It's lonely here. The wind blows through the trees and sometimes it's wind and sometimes it's his brother, but sometimes it's her. She never arrives in summer. She's always busy in summer. Only in winter does she appear at the shoreline.
Jacob stares out across the sand at her. He watches her gently sip a dainty cup of tea as if she were a perfect lady. He knows better.
She turns to face him and smiles. Her smile rarely conveys any genuine happiness. More often it's a weary expression of Really you're all I've got. And that's the key to breaking through her cold persona. Realizing that underneath all her lies and treachery, lies nothing but the loneliness of a thousand years. Jacob almost chuckles at the thought that relative to his own age, even this ancient woman is but a child.
"What have you been doing these last few years?" He asks with a gentle familiarity. Her response is loud and brash, unbefitting her delicate form.
"This and that. The games just aren't as fun as they used to be. They always end. Over and over I watch beginnings and endings."
Jacob frowns, "I don't like to think of them as games."
She laughs and waves her hand, summoning a slender pipe, "It's what they are whether you like to admit it or not. You have your opponent, I have mine. We drag our pieces kicking and screaming onto the board and the fun begins."
"I wouldn't call carnage 'fun'. I'm only doing this because I have to." He responds, beginning to wish he had more company than his brother and Richard. Wishing he could shoo her away feeling safe in the knowledge that he'd always have more friends.
She blows a slow stream of smoke into the air and lets her head hang over the back of the chair, "You say that, but deep down you know it's a lie. Time after time you've let these people die, not because you couldn't save them, but because you wouldn't. Because you want to prove a point. We're more alike than you think, you and I."
Jacob's hands slam down on the table. The cups clatter and spill.
"I am nothing like you."
She steps forward, gives him a mocking peck on the nose and moves away.
"I enjoy our little talks… Maybe if you don't screw up this time, I can live the old life again. Then we'll see a lot more of each other." And then she's gone in a flash of golden butterflies.
Jacob looks to the gentle sky and watches it shatter as metal falls through the clouds to the island below. He lets one of the butterflies sit on his finger and gently strokes it's shining wings, "Soon, Beatrice. Soon."