2024-07-18 - [ 5-1 ] heavy rain

Separation
BY W.S. MERWIN
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

The world felt too off-center, too loud, too stimulating. Her body ached, and her nerves were frayed. To top it all off, the sounds—ALL of the sounds—the new dull roar of where she was dutifully relocated to, and the memory of the world being rent asunder, all persisted in Synnevath’s mind. The awful, awful sounds, the psychic bombardment, the absence of Pycgloith. She knew, she intuited, there was an awful knowledge here, a strange feeling, this absence. She wondered about Issodreth, who was gone too.

The snatches of Weyr-wide conversations, the errant words that drifted through her conscious mind, felt a thousand times more cacophonous now—too much, too much. Around her, the grief, the pain, of the Others stung. Being conscious felt so tiresome right now… Why? Why did this happen? WHY?

It seemed she had been spared the brunt of it, though it took only a few experimental twistings, untwistings to recognize that some level of structural integrity had been compromised in her perfect oval egg cradle. When she did move this way, the change in sensation and fluid dynamics only reminded her of her mother’s scream, of Pycgloith’s light snuffing out in the dark, and the present dilemma.

Despite the physical space afforded to Gwillanth and her clutch, the sorrow was palpable. It seeps into every fiber of her being, raw and tender as the sounds and feelings repeated endlessly in Synnevath’s thoughts. Her mother’s pain and sorrow sickened her so. made it impossible for Synnevath to even place the why of… well, anything, really. She wasn’t sure why we afforded Issodreth such gravitas, only that it felt unthinkable to do otherwise.

In fact, she scarcely recalled whether Gwillanth had made much mention of her before. It was inescapable, though. In the midst of such grief, the sentiments of the Weyr writ large were as blatant as an open book, and there was much concern over Issodreth—so much that it bled into her own thoughts. She found herself fretting too, her mind angled towards this great presence, which right now was as unreadable as nighttime fog.

Issodreth, you are far, far away.
Is Pycgloith there with you now?
Issodreth, your Nillipa misses you so.
Will you come back to us?