When the metaphors ended and only fear remained, her sense of reality forced her to admit that she was fucked up, broken and trapped. Outside the clouds were spitting acid rain and spurting fire on the misty horizon. She had a headache. Her leg was another problem, it seemed to have become deaf to the rest of her body. At that point, she would have appreciated having her leg ripped off rather than having to keep dragging it. How tired this whole thing had become.
So this was the end, she thought. She remembered Mika, his empty gaze when the group (and she in a more fortunate time) had left him behind with the ritual ration of food that would sustain him on his journey to the edge of the shadow: a bowl of seeds, a piece of dried fish, water. After crossing the border, Baelis himself was supposed to take him to the Green Valley, where hunting was plentiful and the land bore sweet fruit. Strong again, without sickness or fear. The problem was that Mika had always been suspicious of everything. Not out loud, of course. The shamans would have banished him, but she knew that disbelief was the desolation in her eyes the last time she saw him. And, by the way, he was right.

"How do I know I've reached the Valley, Master?"

"In the Valley you have no shadow. Only light is your eternal companion, and joy, abundance, satiety.”

And she was fine with it. Of course, she would have preferred to keep one or two of life's imperfections. She always wondered, for example, how abundance could be a prize if you were always satiated... But, in general, she had never doubted that things would be like the shamans said (and why shouldn't things be that way?). Then, she hadn't had as much time as Mika to dwell on her doubts. Mika was a shepherd, a job any fool could have done. Sitting in the shade and watching the horizon and accumulating thoughts, doubts, words... Mika treasured too many words in his chest. There had been a kind of collective relief, she remembered, when his time came... He was a strange man. He never found anyone who would share his rucksack and give birth to his offspring. And he had been handsome and strong in his youth... She, on the other hand, had always been a woman like almost anyone else, always with her hands busy with a child, with a blanket to mend; but mostly carving a needle from the hard bone of a goat or polishing a thorn... She had been remarkable in her craft and had taught her daughter and her granddaughters how to carve, but in a moment her eyes gave out no more and she knew that her time had come. She did not declare it, however.

When he opened his eyes at dawn, she promised herself that on that day she would declare the end of her time before the shaman. Then she saw her last granddaughter behind the mist that was now her eyes, and she said that Baelis would be merciful, that it was no great fault one more day, one very brief day in all the Eternity of Baelis... And she saw the proud offspring: her daughter, now a needle carver with grey hair, and mother of the gentlest girl of her generation; her three strong sons with many beautiful sons and daughters, her granddaughters, learning the craft of carving; also her prominent younger grandson, chosen by the shamans. For the most part, she had done it all herself, for her beloved Pora had left early for the Valley with her belly ripped open by a wild boar. Perhaps Baelis would have compensated for his suffering. One more day to contemplate her work, a brief day meant nothing in Baelis' eternity.