I held my breath. Painfully I watched a tear roll down his blood stained cheek. More followed. He began to gasp for air and rub his forehead. My knees seemed to give way and I realized I was on the soft forest ground. Tears streamed down my cheeks and onto my Pink dress.

His gasps grew to full sobs. They were clearly audible beneath the sniffles and sobs of the Kokerian children. Surrounded by more then thirty friends, he stood, shaking in sadness and frustration. Nothing was held back. He wept with every thing in his body. I couldn't take my eyes off him, as he suffered in sudden shock and pain. The Hero of time, sobbing without inhibition. I sat alone, watching, disbelieving what I saw. The tears continued to fall on his battle torn green tunic.

Had it suddenly hit him that his love was dead? I had sobbed for two days and felt like I had nothing left to give. I felt hollow. I felt empty of all emotion sad or happy. But his pain appeared raw. Maybe it hadn't sunk in until he saw his loves body. I, too had dismissed it as a bad dream until I saw her small body laying on the white satin.

Tears came, one after another. I sat alone, wanting to rationalize, to somehow get to the source that was causing him so much pain. I watched face after face walk out of the temple door with the emptiness I felt spread across their pale faces.

I looked at him, standing there in agony: the Hero, the "Tough guy" who daily made an effort to save those who needed him most. His smile always a comfort and a boost of energy. But something inside didn't allow me to accept it as him. Something unfamiliar had seized his emotions. His usual coolness had succumbed to the powerful reality of fear and pain. I did not recognize him. Every tear that poured from his heart onto his tunic sent a painful feeling down my spine. I wonted so badly to embrace his large shoulders and tell him that it was going to be okay. But as I sat weeping, watching I couldn't accept it myself.

The flood of tears escaping from his heart was all I needed to see the reality of out shared situation. I had learned to justify my tears, but it took more to accept his. I felt that if something could cause him to break down, if something could put him through so much pain, there must be a lesson here. There was something too painfully scary and incomprehensible about a Wife's death. No husband can justify their loves disappearance when they have earned the right to grow old together.

As he continued to weep, I began to realize he wept for lack of understanding. He wept in fear of living with out his chosen love. He also wept in fear of his own vulnerability. He saw a Young kokerian sage, Loving, funny and well loved by all who knew her, now surrounded with flowers and sympathy gifts. He saw himself in that coffin; witch clouded him with fear he'd never felt so vividly.

Now he begun to sniffle, trying to somehow quiet the burning sense of incomprehension ripping at his soul.

He tried to erase the tears from his reddened cheeks. He turned his back to me and took a step away. But this could never be erased form my memory: my friend, the big, tough Hero of time who defeated the most sinister Wizard of this world, wept like a child that night.

And another tear rolled down my cheek on to my pink dress.