FACT: It is folly to fear the night

“Don’t say that. He was a jerk.”

“No he’s right, at least partly,” she said raising her head to face Aubrey. “Regardless of how we view ourselves, we owls have a responsibility to all the other races. You understand. You gnomes view us as gods. What if one day you found out that your god wasn’t special, wasn’t any better than you? It would tear apart your society. I don’t regret meeting you Aubrey, I truly don’t. But my reasons in doing it were selfish and indulgent.”

“You’re saying what he’d like you to say.”

“No. I have a responsibility to my own people. Just as you have a responsibility to your own people.”

“I have a responsibility to what? To lie and pretend like none of this ever happened?”

“It might be best.”

“I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that.”

She remained silent and instead turned to face the blackness of the night. Aubrey once again found his questions unanswered. After everything that had happened over the last month, how could he ever go back to normal? He couldn’t simply ignore all that had seen and heard--- and felt. The stories in his library would no longer suffice. There was something deeper burning in him now that had been absent all of his life. He could no more turn his back on that inkling--- whatever it was, than to tear off his own arm or leg. Now to see the impetus of that change abandoning the joyful defiance that had first drawn him out of his isolation was too much to bear. He could not stand to see the fire of independence put out in Adrianna, not for his own sake, but for hers.

“I can’t forget you. I can’t forget what you’ve shown me.”

“Goodbye, Aubrey.”

He remained in the clearing long after Adrianna had gone. He listened to the wind rushing through the oak trees. He watched the night animals on their nocturnal parades and heard their mournful songs. One by one, even they disappeared into their nests and hollows; the whip-poor-wills and foxes and the opossums. He stayed long after the moon had fled leaving him surrounded only by the crushing weight of darkness.