It was difficult to hold her gaze as he finished his explanation. The smile, small though it had been when he’d started, was gone, and she stared as a falcon might, considering, dangerous, different. He did not know what she was thinking as she leaned towards him. Curdle flinched as she took in a breath to speak, expecting the hard words that so often accompanied the aggressive angle. 

They didn’t come.

Or rather, they came in a more collected fashion than shouting accusations. Her tone remained harsh. Her summary, before she’d even reached her confident doubts, made of him a fool. In all honesty, he’d had no plans beyond reaching Renna’s gates. He had not expected to make it even that far, but he’d tried, because even an impossible promise deserved a token effort. His gaze turned, ashamed, to the ground as she gave him greater agency and initiative than he’d even thought to use, let alone acted upon. 

No… Shrinking in on himself, shoulders hunching yet further in a blind desire to shield himself from the world, Curdle’s head began to shake. Slowly. Incredulous. Confused. If their meeting was other than happenstance, only the North Wind could have arranged it; his own efforts had played no part in what transpired, beyond getting him caught and leaving Fiira to her fate. Again, he flinched as she reminded him of consequences shared, unjustly, on her side. She did not deserve to be drawn into this trouble he’d caused. If she wanted no more part in this, he would hold nothing against her. But her challenge… It tempted him, and then it dragged his eyes upward in a swift jerk, shuffling forward on his knees before he could help himself.

Yet, expression taut with the fear of what she promised should he not speak up, mouth open, watering eyes wide and staring, one hand grasping the cloth she’d laid out for him for support in this off-kilter world, he could not find his voice. The old jinni was torn between two beliefs. Afraid of leaving what remained of his master to her care knowing she had not accepted the consequences, and just as fearful of bringing those consequences down on her. He couldn’t ask it of her, but he had no other option. 

As the moments passed and her frightening proposal, or threat, slipped into memory, his heart and mind calmed somewhat, and he sank back onto his heels. A small, self-deprecating smile twitching the corner of his mouth beneath his beard. [i]He[/i] had given himself no other option. But this was a second chance. They were few enough, he should not waste it. A shaky breath in, and he began. 

“I had given up, Miria messi. When you found me. I-… I could not do it. I thought it was enough to hope you might carry her beyond the walls. It grieved me most sore, messi, not to know if you would wait until then before emptying her urn. To be responsible for so many feet grinding her into the streets she would leave behind, this filled me with shame. Yet you have kept it safe. Kept it with you, offered even a mourning cloth to this no one.” He rolled the fabric between his fingers, marveling at the complicated texture within this dream world before finding the strength to continue.

“A second chance… It is gift enough, Miria messi, and I should not ask for more, even with North Wind guiding me. Yet this she asked of me, and I cannot let it go when you have carried her where I could not.” The old jinni paused there and bent forward to press his forehead to the soft dust of the marketplace stones. He raised his voice slightly to overcome the muffling of speaking to the ground, but he was too ashamed of having to make such a request of her to look at her while he did. “Messi, I am most sorry I have proved worthless in this. Please do not set her aside. If you will hold her, I will come.” How, he did not yet know, but he would make every attempt until he was no longer able. “If you will not, free her first. Please, messi.”

Sherahd was too far away indeed, on that he would agree, but he could not bear to think of the Lady Fiira caught in an urn so close to the freedom of the wind she’d wanted. 

It was true that she was a human, and so, presumably exempt from the same rules the jinn understood. But, to Curdle, who lived his life for others because he had no choice, being denied that final freedom in death was more than symbolic failure on his part. He truly believed she was trapped in that urn: mind, body, spirit, whatever was left of her that lingered with them. She could not leave, could not sleep peacefully, could not ride the wind as jinn were meant to if her ashes were contained. It was not the notion of sacrilege or a broken promise that made him beg. It was his own fear of the same happening to him. His horror at what his misguided actions were doing to a woman against whom he harboured no ill will. 

“Please. Do not leave her in the dark.”