Of Living and Dying
To Have No Answers
"Why?" she sobbed. Crystal tears rolled from the corners of her eyes, making her cheeks shimmer in the torchlight. "Why did you do this thing?"
There was a long moment of silence before he spoke.
"My father always told me that I should fight. That I was born to it. That I would one day rise up and claim my own place in the sky, take some desolate piece of the heavens and make it mine, fill it with the shining stars of my glory and my fame and become deathless, immortal, a legacy through all history... Always fight, he said.
"But he never told me who."
Final Embrace
A whisper.
A sigh.
Thunder.
Silver whirlwind.
Golden straw, flying loose in the winter breeze.
Glittering stars in deep brown wells.
The song of steel on steel.
Another whisper.
Another sigh.
Breathless.
An insect buzzing in his ear -
he twisted to avoid it -
a kiss -
a wisp of ice across his throat -
sweet release.
Breathless.
Forever.
After
A hundred thousand candles flickered, fighting the gusts that strove to extinguish them. A hundred thousand more that he couldn't see; beyond those, countless. One for every mortal soul.
And in the center, three.
No.
One.
Two bodies, tangled in a timeless embrace; no breath of air, no dull-throbbing heartbeat, no gleam in those all-seeing eyes. A pool of crimson, still spreading. The bleakness of despair, of loss, only now beginning to rise in his throat.
They had been his brothers once. Long ago, so long ago that he could hardly remember it - could it really have been only a few months? - they had been his brothers. His family. His only gods, his only idols, his only loves.
Dead, each by the other's hand.
Three ice-blue flames.
Two half-melted candles, still smoking on the floor.
One flame.
One tall tower of wax.
Resting in his brothers' blood.
Steaming.
But burning.
Still burning.
Always burning.
His.
But...there were others.
Other flames, with the blue tinge.
One, to be exact.
No, two.
Three.
Four.
Fivesixseveneightnineteneleventwelvethirteenfourteenfortyfourhundredfourthousand - blue, everywhere, everything, blue, cold blue, and he couldn't escape it, couldn't look away, couldn't stop the shifting, couldn't stop the wind that blew through the cave, couldn't stop the screams couldn't stop the cries couldn't stop the tears couldn't stop couldn't stop couldn't couldn't couldn't couldn't never couldn't -
One.
Two.
Two blue flames.
And somewhere, far away, deep in some well-protected niche, a third short candle flared into blue glory.
Short.
So short.
But oh, how it burned.
