To Walk with Kings: Chapter Four

Chapter four

Saxum was furious. The blood pumping through his veins was hot and heavy with rage. Who was this stranger amongst them? Either simpleton or suicidal, she had jeopardized his herd and almost cost him Cacia’s life. Carelessness like that he could not forgive, and her mystery and foreign nature he could not trust. He glared at her, anger showing in the whites of his eyes, his nose sneered against her unfamiliar stink. She didn’t even smell like one of their kind, and that above all else, was warning enough for him.

Not a moment after they reached the safety of the Heron’s Marsh did he turn on the stranger. Like the others, she had been catching her breath, her eyes distant and her senses dim, defenseless and unprepared for Saxum’s attack. He charged; hitting her hard from the side and knocking the doe clear off her feet. Luckily for her, his anger was sharper than his tongs, which were dull from a winter of scrapping frozen bark from a petrified forest, but the force of the blow was enough. She bleated with fear and tried to roll over, failing to regain her footing, but managing to just barely miss the lunge of his hooves as he stomped the ground where her neck had been. She scrambled and kicked away, Saxon snorting and shaking his head back and forth as he tore at the air, preparing to strike again. When he reared to take a second charge, his path was suddenly blocked by another body, a familiar pair of eyes, furious and equally challenging, met his own and forced him down. It was Cacia.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” she bellowed at him, her head lowered in an aggressive stance, her flank twitching and soaked with sweat.

“Stand down, Cacia, she’s not one of us!” the peculiar doe seemed to look up at that moment, though none in the herd noticed.

“I will not! Saxum you shame yourself talking that way. She’s just afraid.”

“Afraid?” He scoffed, stomping the ground. “If she were afraid she would have run, not stood there waiting for their slaughter!”

“And you think that gives you the right to do as they would have done?!”

“Cacia!” The stag said his mate’s name with dangerous warning.

“You lack faith in her, I understand that, but don’t you dare lack faith in me!” She held his fiery gaze with a cold and knowing stare. Angry clouds of breath snorted from his nose in the chilled winter air, but he did not speak. “When was the last time I did something without meaning? Without a feeling that it was right?”

Saxum raised his head. He started to pace back and forth, always keeping his eye on the stranger and his mate who stood between them.

“I don’t trust her, Cacia. Just smell the creature, it isn’t natural.”

“I know, I smell it to. But this is one of those times when you have to trust me.” The others looked between them, knowing that Cacia had used such a warning before and together they recognized its meaning.

“She’ll put this herd in danger, it’s a bad omen!”

“Saxum!” she said defiantly. He reared once again and came down upon the ground with a hard and heavy stomp. And that was that. The five other hinds watched the scene with eyes wide and ears alert. Nervously their heads turned back and forth between the stag and the matriarch hind, not entirely certain who had won the argument. Saxum continued to pace, and eventually turned away from the fallen stranger, his herd parting as he went past. He was brooding, and one of the hinds, Rivus, an older female with dark oaky fur, went after him, the others preceding to whisper amongst themselves.

Cacia let out a tired breath and turned back to the doe. The terrified thing was trembling uncontrollably, and with good reason. Cacia had to restrain her own anger toward the stranger’s actions. Such reckless stupidity, and absolute disregard for one’s own mortality, she simply couldn’t fathom it. It was a thing worthy of abandonment in a world as dangerous as this, and in all common sense she should have granted the girl’s wish and left the doe to die. But by that greater power that compelled her, she knew that she could not. Now Cacia needed to know why.

“Get up.” She said, trying hard to calm her emotions. Having just witnessed her assertion of power, the one on the ground had no doubts toward Cacia’s authority and quickly yet clumsily obeyed. “What was that back there? Hey! Look at me. Huh? Why didn’t you run?”

The doe wouldn’t hold her gaze, her eyes kept falling in either shame or confusion. She was in shock, and Cacia could see that. But if she had gone against her mate to keep this stranger here, then she needed a good reason to have done so.

“She might be simple, Cacia.” A hind called Aeris said.

“It happens sometimes you know.” Agreed her older sister Aura.

“The simple ones don’t live to be as old as her though. Do they?” Whispered Flos, the youngest of the group.

“Not usually, no. Unless they are cared for by their families. But it is very uncommon.” Responded Herba, who was the most plain of them all, but often the most knowing.

