He didn't get to attend the burial. He didn't want to. He had his own private ceremony in the woods.
He made the camp near Cackler bridge they had talked about all that time ago. He took two bedrolls, smiling to himself. They would have brought two, and used one. He made a fire. He sat beside it and talked to Florian, as if he was there.
He wept softly, and he considered throwing himself from Cackler bridge, but he knew he couldn't.
As the weeks turned into months, he would gather fresh flowers for Florians grave each week. He would visit in the dead of night when he knew he would be alone. He wondered if he would ever smile again.
He considered moving from White Orchard, many times. But he needed the memories. He liked to visit places they had been together in the forests. He could almost hear Florian`s laughter in the breeze. He heard stories over the coming months that Lord Verrieres was drinking too much, becoming unstable and increasingly cruel to the people. His estate were falling into disarray & there was talk of a revolt. Mislav kept to himself, waiting for the inevitable knock at the door and a sword through his belly. But it never came.
He heard through a local herbalist that Dieter had been forced to leave the stables when Lord Verrieres pierced him through the leg with a rake during one of his rages. Mislav couldn't imagine what he had turned into. He was once a good man.
As months turned into years, the pain lessened and the people stopped talking. He tried to visit the villiage, once or twice, but he would never try that again. Seeing the faces of your friends contort in disgust wasn't worth it. He was tired of being called a freak, best he just accept it. Besides, he had enough skill to catch his own food.
And, above all else, he swore he would never, ever, love again.
As Mislav walked away from the crumbling fort, he closed his eyes and listened for Florians laughter through the trees, but he could only hear the distant snarl of wild dogs. He shuddered. The woods had become a different place now. He once tried to visit the bridge to find the campsite he had made for Florian, but the bridge was being used by the Nilfgaard army now, they had pitched their tents outside the gate and closed it.
He had even seen villagers, including Dieter, trying to hunt in the woods for food. They must be getting desperate now all the orchards had been picked clean by the various armies, and there was no trade to be done.
He could always hear the loud, inexperienced feet crunching through the leaves as they tried hopelessly to set traps in all the wrong places. He had warned them of the dangers, and even offered to help them, but they had all refused.
Yes, things had changed since the war. But Mislav would always have his memories. Every evening when he sat, smoking his pipe outside his hut, he would think of his Florian. And he would smile.