Quiet
It was the perfect night to die.
The moon hung low overhead, the clouds hugging its pearlescent body like the silken robes of a geisha. Leaves swayed in the subtle breeze that stirred the air, and the stars glittered and winked in the sky of black velvet.
Forty miles from the nearest town, a pair of eyes grew dim. A breath was released, a hand fell limp, and a heart stuttered and faltered before finally ceasing to beat altogether, another silence joining the eternal quiet of the mute mistress Death.
Patches of sparse grass framed a beaten and scuffed body, spatters of red and blotches of purples and greens and blues marring porcelain skin. Clothes were torn and stained, armor scratched and dented, a mask cracked and chipped. Long, dark hair spilled like brown silk over the forest floor, matting a bleeding and battered head.
As Death swept away the last whispers of life from the mind, body, and soul of the dark-haired warrior, another mind, body, and soul paced restlessly within the walls of his apartment. Hands clasped behind his back, brows drawn downward in concentration, he could not make his body go still; worry throbbed in his veins.
But even in his unrest he was silent, wordlessly making rounds and glancing at the clock every few minutes. Hours passed. Pacing gave way to sitting uneasily in a lounge chair, strategically positioned so that it faced the front door; the better to see her when she arrived home, which she surely would.
The sun rose slowly in the east. The clouds that had blanketed the moon drew back like opalescent curtains on a stage. But still he sat, his eyes, colored similarly to the lavender-tinted clouds, set unmoving on the still unopened front door.
She did not come.
He stood, walked to the apartment's entrance. Moved silently through the village's streets, entered silently the office of his leader. And, very quietly, he requested a search party.
He did not find her. Not for many years; not until his own body lay broken in a clearing, white mask cast beside him, resting cracked with the remnants of his pride. Crumpled and beaten, he slipped away.
And there, in the quiet realm of the mistress Death, he again found her.
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