“Perhaps she was separated from them then.” Flos offered, looking at the stranger with pity in her big round eyes.

“It happens sometimes.” Aura said again.

Cacia looked back at the whispering hinds, frowning at their speculations.

“Girls.” she shook her head at them, silencing their chatter. She didn’t think the doe was simple as the others suggested; the Goddess would not have spared her their protection if she were. But regardless of her actual mental state, Cacia realized that there would be no getting through to her while under the others’ interrogation.

Cacia approached the doe despite her attempt to retreat, and gently nudged her with her nose. She had hoped it would help calm the stranger, but to her sorrow it did not. Along with the in-deerlike response toward her gesture, Cacia also received a strong whiff of the other doe’s alien smell, and it frightened her. “Come.” She said, swallowing her fear, “Walk a ways with me and we’ll talk.”

The doe looked to the others warily and then nodded, following slowly beside her. Even before they were out of earshot, the herd took up their gossiping, nervously bobbing their heads in the direction of the stranger, dissecting her scent from the wind.

Once they were a ways away from the others, Cacia stopped. Looking at the doe in the moonlight she could detect nothing physically wrong with her. A healthy looking red to her flank shinnied with the same damp coat of sweat that they all wore after their escape. Her legs looked strong, her ears and nose moved in natural response to their surroundings, and her eyes… her eyes. Cacia hadn’t noticed it before or else couldn’t tell when the doe had avoided her gaze but, there was something about the girl’s eyes, some strange far away light that was unknown to her.

It reminded Cacia of a fire she had seen once when she was a fawn. Man had been carrying it in a torch, to light his way on a moonless night as he had rode on horseback across the eastern gorge. Though at the time she had not known the danger of what she had seen. In her memory it looked just like this did now, a fuming flame that moved by some strange power through the distant black. Such a thing had haunted her then. To see its memory in this creature’s eyes, though unnerving, only served to confirm her speculation about the one she had saved. It was a sign, an avowal by the will of the Goddess. They were meant to find her.

Cacia tried to find the right words. She felt she had to be cautious, yet kind in order to get the girl to trust her. “I’m sorry I yelled before. Are you alright? Were you hurt? When we found you, I mean.”

“You’re asking why I didn’t run?” The question was asked in a level tone.

Cacia paused, “Yes, I am.”

The curious eyes fell once more to the snow. “I… couldn’t.”

“It’s not uncommon to freeze under fear. But… you have to understand, what you did was very unnatural. You walked toward them. You… said something.”

Cacia paused, hoping the doe would understand.

She gave no sign of recognition, her eyes moving in long circles over the ground.

“Do you remember what you told me? I need to know why you would say something like that.”

No response. Slowly her ears lowered and her breathing grew shallow.

“Sweetheart?"

The other doe’s shoulders shook suddenly with a stifled gasp. Her body crippled under the weight of memory, her breath quickened, and as if only just waking up within her surroundings, her eyes darted from every shadow present and unseen, blinking compulsively against tears that she forbid to fall. Cacia tried to calm her, her soothing words falling to deaf ears until finally she thrust her head under the girl’s jaw and forced her to be still. The surprise was enough to stop her twitching, though Cacia could still feel the pulse of the doe’s frightened heartbeat thumping through her veins. It was a gesture of safety, that mothers often used with their newborns. The fact that Cacia had felt the instinct to use it now surprised even her, but it was serving its purpose, and she continued to shush the girl until her panic seemed to pass. What had happened to her, she wondered.

“I-I’m sorry. I just… I don’t know what to do, or where I am or… I just want to go home.”

Cacia moved back to look at her again. “Okay. It’s okay.” She said slowly, “So you have a herd then? Somewhere near Man’s valley?”

The doe shook her head. “No. There was only my father and I. There was never anyone else.”

“Is your father still alive?” Cacia hated to be so direct, but she felt she had to get to the root. The doe didn’t answer for a long time. She was thinking, and Cacia would have guessed, searching somewhere deep within herself for the answer. She knew she couldn’t push her here, and waited in the thin, vast silence of the Heron’s Marsh to hear the girl’s reply.

When at last she turned to face her, Cacia saw that her eyes were dry but hardened in a foggy glaze that masked the distant flames and reduced them to a near indistinguishable glow.

