This was not done by instinct.

Indeed, her instinct had never been set on finding love, or forbidden love, or true love, or young love or anything of the sort. In fact, as she was, to put it politely, a prostitute, you could say her job, her way of living, the food she ate and clothes she wore were fueled by lust. And lust stemmed, in her experience, from dead marriages, jealousy, grief, and self-loathing. It was the opposite of love.

Somewhere along the way she had given up the idea that she would have love. It started so long ago, with her childhood crush's cruel practices, and ended on the biting winter outlook that she stood out here, watching the kind young author whose sister was dying drive away into the night. But in between that, her sentiment should have withered. Instead, she realized that her love, and perhaps, she, was bound by no logic at all. For at no point did hatred for that young man of her past drive away her passionate love for him after all these years. And at no point did she catch herself, and scold herself for falling in love with the new man.

Pikalte Utano had visited her more and more frequently, looking like a scared puppy. And sooner or later, she managed to get him to talk to her. He let her know his sadness—she kept her own to herself for his sake. And she felt that her reservations to love had been nothing but induced, like everything, from that figure in her past. He was to be forgotten, and as she talked to Pikalte, as she noticed his true smile here and there become more frequent, as she watched his eyes become calmer and more relaxed, she let go of the part of herself that was constantly using an image of the old childhood friend to change. She had put so much on her love for that shadow of a boy—so, so much, that when a new man came into her life, it all crumbled and she was a new person.

This is why she was insane. Because everything was how she viewed herself to be in the future, and so the boy who was always a part of her life consumed her.

But Pikalte did not feel the same way, evidently. Instead, he felt that he was not predicting anything by his visits to her, and, like all business, he gave exactly what he took.

His last visit was when he made this clear to her. On his last visit she cried. And on his last visit, just after his horse got into the second crossroad from the brothel, she realized, as she saw in a blurry image, that a tall, blond woman was staring at her, with alert eyes, not cold or kind.

And in her right hand she clutched the sword.