It had been so long since he had last been here - months, the exact count of days was lost to him, as he no longer cared to keep track of them. What was the point now? Everything seemed faded, washed out, a shell of what it had once been; he cared nothing of what was once important to him, any relations he had were suffocated by the passage of time without so much as a visit, a letter, a single thought. The seconds bled into the minutes, the minutes to hours and the hours to days, everything dragged on painfully, so painfully...

...without her.

His fingers trailed across the smooth, grey walls, his mind drowning in the silence, a silence that before would never have been able to prevail in the house for more than a few moments at a time. A silence that was now the only sound echoing through the rooms of the house. The building itself remained untouched, everything exactly as it had been, save for the occupancy of life. Everyone had been shattered by it, crushed and torn, they had all mourned and moved on; both emotionally and physically. He didn't blame them - who could live in her house now that she was no more? He did, however, hold a fair bit of resentment and jealousy for them, their resiliency; how was it that they could move on and continue to live, to be happy? How was it that they could speak of her now, so fondly and smile and laugh? He couldn't even bear to think about her at all, not without believing death was the only cure for his loneliness, his pain.

It was... unfair.

He found himself drawn to, out of all the rooms in the house, the one place that most embodied her; the master bedroom. Her private sanctum in a world that had seemed hell-bent on crushing everything she strived to protect, the one place she had opened up to him and shown him just who she really was. That night, when she had bared herself to him, when the words had flowed from her lips in a river that appeared to have no end, everything he already felt for her grew to an unimaginable level. He had come to understand her so completely after that, why she was so closed off, so defensive and so abrasive. He had come to understand her sudden moods swings, her sudden silent spells, why she could stand to sit for hours at a time and say nothing, do nothing, simply stare out the window, lost in a world that was her own.

He had come to cherish the rare occasions where she offered him a smile, even more than he already had. Not the tight, close-lipped smiles that she gave most everyone else, where somehow they were more guarded and suspicious than anything else; he cherished the smiles that only appeared when she was alone with someone she cared for, someone she trusted and felt close to. Those smiles could brighten up anything, take anyone's pain away, when she laughed and the light danced within her exotic eyes, he had felt his own joy strengthen, his worries wash away. When he was with her, he had felt a kind of peace he had never experienced before, a warmth that could drive away even the slightest hint of the cold, a contentment that he could have basked in for the rest of his life and never felt a want or desire for anything more... all he could ever want was her.

He had loved her, and now, she was gone.

Forever.

A small, anguished sound escaped his teal lips as he sank down onto the king-sized bed; the canopy that hung overheard, draped with elegant black and red velvet and lace, was as dark and depressive as he felt. His tail writhed and coiled around itself as he settled onto the bed, his head lying against the large, fluffy pillow she had used so many times. A faint scent permeated the fabric, vanilla and freesia; a lingering trace of her amidst a world that seemed to want him to forget, something real he could cling to when all else slipped through his trembling fingers.

He turned his head into the scent, face gently nuzzling the pillow, and he inhaled softly; the trace of the beautiful smell calling to mind her face, her smile, her eyes. He could almost see her movements, feel her touch, hear her rich voice, her melodious laughter. He choked back a sob, not wanting to soil the soft pillowcase with his tears, and he shrank in on himself, shoulders hunching as he nestled closer to the comforter and the pillows, trying to hang on to the scent even as it faded.

I miss you, Rhiannon...