“No. I lost him for reasons I can’t understand, by a power that I now despise. And now I’m alone.” Her voice was as glazed as her stare and Cacia sensed that a moment had just passed within this doe that signified great change. Another deer lost to the misconception of fate. Cacia sighed. If only they could understand. She was about to say something about that but the girl spoke first.

“I feel it’s only fair that I tell you something, though I don’t doubt that you won’t believe me. I know the others don’t trust me and I can tell that you’re uncertain too. I’m sorry to have put your reputation in jeopardy by defending me, but I think you’ve wasted your time. They’re right. I’m not one of you. I never have been and I’d be lying if I said I wanted to try.” Her head fell in shame.

“I don’t think I understand.”

“Before, on the hill when the hunters were coming, I said that they wouldn’t hurt me…. That they never have before.” She looked up again. There was apology in her eyes. “I’m not exactly sure how to explain this...”

Suddenly something occurred to the hind, a thought as foreign and strange as that running fire that she had seen so long ago. It was a rumor, a horror story more like, that was seldom said amongst the animals due to the distasteful nature of its origin. But it was still something that was occasionally spread around. And like most whispered things, Herba had been the first of them to know about it. She enjoyed rumors and ghost tales as much as she did religion and politics. Any bit of information she could employ she would seek and eventually share with the others, in her own helpful, yet proud way. And it was in this fashion that Cacia had learned of it too, though she quickly dismissed the idea and scolded Herba from spreading it about amongst the others in their herd, not wanting such taboo to linger within their ranks.

But now the stories were coming back to her. Sightings from the vultures they said, those wicked scavengers who migrated to the mountains in summer, of terrible things that were happening to the creatures in the far south. There the settlements of Man stretched far over the land, flattening the hills, and tearing up the soil for whatever godless reason. There were beasts there that had long ago fallen prisoner to Man’s labors, like the wolves who traded their pack for servitude, the horses who no longer ran free, and the great herds of cattle that fell tame to the madness of confinement.

The lost ones were not talked about in these parts, their misfortune being of little concern when neither cow nor horse lived among the ridgelines and therefore had no family there to grieve them. But when from the vulture’s sneering beaks fell the stories of deer that had been taken, small fawns snatched from their dens and stolen away to that place in the south… then the herds began to listen.

It was a tale dismissed by many; for it was a common fact that Man was a predator and as a predator he’d have only one purpose for his prey. The idea that he would keep them alive… could only hold wicked meaning. What darker task would await the children who would grow up in such a life, spending every day under the dripping jaws, forever awaiting the fall of his stone carved fang? It was maddening and indecent to talk about. And yet… When Cacia looked again at the doe who was somehow not a doe, and recognized the fire of man as the flame behind her eyes she thought that maybe, by some great tragedy, here before her stood the proof.

There was a word that the vultures had carried with them from this terrible place, which had stuck to the tale throughout the many retellings, and Cacia tried to remember it now. During this moment of contemplation, the girl too had been wrestling over her own questions and truths, but Cacia found her voice first.

“Sweetheart, are you a… are you a domestic?” The word was like a curse on her tongue.

“A what?” The girl asked, her ears twitching uncomfortably at its cutting sound.

“It means, were you... taken by humans?”

“Well, no. I was raised by one, but…”

“By a human? ! But your father, you said…”

“Yes, I did. You see my father was human, and I…” the doe stopped. Perhaps hesitating to continue for the the look of shock and confusion that had blanched across Cacia’s face was enough to silence them both.

To call a monster father. To be raised by Man….

At first she felt afraid, but her own fear at imaging the other’s life quickly turned to sorrow and compassion. The poor girl. She must have gotten free, Cacia thought, and yet must not comprehend what her freedom meant. Void of her mother and herd to teach her, and to have grown up under a shadow such as that. It was no wonder to her now why the doe knew nothing of her surroundings, of her instincts, why she flinched at every kind gesture and why she was blind to all the rest.

Lost in her own thoughts Cacia had not noticed that the doe had been nodding to herself, a shadow of sad acceptance having passed over her in some moment of submission.

“My dear, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Neither did I.”

Both were speechless for a while, held apart by an awkward uncertainty.

“Well, you’re safe now. And thank the Goddess we found you.” She gave her a timid smile, which was immediately shot down by a glare of hatred that cut across the other’s face.

