"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away." – Philip K. Dick
She had given up on reality a long time ago, and yet that which she had thought was reality was gone, like it had never been there. And all who she had loved for who they were rather than the power they held, either over her or for her, were gone, too. She missed them, all of them. But she missed him most of all.
He was the part of herself she had found only to lose it again. Often she began to believe that it would have better if they had never met, but she stopped herself. It was worth it, had always been worth it, for surely it is better to have someone to mourn rather than lose something that had been your life for seventeen years and not miss anyone.
When he died, that world faded for her so that it was no longer real. He died young. Far too young. Ever after she would wonder if it was because of her, because of what she inescapably was, because she was immortal and he was not, because they would lose each other, were already losing each other.
Everything faded, even the sun she had held inside her. It faded so much, too much. She was nothing and to her it felt as though no one noticed for she was lost to them and to herself. She was lost in the maze that led to the one she longed for. The maze that was never ending life.
Every day Keenan sat with her, tended her, every day for a thousand years.
And so they sat, alone in a cave, she mourning her first and only true love, and he mourning her. Neither realised that their people had left them, that summer was over, forever, for when you live forever memories fade slowly and pain slower still.
Summer was over but reality stormed on, through them, over them, and they never even realised that it was still there.