve walks, an embodiment of a lost thing, a sadness that lingers. He is lost and he is found, old and dusty. He walks behind travelers and sleeps when they sleep. He is a curse, they say, and leave him behind, but where he does not walk in presence he walks in the caverns of mind. What he seeks-- will elude him no longer. He is six hundred kilograms of saltwater and wildclaw muscle and if travelers feel despair gazing upon him they know not of the protection he will offer, as resolute, as tenacious as his own infamy.

He is turned down often, pushed out of the way, or left and forgotten. There are other, more charming entities that will allow worse harms. Grieve is a hollow sun, dusty and light, a little too bright to look at, and easy to turn away from. He is not sugar lace on pale bone, and while it would seem such a thing will dissolve in water it is more often that Grieve is denied and the desire of a sweet tooth is what outlasts, and the rot it hides.

He trails after them anyway, unwilling to leave them to their fate.