“NO! I thank her for nothing!” The doe spat the words out like poison, stopping Cacia in surprise.

“Alright.” she said carefully, and tucked her thoughts away.

The doe swallowed and looked around the marsh, as if searching for direction without purpose.

“I should go.” She said on a shuddered sigh.
 
“No! No you shouldn’t. You should stay with us, we can help you.”

“I already said that I have no interest in… trying to be like you."

“I know, but,” she chuckled sadly, despite herself, “honesty, dear, what other choice do you have?” The doe had no answer. “I know you’re afraid, and I know that the others didn’t make the best first impressions, especially Saxum. But I’ll talk with him, and once he’s calmed then they all will be. You don’t have to fear him, he’s really very sweet.”

“Sweet? Really?” the girl asked, cocking her head unconvinced. Cacia smiled.

“He’s like a tree. He’s got all that tough bark to keep things out. You just have to know how to tap into him. He’s all sweet and sappy underneath.” Her expression softened, and for the first time since they had met, it looked as if the girl was seeing things further than the end of her nose. The hind nodded and gave her a kind nudge.

“Come. No one wants to be alone. Let’s return to the herd and talk it over.” Without other plausible options, the doe silently complied.

                                             *

The others were easy enough to convince, all except Rivus who always stubbornly took Saxum’s side. And so the matriarch was only left with the impossible task of getting through to her mate and past his bad-tempered suspicions. Telling the doe to wait a little ways from the herd, Cacia took Saxum aside. They spoke under the shadows of spruce trees, all the while being watched from a distance by the curious hinds as they desperately tried to overhear.

“She’s a what?!”

“Keep your voice down! You heard what I said, and I don’t think it would be very polite to repeat it in front of her, or to the others going forward. We don’t want to embarrass her.”

“Embarrass her?” Saxum scoffed, “Cacia, she’s insane! Her mind is polluted by-by a human upbringing, for the Goddess’s sake! How can you know that and then willingly ask me to allow such an unnatural threat to endanger our herd and our cause?”

“How would she endanger us? She’s as innocent and lost as a fawn.”

“That’s one thing! The winter has grown harsh and impossibly cold. You yourself foresaw the growing duration of the dark months to come; we can’t risk another mouth to feed! Let alone one who’d be so helpless!”

“And those are the words of a father to be? Will this be your opinion when our fawns come in springtime?”

Saxum turned in disbelief, insulted by his mate’s accusation, “What?! Of course not, but Cacia, this is not our fawn, this is a full grown hind that nature has sought to forsaken… she’s none of our concern.”

“And that’s another thing! You’re suddenly so quick to assume the Goddesses’ will and what she does or does not intend for us and our herd. I thought I was the one with the sight, Saxum.”

“You are, but…”

“So you’re challenging my position?”

“No!

“Then you’ve lost faith in my ability.”

“I would never lose faith in you, you know that! But Cacia, please! You have to understand my frustration with this! We’ve been given a task of the greatest importance, the journey is dangerous enough as it is without you and the others expecting, I just don’t feel comfortable adding another weight to a burden that’s already too great for one herd to bear.” He held his mate’s gaze intently, hoping with all earnest to get through to her. “I don’t trust her. Everything about her feels wrong to me.”

Cacia sighed, “I know…” she hatted to defy him, “But I also know what we have to do.” Saxum rolled his head with annoyance, stomping the ground as another wave of frustration threatened to rise. Cacia spoke up and spoke fast, “I felt the Goddesses’ will, Saxum, when I was on that hill and I looked down at the doe and saw the fear in her eyes, I felt the will that calls to all sight does and that has called to since day I was born!” He stopped, looking at her slowly from under his furrowed brow. “You and I… we’ve received harder challenges from her than this. And we’ve made it through each and every one, together and as a herd. Trust me, my love, we’re meant to help her.”

The buck let out long breath. “You’re sure of this?”

“Yes… You’re right, she’s strange and we don’t understand her. But somehow she’s important.” He slowly shook his head, sighing as he looked scornfully in the direction of their strange guest.

“I don’t know why I let you talk me into these things.”

Cacia relaxed, a loving smile spreading across her face. “Because you know I’m always right.” She said, sauntering toward him. He kept his steely gaze on the stranger, a heavy frown set firmly on his features.

“The Goddesses’ way isn’t always the easiest one to take.” She said to him.

