The soft rapping on the door had been expected for several days, and now Jahrae could guess who was calling for entry into her flat.

She thought of simply ignoring the incessant rapping, but she decided the easier course was simply to release the door. Grabbing the nearby hand-held remote, she moved the screen cursor to door → unlock, and touched the word on the colour screen.

The door lock released. On the opposite side of the door, M’traliel watched the light change to signal entry. She reached and twisted the old fashioned looking knob, swung the door open, and tentatively walked in.

Jahrae looked up towards her older friend with eyes that betrayed all of the duress and pain from the horrors they had endured in this year. M’traliel felt very much responsible for her friend’s condition, for she was the initial spark of organisation. It was M’traliel who ran the mundane day to day doings of an organisation which by necessity moved and operated in clandestine ways and circles.

Llhaesa was the public face of their organisation and point of view, a very prominent and public spokesperson; people found her to be charismatic, caring, formidably intelligent, and yet a person who made no bones about the fact she was a commoner, one who conveyed her point of view without introducing anger, without looking to destroy. She looked to make better, and people understood.

“Exactly why all of this has happened” M’traliel mused without giving voice to her thoughts. Llhaesa – her music, her advocacy, her willingness to stand and be counted – represented in fact an all too real threat not only to Brellian’s position and power, but to the entire archaic societal framework he had sworn to serve and enhance.

M’traliel sat down next to Jahrae, who was obviously a mess, steadfast in her desire to, if not check out of this life, continue living through self inflicting the greatest possible suffering, and through an outlook rooted in thumbing her nose at an existence where any of this was possible.

Reaching out and placing her hand on Jahrae’s, M’traliel softy spoke. “I know there is little that can be said in this moment that will erase your pain and your loss, Jahrae. Yet you have to remember you are loved, and you are appreciated for what makes you, you. There is so much more, but try to remember this was not a one person show, even if Llhaesa was a leader who surfaces perhaps once in a millennia. Loss is part of life, and it challenges us. Challenges us in ways we may not understand, but which carries with it choices. We can choose to give up, we can choose to learn, we can loose to carry on.

And I’ve a hunch that this movement, which is by no means destroyed, will be stronger than ever when we set our minds back to the goal you know Llhaesa would wish for us to continue working towards.”

“It is how we may best honour her memory – by bringing about what she gave her life to achieve. You can set there and wallow in your misery, you can set there and embrace your pain like your newfound best friend, but Llhaesa would not be happy with this development and this crutch you are leaning on.”

Jahrae looked over at M’traliel with the anger of ten worlds. Anger that also showed the hidden pain of understanding something she did not wish to understand. Her mouth moved to form a word, stopped, tried again, but it appeared to require Jahrae to expend too much energy, or else something inside called her back from lashing out and hurting someone she loved.

Jahrae slouched back into her perch of indifference.

M’traliel rose, and made her way to the kitchen. Checking the food stocks, there was little in the way of good sustenance to be found.

Heading for and opening the door, she hesitated but a moment, long enough to offer up “I’ll be back” and softly closed the door behind her. “Time to do some shopping” her mind resolved; M’traliel was committed to a new and more immediate task.