RoA Epilogue 1

Her voice sounds like laughter to him. Like a child's blissful, uninhibited joy. Even when he knows there's nothing to laugh about here, he can't help but feel reassured. He wishes she would open her eyes, tell him it's all going to be okay now, that he doesn't have to worry about anything.

She won't, though.

Her body is wired in to a dozen different machines, all chirping out steady analyses on her vital signs. They tell him that she'll live, but the bandages whisper that it won't be quite the same from now on.

He wants her reassurance, but he knows it's best to let her sleep. He won't make her suffer just so he can feel better.

He won't tell her goodbye, because he wants to believe he'll be back before she wakes.

The curtain sighs back into place behind him. She's not the only one confined to a cot. He's spent a fair amount of time on one these past few days, too. His skin no longer hisses and burns constantly, but tingles, sticky with a salve and swaddled in bandages. They'll be good as new in another few days, but it seems he'll have to make do with 'okay'. What little time they were granted has withered up all too quickly.

    He can't say goodbye, so he'll just have to come back safe.

. . .

    The first time he heard the flap of near undetectable wingbeats in an otherwise desolate silence, he almost felt relieved. At least now he knew there was something else alive here. The only creature he'd encountered so far was a terrified rodent that fell to the ground when he appeared suddenly from around a blackened tree trunk. He hadn't meant to frighten it, but apparently it hadn't been just his doing. Not wanting to waste a life, he'd taken it along with him.
   
    Silently, he wondered at the irony of a heart bursting from fright at his appearance.

    She followed him the rest of the day. She was good at hiding, but her clumsy flight made her obvious to him, in sound, if not in sight. As night fell, he began to wonder if perhaps he should call out to her, let her join him by the fire. But as much as he disliked it, they were enemies. If he slept in her presence, there was nothing to stop her from simply killing him then and there. So he devised a simple trap, feeling terribly guilty about it, but seeing no better choice. Perhaps he could convince his opponent that fighting was unnecessary...

. . .

He never saw it coming. Even when she curled up against him in the middle of the night, he suspected nothing. Why should he? He had made a new friend, another who felt that fighting was wrong, and he trusted her. He meant to make it quick, painless, just send her to sleep and hope he had enough time before she woke again.

    But he hesitated. He hesitated, and that was his final mistake- Compassion for a stranger. Maybe if he hadn't been quite so fond of the youngster, or hadn't underestimated her... But, inevitably, he made the worst mistake. He couldn't reach past his emotions and do what he needed.

    At first he's not sure if the painful wash of hopeless resignation is his own. The sense of overwhelming regret that makes his heart ache like it's being crushed. He doesn't want to rob her of the chance to prove herself, without even knowing what she strives towards. But then he can only see light and feel heat and taste pain in every cell of his mind and body. Even when he can't feel it anymore, his mind keeps looping those last split seconds of grief and agony, begging why me, why now, why did it have to end like this? He can't tell if it's his thoughts or hers. Why do they make us do this? Why couldn't prevent it? Did I really have no other choice?

    Why didn't I say goodbye?

    It only hurts for as long as he is conscious. Once it reaches unbearable levels, his mind closes up and shuts it out. No more pain, no more scent of burning hair and flesh, no more head-splitting screams. He thinks it would have been nice if his last thought had been something heroic, but in the midst of it all, the only thing he can think is 'please make it stop'. And then he forgets. He forgets why he's in pain, or where he is, or what he's thinking.

    There is no such thing as time here.

    He's not asleep, but he's not really there either. There are no thoughts in his mind, only a soft cloudiness that leeches away the agony, drop by stinging drop. Slowly, just a sliver at a time, he begins to see again. He sees his family, laughing, whispering amongst themselves. He thinks he hears his name, but then it's gone, and he doesn't remember anymore. He watches through prism flares as a soft russet body winds around his own. He can't feel it, but his chest seems to expand, the muscles he doesn't have relaxing almost imperceptibly. He feels love and warmth washing through him, slowly asking if he'd like to come back now.

    He watches, not quite comprehending, as a lithe body that should be mangled and covered in blood slips past.

    He feels something on his face, tickling hot and cold, and senses a quiet touch of compassion and sympathy.

    He remembers light and heat and sadness and red and gold and white and black. He shakes, aching with a longing that can't be placed, and just before he forgets again, a slow thought wrenches itself from his chest.

    I want another chance.