“The Goddesses’ way seems intent to kill me. If not by stress alone.” She laughed softly and licked his muzzle, finally bringing his eyes back to her. “If had she not brought me to you…”

“You’d not be graying at age five.” Cacia teased, and it warmed her heart to see him smile at her at last. He rubbed his forehead against hers and she closed her eyes, taking shelter in his tender kindness that she was privileged to know. She knew him beyond his stubborn sense of duty, she knew his heart, and hers swelled with words and songs of endearment that he had sung to her on a crisp autumn dawn, when the two of them were just barely out of fawnhood and yet free of responsibility and fate. He needed not to say such things now, for they both new how the other held them within them still.

Not many deer possessed a bond as strong as Saxum and Cacia, especially not a matted pair that had only know the coming of the Rut four times prior. But as it was they had found a special fondness within one another’s company, and it was a love so deep that had they been willing to face the consequences of banishment, they would have surely broken away from herd life entirely to love one another exclusively and completely in their own way. But the life of a deer is with its herd, and to do otherwise was shameful and dangerous. Despite his dedication to order, Saxum had once surprised Cacia by telling her that if she wished it, he would leave everything else behind. That day was the happiest in her memory, and though the Goddesses’ will had other plans, she always held that promise in the center of her heart. And it was enough for her.

“But she’s not going with us all the way.” When she heard his grumpy tone Cacia opened her eyes again and smiled at him knowingly.

“Agreed.”

“We’ll take her as far as Earth Herd and leave her there. The seven of us travel on alone as planned.”

“Whatever you say, dear, I think that’s a wonderful idea. The council will know how better to care for her anyway.” They kept their heads together, locked in a stare of comfort and uncertainty. She knew this was hard for him. Finally he nodded and slowly pulled away, regally raising his antlers.

“Thank you.” She whispered and side by side they walked back to the others.

“She’ll be your responsibility, though.” He said, “I still want nothing to do with her.” Cacia kept her thoughts to herself, silently grateful for whatever compromise her mate was able to give her.  

                                              *

Ida was watching the snow fall. Her head inclined up toward the inky blue sky, bent her slender neck in a strong and graceful arch like the wood of her father’s bow. She was very aware of her body and its every movement. In this pose she could feel her pulse in the tightness of her veins and how her blood seemed to flow so much faster through her than it ever did before. She noted the time it took between taking a breath in through her nose to when she felt her chest swell with the incoming air. She felt the strain of swallowing against a tightened throat and all the extra muscles that had to work to do what before had seemed so simple.

Catching the glimmer of the occasional flake of snow that was pulled from the nearby branches, she watched as they dusted around her, mimicking the faintness of stars that fell back against that deep and fathomless sky. Ida’s thoughts followed the familiar constellations, back to her clearing where the same bewildering night could be seen. But there, she thought, it had always been softened and comprehendible; made so, perhaps, by the protective framing of the forest’s rustling leaves or the curling smoke from their chimney. Somehow these things had managed to diminish the vastness of what was up there, and had never presented her and her father with more than what they wished to see.

The world was so much larger now, and Ida found that within it she was very small and very alone. What was her father doing now? She wondered. She hoped that he was alright and that the spirit that had taken her had not done anything else to hurt him.

For a while she had debated trying to go back. This sky was not too different from their own after all, and Ida figured that a few days trek to the east would find her once again in familiar surroundings. But every time the thought occurred, and she would begin to plan the scenario out in her mind, Ida would stop, the last image of her father’s face always causing her to falter.

He hadn’t recognized her. That look of confusion and fear had burned itself into her mind, along with the words that had shuttered through her when the demon had hissed them into her ear. To her father she was just another deer. He wouldn’t know her by looking at her anymore, and after the incident on the hill, Ida figured that like the hunters he wouldn’t be able to understand her either. Even if she found him and their home again, there would be nothing she could do to reach out to him, nothing to connect her to him, nothing to distinguish her from the bodies hanging in the game shed, slit and left to drain.  She was as lost to him now as a snow flake, drifting against the sea of stars.

Ida’s body hurt with sorrow and she lowered her head at last, feeling the weight of release press into her shoulders and spine. For a moment she moved to rub her neck but stopped when she remembered that she had no hands to do so.

