Susan is quiet for a long moment at that, twisting her slowly unravelling braid between her fingers as she, too, drops her head back. For a moment, the sky fills her view, and then she closes her eyes before the tears can start to threaten again. She shouldn't tell this girl, this stranger, anything, and to speak too much about Roland is to claw open a still-raw wound, and yet...

And yet, she has so rarely been able to speak of him before, and here, what harm can it do? He isn't here. Those who took offence at their love have already had their vengeance. It is, as she said, the past - and she wants people to know, deep down. If she died for nothing, she at least wants people to know why it seemed worth it.

"I was," she says at last, quietly. "In love. I didn't want to be, and I guess it ruined everything, but the minute I saw him, and no matter how I tried..." She bites her lip. "He had the bluest eyes I ever saw. Blue as summer skies. And young - too young for me, mayhap - but old too, in a way I can't quite... I never met anyone like him." A small, sad smile tugs at her lips. "And I ain't the praying type, but I've been praying every day since I got here that he lived. I reckon God owes me that much."