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“Don’t apologize, boy. You should feel whatever way you want, right now. It’s a difficult position you’re in. Whatever you have to do to cope, you go ahead and do it. All I ask is that you pick something that’s not self-destructive. And brooding, well... brooding is questionable on that front, I’m afraid, but you certainly could’ve picked a worse mechanism.”

Zeff made no response.

“Dwell on things too much? Drive yourself crazy. But at the same time, it’s healthier than going off and venting your frustrations via bloodlust. Or actual lust. Or, god forbid, by abusing the people you’re supposed to love. Next to all that stuff, brooding doesn’t seem so bad to me.”

“...Seen that all before, haven’t you?”

“I have. Along with even worse examples, if you can believe it. The kind of examples that are still too painful to even utter.”

He had a vague idea of what she might’ve been referring to, but it would’ve been wrong to push, he felt.

She wasn’t done talking, though. Her wrinkled hand found his face, and she made him turn to look her in the eye with that steady, steely gaze of hers that she rarely ever resorted to. “So if you need to brood, then brood. Just don’t forget that we’re all still here for you, too, my dear. And that the world isn’t a completely dark place, much as it might sometimes feel like it.”

His eyes eased shut, and he took her hand in his own. “Thank you.”

And for a while, she just stood there with him in silence as they looked over the battlefield together.

“...Think I see rain on the horizon,” she said.

He spotted the clouds she was talking about. Barely visible now, but quite dark. She was probably right.

“Y’know,” she went on, “supposedly, our ancestors could tell the difference between a good storm and bad storm from two days away. Or more, even.”

A good storm or a bad storm. An interesting distinction, but one that he and all other Rainlords were familiar with. A bad storm was the kind that brought nothing but destruction. The kind that did nothing but ruin or take lives.

A good storm, though? A good storm was the kind that cleaned the roads and swept all the stagnant water away. The kind that children could dance and play in without fear of being carried off by terrible winds or surging rivers.

“I wonder if I’m there yet,” she said. “Got a feeling in my bones. Like this one will be a good storm.”