There was a gentle crunching against the snow and she turned to see that the kind deer was coming back. The buck Cacia had been speaking to went to address the others, but not before casting an angry glance Ida’s way. Despite the kind one’s reassurance, Ida was afraid of him.

“It’s all settled. I’ve spoken with Saxum and the others and we’ve agreed to have you join us. We’re headed to Earth Herd. It’s the largest gathering of red deer in the mountains. There’s a council there that will be able to help you and will know what to do.”

“I don’t want to go with you.” Ida said, causing Cacia’s face to fall. Feeling a touch of guilt she added, “I’m sorry. But I just don’t feel like I belong here.”

It look the hind a while to comprehend this all the while Ida’s guilt was increasing. She could tell how hard the deer was trying to appeal to her, and had seen how far she had gone to convince the others. This… Cacia, was putting a lot of effort in for her sake, and for the life of her, Ida couldn’t figure as to why.

“Why are you doing this anyway?” she asked suddenly.

“Doing what?” the other replied.

“Trying so hard to help me. I don’t understand that. You don’t know me.”

“You’re one of us.” Cacia said, as plain and sincere as could be. “As deer we stick together and look out for our own kind. Our greatest strength is founded within our community, within our herd. We fight, love, and live as one. And you are a part of that… though it may not have seemed so until now.”

“With my being domesticated, you mean?” Ida asked, testing out the identity Cacia had assigned to her. It seemed the easiest explanation to assume.  The hind nodded sadly.

“It’s not your fault that that happened. Sometimes, we simply have no control over what fate decides to pit against us. But we always have the option to learn from it.” She tilted her head at Ida in a hopeful way, “It’s up to you to take what you will from the hardships you’ve endured. It can make you stronger if you let it, and we can help you to do that… if you let us try.”

Once again Ida was touched by the hind’s kindness. Though the concept that a stranger could care so much for someone she didn’t know was still baffling to her, in her present state of fragile uncertainty, she allowed herself to take comfort in it. If only to stop her pushing away.

Ida’s thoughts returned to her father, and what he had taught her about the importance of respect when dealing with others. As a solitary man who did not lend his out easily, Ida had always praised it as a thing to be coveted. He would not trade with just anyone, and often turned down many an offer for no other reason than due to the quality of the other trader’s character. But with his selectiveness and shrewd nature, he was also devoted and dependable. This he taught to her, and this she remembered now.

“There aren’t many good people left in the world, Schatzi. So hold on to the ones you find. They may only come once, and if you’re not careful and don’t treat them as well as they treat you, you may lose that opportunity forever.”

It seemed her father was familiar with loss, thought he only spoke to her of such things on the coldest and loneliest of nights. But she held those rare moments in her heart and did her best to learn from a father’s pain what a daughter can never know. This reminder she held now, and though thinking of him brought her a loss of her own, she tried her best to in the very least compromise with Cacia.

“Thank you…for wanting to help me. I appreciate what you’ve done, but-um. Might I have some time to think it over? I’m very tired and I need to figure out my thoughts.”

A small smile appeared on Cacia’s face and she nodded with understanding.“Of course. Why don’t you sleep on it. We’ll be departing at dawn, you can decide then if you’d like to come with us or not. Though, sweetheart… I really hope you do.”

The hind left then and returned to the others. They had all nestled down together amongst the frozen cattails and the smallest one looked as if she was already falling asleep. Cacia lay down beside Saxum and he nuzzled her affectionately. From her place alone in a patch of open moonlight, Ida knelt down too, trying hard to get comfortable with her long awkward legs sprawling out beneath her. Finally she peered over at the others and did what they seemed to do, tucking her hooves under and sitting on top of her knees. It surprised her by how comfortable it was.
 
Once more she looked at the impossible sky and hoped that her father was doing the same. She missed him so much, but she also knew that if he could speak to her now he would tell her to be brave, to keep going. The ways of the world were frightening and unknowable, but that was how they always were. She had only just been exposed to it, and though she hadn’t expected or wished for it, she couldn’t let it diminish her will.

‘Gatekeepers don’t cry, and they don’t give up… and neither will I.’ She thought this to herself just before closing her eyes. The words were her commitment to herself to survive, to make her father proud by not giving in to the one who had ruined their lives. Though despite her best intentions she couldn’t help but feel that by accepting this fate, she was somehow betraying him.