His screams and cries echo everywhere around you.
He's in so much pain, and it's your fault, and you have a desperate wish to reach out and quell his grief, to wrap your arms around him and take away this horrible hurt that you can almost feel in his body, because it's like his pain is yours, like you're not even separate people any longer.
You feel the same as he does, the two of you are one, and oh god, oh god, it hurts.
It hurts because you're dead.
It hurts because he's not.
The hurt never really goes away, a year, two, three hundred, three thousand, years later. It's always swimming just beneath the surface of him, and you can feel all of it, all of him. The pain is the only constant in his life, in yours as well because now his life is your life. Your only solace in death is the knowing of him, the silence of caring for him just as he once did for you.
The difference, of course, being that you could see him, hear him, feel him, and he has no idea that you're with him, always with him, seeing and hearing and feeling. You never left in the first place, and he doesn't know.
Perhaps if he did, the dull ache in his chest and in his bones would fade away.
But you're beginning to think that it never will.
But even through the pain, he's strong. He's always been strong, always been brave, and you should have told him, told him every single day, minute, second. You should have done so many things, been so many things, but because of your mistakes, that endless list of blemishes you caused not only him, but everyone you ever held, cherished, loved – because you failed, you forced him to succeed.
He told you he was your servant, nothing more and nothing else, that his destiny was you, serving you, protecting you –
But he is more.
He's so much more than a servant.
So much more than his destiny.
So much more than you.
He's a lover and a fighter, a soldier and a caregiver, a leader, a king, he is light and darkness, fury and rage, kindness and grace.
He breathes life into the broken, gives hope to the hopeless. He's a warrior of the highest caliber, better than you could be, better than anyone could be. He fixes things, broken parts and broken hearts, he gives people light and salvation – he is the wandering stranger, present everywhere and nowhere, helping every civilization, every person, every kingdom, there has ever been. The world would be nowhere if not for him.
You were only his start. This is his true nature – not your careless, bumbling servant, but a fierce warrior, a hidden smile, beyond human, beyond godly –
And he loved you once.
You know he did. And still does, if his constant pain is any indication to where his heart finds its home.
It's that ache that reminds you he was yours once, that beneath his layers he is still a servant, still a protector.
He is still yours.
He always wears a chain around his neck, with a charm on the end. You smile when you feel him press his fingers softly against it, fingering it slowly and carefully, like he is savoring it and keeping it inside of him at all times.
It's your mother's sigil, the one you gave him a forever ago, when you thought you were going to die and you wanted him to remember you, to have something of yours to keep with him – and he kept it, he has always kept it, shrunken it down so that it is always with him, spun around his neck on that golden chain.
If only you could tell him that he didn't need a necklace with an ancient symbol on it to have you there, that you are already with him, always have been and always will be. You will never leave him, just as he will never leave you.
You are waiting for each other, he for you on earth and you for him in his mind and in his heart, and all you want is for him to see, hear, and feel you.
But he is blind and deaf and never feels a thing.