Death.
The first glimpse came without warning, interrupting thoughts that had come before it. Mostly about how had she ended up on the grounds of Eliseo’s cottage.
Death. Death.
For a brief moment there had been concern etched upon the face of one who seemed to so very rarely show it. Mine had allowed her to sway her away from her own personal desires. His invitation had helped with that, too, and the conversation before it. One that spoke on the fact their isolation and power made them an unlikely pairing; and here they were.
Death. Death. Death. Death.
We are better for our isolation, aren’t we?
Death. More images so soon after the first. Death. Death. Death.
The question nagged at her, tugging at her attention as she sat in the gloom of her tent, so recently erected nearby the cottage. Death. Close enough that she could be found, but far enough to have some sense of privacy, even if it was a false one.
Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death.
But even that wasn’t enough. The Raen stood as the pain began behind her eyes, carefully stepping out into the night. Death. Death. The visions began, fleeting, tugging at her heart.
Death. Death. Death. Death.
His face pale and lifeless. Death. Death.
Death. Death. His lips parted around a stream of blood. Death. Death. Death.
Death. Death. Death. Death. Green eyes staring into a darkness. Death. Death.
Death. Death. Death. Death. Death death death death death death death death death.
She stopped against a tree, leaning here as the images flipped quickly, one after another, obscuring her vision. It was her power flipping the book of him past her eyes. He was dead on every one of them, on every page. Death. Sometimes he looked peaceful, sometimes full of hatred, or fear. But she couldn’t escape him.
Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death death death death.
Over the two decades of her time with this, it’d never been so vivid. She just knew. She knew who, she knew where she would find them, and when. Once or twice a day she’d find herself with the knowledge. Usually she woke up with it. The world was a compass that she remained the needle upon, always pointing to death. The grief was present, of course, but it varied upon the proximity of the death to her heart.
But Him. He’d changed everything she knew. He was many hundreds of times a day, one after another. She found herself grieving for a man she did not know but was left all the same to be witness to the many possibilities of his last moments more than anyone she’d ever encountered. He’d sent the needle spinning out of control in a way that she could not stop, and it left her ill.
And now she understood why.
Death. Death. Death. Death. Death.
I’ve never heard such songs before.
You’re the first of your kind I’ve found on this star.
Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death.
Mine found the base of a tree, sinking down to bend her head and vomit the acidic bile that rolled and roiled. She coughed it out before rising, stepping a few steps towards another tree, a dark column that she could see between the sights of him.
Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death.
Emptied, her body disappeared from her focus.
How.
Death. Death death death. Death death death death death death death death death death death.
Her body moved, half falling to the moss and low plants as she rolled to her back. She placed the multitude of his last moments against the moonlit backdrop of the canopy above. It was all she could see now. And then she slowed the images, straining and focusing on things she didn’t want to see.
Death.
It was easy to let them flick by, leaving ghosts of his features to disappear before the next flashed into being. Black ringlets framing hawkish features. The emerald green of his gaze was always dulled, unlike what she knew of them to be in life. Mine struggled and the pain blossomed until it was a warmth dripping from her nose, starbursts of white against the backs of her eyelids. Her palms found her temples, pressing to the pain flourishing so brightly there. It was an effort to stop, to pay attention to the circumstances, to want to see that which she didn’t want to see.
Quickly her eyelids fluttered.
Death.
How.
How was he going to die.
Still images became more. Became moments, scenes of immeasurable possibilities. It wrenched at her heart, drove the knife of sorrow deep, deeper than she’d thought she could feel. It eclipsed the grief she’d felt for all of those she’d lost before, an unbearable feeling that escaped, a sudden sob escaping into the night.
But somewhere amidst the grief and death and images of a man, she found her answers.
She found How.
The spinning needle stopped, focused.
Death.
How.
— — — — — —
She’d fallen asleep, or unconscious. Mine wasn’t sure beyond the idea that she was cold.
No.
The person carrying her was cold. There was a thread of shame, of regret. She’d meant to get back to her tent before another could see. Before another could find her and think weakness. It was not what she wanted to be seen as.
“I know… how he dies. I saw… how.”
“Who?”
