[The feelings trapped in that memory play out as the following--
(There are snippets, all snippets - somethings you get the context, and sometimes it is just a wave of emotions crammed in from years and years and felt just at once)
You are heartbroken, lost, ready to just lie down and die -- that would be it, that would be all there is, no one would miss you, the only person who ever cared is gone and-- (there's a little hand holding an older hand, one is warm the other is cold)
it'd be easy--
but you find meaning again, or the meaning finds you. (two figures, both hardened by this life, one looks like you the other is softer, a girl) You grow. You change. You learn to love life, learn to know the place you're in isn't what you want. There is loneliness there despite being surrounded by people. (The flash of people, the flash of hands digging into pockets and stealing coin) A crippling sadness, a feeling of failure, of worthlessness, of not being meant for this place. (looking up at the buildings so far away, not ripped down like these ones here)
You are not meant for this place.
(tears, shouts)
(they beg)
There's the pain of having to rip away from them, the feeling that you are being selfish, that you are doing what you must -- that they will be okay without you. They won't care at all. They won't even remember you.
(street corners, streets, endless, larger streets - cleaner - the flash of a fluer-de-lis, a blue cloak)
Safety. Security. Belonging.
And then (the pauldron ripped away, your shoulder bare) you are back in that place, where it is heartbreak and desperation and fear. And there he is again. You never forgot him, and you wondered if you forgot him.
(that same face from so many years ago, older now, now a woman - being shot, falling, gripping her shoulder in pain)
(A knife, trying to get your back -- stabbed first before you are stabbed)
Failure. Heartbreak. Anger -- so much anger, frustration, confusion.