We camped in a field outside the city gates. Both of us were feeling glum after our time in the City Proper. We spoke little as we set up camp. Dinner was a quiet, cheerless affair. We turned in for the evening soon after it ended.
The sound of sobbing awakened me in the middle of the night. Myth was crying softly. I listened to her for a while, unsure what I should do. Would she want me to comfort her? Or did she need to be alone? In the end, I just lay there, listening to her, and did nothing.
My thoughts drifted to the girlhood fantasy I had had about elves. It seemed so foolish all of a sudden. Elves were not joyful persons longing to be free. Their smiles were merely skin-deep. And their hearts ached nonstop. Centuries of mistreatment had broken them. They were submissive to humans during the day. Then they cried away the night. Myth was showing me the brutal reality of what being an elf meant.
Sometime later, Myth quietened her sobbing. She sniffled a few times. Then she whispered, “He’s just like Absalom.”
I dwelled on that statement of hers, wondering what it had meant until I fell back asleep.