We younger ones returned to heaven well before sunrise. I would have gone directly back to Earth after the flight, but Orison had urged me to rest a few hours after the flight. I did as he said, because I want to assure my seniors that I will obey. But it was very difficult to wait, and as soon as the sun was up, I was in flight again.
Despite the early hour, I found Freya already awake, sitting in her bedroom with a cup of coffee. Friends, I had forgotten how beautiful she is. The light of her aura, the tumbling of her red hair, the kindness in her eyes—there truly is no one like her.
But looking at her, I could see that all was not well with her. There was weariness hanging over her, as if she has been having trouble sleeping, and shadows gathered even among her flames. She watched the steam curl up from her coffee, trying to summon the energy to get up and do something, but unable to find it.
She has been lonely. It may have not been only because of my absence, but that was a part of it.
I came to stand beside her and put one wing around her shoulders. “I am sorry I was gone for so long,” I whispered to her. “But I am here now. And I will not leave you again. I have fought for you, Freya, and I will continue to fight.”
And before my very eyes, the flame of her aura began to leap higher. She took a deep breath and another, and her shoulders lost their slump, and her eyes lost their glaze. She glanced around, sighed with relief, and scrambled up to get started with her day.
I spent most of the day with her. She did many things that she has been putting off: she wrote several emails, cleaned the house, called Kara—“where the hell you been, Cobb?”—and her mother, and requested an appointment with the vet for both of her cats. She was a bit amazed at the sudden burst of energy, but glad of it, and thought more than once that she felt like herself again.
I know that my seniors will worry that she is so dependent on me, but I do not think that is the case. She would have been all right; a low period is not going to stop my fire woman. And if I had been able to leave with a bit more closure, she would not have felt so abandoned in her spirit. Everything happened so fast, and it was not the best of partings.
I am just glad that I could come back to her. And there is a simple solution for her dependence on me—I will just have to stay with her always. That would not be a hardship for me.