They had buried her today.

Achates stood over the coffin for a few hours, staring and waiting for her to move, or smile, or laugh; it had taken the Matriarch grabbing him gently by the shoulders to guide him to his seat when the service began in earnest. The Aldor priest made do as best he could to a tough crowd of mostly sin'dorei. He did not remember a word of it.

The others had been surprised he had not cried, but he simply sat with his hands in his lap, staring. Once they saw him fully it made sense - the shuffling widower's gait, the broken look in his eyes. His better half was gone.

His sudden change in appearance made him look to be the oldest in the room, despite the Matriarch's greying hair - all from stress, she said - and Skalgrim's walking staff. Lady Lianthe had been first to hug him in a maternal manner after it was done and there was only a gravestone left, telling him with gentle motherly firmness that he could get through this and they all loved him and were worried for him. Even the orc - hair white, near-blind now due to the time that had passed - eased out of his usual gruffness to tell Achates gently that death was followed naturally by rebirth and growth.

It helped, up until the point where they had walked him to the door of the cottage they had bought outright from Majordomo Drestor so many years before. The house was the same, but not quite same in spirit. He thought of a nap, but staying to one side of the bed as if waiting for her to come home just made it harder. He knew he needed to eat, but the pantry was full of leftovers she had helped to cook. The house was so full of her, and the grief so overwhelming as to prevent tears - he didn't know what to do.

In almost dreamy, mechanical movements he made himself some soup, spooning out two bowls once it was done. The dining table had only ever seated two, and it seemed right that it still should, so he set out silverware and soup for her as well. He wasn't truly thinking when he went to the living room mantle and took down the portrait - a delicate thing in oils of her smiling face that had been a Winter's Veil gift. He placed it on the table, with her soup and her spoon, before sitting down himself. The screetch of the chair against the floor was the loudest sound the house had heard in days.

"So, my lovely Chie, how was your day?"

And he smiled, and he stared, and he waited for an answer. It was only when his soup was cold that he began to cry in earnest.