Sleeping was not something Eithne had been doing much of. Passing out after the battle in the now fallen tower was easy enough, but after that... there had been no sleep. No dreaming. No resting. Some of them had returned to the rubble, she'd returned to the rubble. And she'd helped clear some away when she did have the strength in her arms for it. She helped keep fires that kept springing up at bay, or at least smaller. Putting a whole one out wasn't exactly her forte, but she could get them small enough so that water and dirt would do the rest for it. She did it without smiling, without talking. Hardly breathing. She just wanted to forget it all and couldn't. This is what happened when you played with the Red House. This is what happened when High Houses went unchecked for so long. So long. Years upon years. Twenty was it? Long enough for a new life, nearly long enough to be her whole life.
When she was done with it, when she could do no more without screaming in madness she found herself in a bed and tried to sleep. But could not. She found herself beside Eragos and tried to pray but could not. What Gods really listened? What Gods even cared about them anymore? When an entire race of beings can be wiped from the world with fire.. by mere men. Men with power, yes, strange powers... but men. Men could do that. No God moved to stop them. She'd stopped believing long before that. Stopped, and never began again. The only thing she could do was pray in the place of Cols. Cols who believed still. Believed in all of them. Believed and died for it. Every time she accepted his death she questioned it. Cols was dead, Cols should not have been dead. How could that have happened to Cols, of all people. To Birloch of all people. To any and all of them.
And she'd wept. There was nothing else she could have done but cried for everything they'd lost. Not the chance at the courts, or the documents, or even the idea. But the people. Cols, Birlock, Raed, Martine, Thiele, Tanist.. the list just kept growing. The girl. The little girl. She cried until she could not cry any longer, and then she was sick. She couldn't keep anything down now, and her throat was raw for it. Her eyes were raw. Her hands were raw from clearing debris and rubble.. and trying.. desperately to make something out of the ruin. An idea, a mission, a purpose. How did they fight this? How could they ever hope to win? Where was Gola now? What had happened when the building fell, how had it fallen? How could anyone be that powerful and yet they were unable with all of them to kill one person. Just one person.
A million questions could be found, but not one answer as far as Eithne could see. The wine went untouched. The table went untouched. Her eyes could not focus on a single person for very long. What small measure of happiness she'd held close during that fight seemed so long ago, and too far away now. Eragos was blaming himself, Grees was blaming himself, Vera was probably blaming herself, Bahn blamed them, Tirad was a fucking coward. Part of her wanted to leap across the table and take everything out on his pristine uniform. If Tirad had not run off without anyone else. Then Cols would not have gone without them. If Cols hadn't been there then it would have been Bahn, or herself that would have gone after Tirad.
She could blame Tirad for Cols' death until she was blue in the face but it would be for nothing. You could not help the dead. They were dead. You had to help the living. Even Eragos' once encouraging words seemed hopeless now. He didn't even believe them now did he? He didn't. He was full of hopelessness, as much as the rest of them. And yet, Eithne could not help but think that this, doing what they were doing now, was less than anything they'd done up to that point. Sitting and thinking accomplished nothing. Going out and finding something, someone, would have been more than this. She did not want to sit still.