Reddish streaks of sunlight kissed the darkened sky, as the first rays of morning brushed across the horizon. A silent figure sat, cradling the head of another in her lap. To all who watched, the lithe form looked like that of a boy, a young lad who had lost his dearest friend. The light of flames danced across her tear streaked face as her hand gently brushed aside the wisps of hair the wind kept blowing into his lifeless face. She cried tears of silence, her agony too great for words.
A hand gently rested on her shoulder, and a gruff yet kind voice echoed through the still dawn air. "Roka, lad, we mus' be gettin outta here. 'Tis not safe fer the likes o' us ta be stayin in this harbor." The woman nodded silently, her hand brushing across the man's face one last time. Bending over his unmoving form, she kissed his forehead gently. Whispering quietly, so that the man behind her could not hear her words, she said, "Farewell my love. May Akean guide your soul, and may Inara be kinder to you in death than most were to you in life."
Finally a small sound escaped her lips, as she fought back the pain that seared through her. "I love you," she spoke, her voice even softer than before. Gently, she lay his head on the dock and rose. Her long arms and legs making her look gangly. Her head drooped as if the weight of the world rested upon it. Turning away from the one man who had shown her true kindness, her gaze found Jhilan's. "I'm ready." She said, her voice still broken with her grief.
The old sea dog turned, and on legs wobbly from being so long at sea, he crossed the dock to where their ship waited. As Roka passed by him, he put a hand on her arm to stop her. "Dakar was a good man. No finer lived on the sea. 'Tis a shame ta see his body left in such a way, but 'tis none what can help him now lad."
Roka simply nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Pulling the mantle of boyhood about her, she receded back into her disguise. If Jhilan had guessed her secret, he wisely kept it to himself.
Soon the ship pulled from the harbor, the sails billowing in the now brightened sky. A solitary figure stood upon the deck, her face a mask of numbed sorrow. With one final glance at her love, she turned, placing him within her past. **I will survive.** She thought sadly. **I always do.**
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Roka - Sailor/Thief *~* Author: Roni Alsman