~~~~~~~~~
don't fall away
and leave me to myself
don't fall away
and leave love bleeding in my hands
in my hands again
and leave love bleeding in my hands
in my hands
love lies bleeding
Kalasin leaned heavily on her stone windowsill, the thick emerald-tinted brocades chafing her delicate skin. "Are all the doors locked?" she said, voice catching in her throat painfully. "Is it secure yet?"
Pathom leaned on his staff, panting as he managed to calm his breath as it fluttered out of his chest. "All of them," he gasped, even his iron strength a touch wasted from the ten-story sprint up the tower stairs. "Your majesty," he bowed deeply from the waist. "The soldiers are coming."
"How many?" the Queen whispered, although she could see the scores of red-cloaked mercenaries flooding into the already packed courtyard. Fear chilled her bones, though she sorely wished she could be brave, as she ought to be. The Gods despise a weakling! She cursed her faults, and managed to supress the shiver of cowardice.
Memories are just where you laid them
drag the waters till the depths give up their dead
what did you expect to find
whas there something you left behind
don't you remember anything i said when i said
Buri's mother pounded up the dark grey stone steps. "She doesn't understand!" the woman cried, her heavily accented voice breaking on the highest note. "She thinks it's her duty, her birthright, to fight along side of us, Pathom! She...she's only a girl yet! Why..." Her voice broke off with a sob.
"Where is she now?" the young man replied, tense as he held a handful of spears in his right hand.
"I've locked her in Thayet's closet, at the convent. Buri's still crying, nearly ripped the gowns from the hangers before I shut the door. Oh, my son," the mother wept, "It hurts to see her so, yet it is for the best..."
"I've sent Thayet to the Daughters of the Hag anyway," Kalasin remarked, voice distant, eyes trailing unfocused on the cloudy sky. "She'll get your Buri out in time, and with the horses I've provided."
"Thank the gods," Pathom muttered.
hold me now i feel contagious
am i the only place that you've left to go
she cries her life is like
some movie black and white
dead actors faking lines
over and over and over again she cries
"They come," Buri's mother breathed, hearing the poundings on the thick wooden doors. "Kalasin, please hurry!"
"All right," she said quietly, and stepped onto the balcony with the grace of a true Queen. The crowd below her, composed mainly of Sarain citizens, murmured and shifted below her, a dizzying whirl of color from the tower's height. "Can you hear me?" she cried, feeling her already torn throat protest, and ignored the metallic taste of her own blood in her mouth.
From the tower, Kalasin could see Adigun, with his ornate bronze jin Wilima shield flashing in the dimming sunlight. "As Queen," she cried as loud as she could, "I have tried to see my people -all my people- with equality and fairness. I have hoped for peace, yet all I can see are hired soldiers with no care for the cause they fight."
In the shifting shadows behind the Saranite lowlanders, Kalasin could see her people, the K'mir, watching her speak. Their dark eyes glittered with emotion as they saw their own defying the Warlord jin Wilima, though they did not emerge from their hiding. The Warlord would see that they would be beaten and possibly enslaved for showing their unworthy faces in his fair city.
"I would defend my people," she continued, as tears clouded her hazel eyes and blurred the image of the outcast tribesmen, "when my husband would persecute them, take our land, which is the heart of our culture. He allows his people to actively hate the K'mir, whom I love as dearly as this country. They capture my people for slaves, burn their homes, destroy their clans, impose laws that target our social structure..." She paused, deep in thought, for she had no script or speech prepared, and had only spoken from her heart so far.
"Yet, it should not be 'his' people and 'my' people!" she shouted. Behind her brave words Kalasin could hear Pathom and his mother preparing for battle, the bright metal clank of armor and spearheads as the first door gave way so many stories below. "We should not be divided, for it is the death of Sarain when war splits apart the land itself! It...please," she cried out, almost a wail as her heart tore in two, "don't hate each other. That was all I asked, Adigun. You never would listen. Would you hear my words now?" She swallowed, feeling her courage leave her body, and became a simple swaying, weak figure standing in the tower. Could she manage this feat, or would return to playing the role of the subservient wife, the prostrate Queen who bowed to her husband's will?
and i wanted
you turned away
you don't remember
but i do
you never even tried
Below her, in the crowd, Kalasin could see Adigun turn his face away, though she coud not discern his expression. "Husband, do you hear me?" she shrieked, almost to her wit's end. The wind pounded around her temples, and her head ached with repressed tears. "Adigun!" Her last scream was carried away by the wind, though the people gathered below flinched with the half-insane desperation of its anger.
The pounding reached the second door, where Pathom and his mother waited in arms. "Hurry, your Highness!" Pathom gritted, as the wood splintered. "It will not hold much longer! And when we are gone, there is only the last door between you and them!"
She bowed her head. "Godspeed, my friends," she muttered to the two.
Turning back to the window, Kalasin managed a small smile, albeit bitter. The sweat running down her sides reminded her of mortality, a reassuring function that comforted her in its naturalness during this ordeal. "No more will I watch this injustice. I will also not bear this burden alone, which is why I have offered the contents of my soul out to you." The nobles, commonborn, slaves, and K'mir watched her below, all eyes trained on her slender figure, an emerald beacon high above them. Even the scarlet cloaked soldiers paused, helmeted faces upturned to the sky. "Now you know, and I may leave this world with a clear conscience."
Parting her dry lips, the melody she had been taught at an early age poured from her aching throat, the death chant that honored every dying or dead K'mir since the first Clan. The words, though customarily blurred almost beyond recognition by the wailing, dirge-like notes, sang through her mind and heightened her waning courage. Life, Honor, Courage, guide my soul through the final passing, into the bright light of the Gods' presence. Fitting, in her opinion.
Below her, Kalasin could hear Adigun cry aloud as if wounded, and urge his motionless soldiers forward. Pathom and his mother's weapons clattered to the ground, their brave war-shouts fading slowly into silence as the mercenaries' boots thundered closer to her final door. "I sang the death-chant for all of us, my friends," she whispered, before stepping gracefully to the railing of the balcony, and spreading her arms like a bird's wings; she allowed her form to fall into the empty space before her just as the armed men burst into the stone room.
don't fall away
and leave me to myself
Adigun gave a great shout, but it was to no avail. Her body, brilliant hazel eyes closed serenely, fluttered through the air as delicately as a butterfly. Robes billowing in the wind, her body crumpled to the stones below.
don't fall away
and leave love bleeding in my hands
in my hands again
"Kalasin!" he cried. "My Queen!" Sprinting towards her, despite heavy armor, he saw the blood scattering on the cobblestones. Cradling the woman in his arms, her features crushed by the fall, the Warlord felt the warmth of her blood soak through his heavy robes and penetrate to his bare skin.
The crowd silently dispersed, shaken, as a light rain began to fall, mixing with the K'mir Queen's crimson blood and Adigun's hot, bitter tears.
don't fall away
and leave love bleeding in my hands
in my hands again
and leave love bleeding in my hands
in my hands...
~~~~~~~~~~~