To Carry You Home
************************************
In response to The Rain Child's fanfiction challenge
A Garet/Karst
************************************
She's not what one would normally call beautiful. None of the Valean women look like that, with pink skin and long, pointed ears. No Valean women have red eyes or fangs, much less lizardlike scales on their shoulders. No Valean women wear armor or carry scythes.
In spite of all her weaponry, all her deadly grace and forbidding appearance, she looks weak. She looks so, so weak.
She's covered in blood. Red, red blood, blending in with her dark pink skin, leaving trails in her long ponytail. She's marinating in the very essence of her existence. Her body is covered in cuts and slashes from our weapons.
From my weapon.
I've never seen her before. Isaac and Ivan have, at Jupiter Lighthouse, but I was too far down the wall to see, and too busy holding on for dear life to care. She didn't sound nice, at any rate, and I never had an interest in someone who tried to kill my friends.
But now, looking at her, lying helpless on the stone floor of Mars Lighthouse, I can see that she's no different from me. She's just a normal person, despite her fearsome features and tough armor.
One look at the largest slash tells me all. There's no chance she can live, not at the rate that her blood is fleeing from her insides. A glance down at my sword reveals more. It's swathed in red liquid, hanging in sticky droplets before it falls into thick puddles on the floor. I think for a moment, and realize that where I dealt the killing blow to the smaller Flame Dragon is where Karst is bleeding from now.
It was me. I've killed her.
"Felix?" she rasps. "What happened? I can't remember anything . . . the eye, it told us we didn't have the power to go on . . ."
Someone did this to her? How could they? Can't they see that she's just a child, like the rest of us? She can't possibly be any older than Felix.
There's so much blood.
"Wait," her companion, a blue-skinned man named Agatio interrupts. "I seem to remember fighting . . . but I couldn't control what I was doing."
"Fighting," Karst sighs. "Yes, I remember that somewhat. But we were fighting . . ." she turns large, sad eyes on us, gazing around the group, "you."
Just looking in her eyes hurts. I'm so far away, but I can see every ounce of regret shining in those red eyes of hers.
"I suppose I was a fool to seek revenge," she whispers, closing her eyes. "It's only wounded me in the end. What would Menardi say if she could see me now?" She tries to laugh, but a cough is all that comes out. She tries to rise to a sitting position, but all that even twitches are her fingertips, straining to move but only succeeding in slight degrees. "It was my foolishness that brought me to this." Tears leak from underneath her thin eyelashes.
I've just killed someone again. Just like back at Venus Lighthouse, when Saturos and Menardi . . .
What's wrong with me? She was trying to kill me! And Isaac! I mustn't forget that. It was self-defense. She and Agatio tried to kill us as dragons. It's the same way with Saturos and Menardi. They were trying to stop us! Trying to kill us!
She couldn't control herself, if what Agatio said is true. She couldn't control it!
By Fate, I just killed someone who had no control over herself! That's like killing a baby!
A cough. Blood smears over her lips. She faintly smiles, her eyes glazing slightly as she stares at the ceiling. "It's your job now."
Mia would laugh if she knew how I saw this girl. She's our enemy. I wonder how Isaac would feel. How appalled would he be at my soft feelings toward an opponent?
No, wait. Isaac is crying too. Silver tears are spilling from his blue eyes, flowing like rivers down his cheeks.
Felix is the worst I've ever seen him. He was never one to cry, not even before the boulder hit. He used to say that crying was reserved for girls.
But the tears are coursing down his face now, leaving long streaks on his dirty skin.
"Take the Mars Star," Agatio offered, wincing and holding out a silver bag. "It's up to you now. You are the only ones who can save Weyard."
"Please."
She's begging. When I heard her speak before at Jupiter Lighthouse, she was so arrogant. So angry.
How Fate can break people.
What did she do to deserve this? What has she ever done to deserve such a death, with no friends or family around to ease her suffering, no one to hold her hand and tell her it's all right?
My friends would laugh, but this girl . . . Karst . . . seems so weak and fragile now. I just want nothing more than to protect her.
Let me protect her. Let me carry her home, so she can at least have loved ones nearby.
"Please," she repeats. "Please, just hear me out . . . for Menardi's sake and for mine, I beg of you, just do this one task!" Her tearful eyes open. "Please, save my people. We'll die if the world isn't healed soon. Please!"
A coughing fit interrupts her, and she breaks into sounds that are trapped between sobs and chokes. Blood pours from her mouth onto the floor, a red pool of vitality forming around her lips.
Felix keels by Agatio, taking the Mars Star after hastily wiping his eyes with the back of one hand. Agatio, giving up the Star readily, smiles and closes his eyes.
"Felix, it is up to you to light the beacon now," he said. "If I can just live to see the illumination, I'm sure that all will be well."
It's not long after that his breath slows and finally halts.
Karst begins crying harder. Her red eyes, which must have been at least once creased by hatred and fury, are full of fear and anxiety now. "I don't want to die," she whispers, a fleeting cry against her doomed reality.
Isaac is the first to kneel beside her.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "It was my folly. Saturos and Menardi were willing to die, Isaac. I wasn't, but now it appears I have no choice."
Look at all the blood . . .
Felix stands and turns away, still hastily scrubbing at his eyes with one hand. "Let's go," he says in a choked tone. "There's no time to waste. We must light the beacon as soon as possible."
As everyone filters out of the room, I at last walk over to Karst and kneel beside her. The shroud of Death is cloaking her eyes now; she probably can't even see my face.
"Felix?" she asks vaguely. "Is that you?"
My voice is so roughened and strained by my hidden tears that it's hard to tell the difference between myself and her hero. "Yes. Yes, it's me, Karst."
"Felix, I'm sorry that I wasn't strong enough to pull through . . . to light the beacon . . ." Even her hiccups from sobbing are bringing blood up with them.
"Shh," I say to her, feeling my tears fill up in my eyes. Her eyes are growing dimmer by the instant, and her breaths are getting shallow. Her face is a gory mask of agony, twisted and scarred as the pain dulls her eyes and blood fills her hair. "Shh. It'll be all right. If you can just live long enough to see the beacon lit . . ."
"But that's what Agatio said, and he's—he's—" She starts to choke in midsentence.
"What's important is that you survive."
She thinks I'm Felix. Let her believe it, if that's who she wants to speak to right now.
"But, Felix, I don't think I can live that long."
I can see her spirit now. The loving, passionate girl that is Karst. A vulnerable, innocent girl, broken by the loss of her only sister and torn in half by my own blade. She's like Mia or Jenna. Or Kay, my sister back in Vale. She's just a normal girl like any of them.
I can see her spirit, and it makes her beautiful despite how she looks.
"Felix?" she asks again.
By the Gods, I can't stop crying—! "Yes? What is it, Karst?"
"Felix, please, can you just hold my hands . . . just for a moment?"
I take her hands in mine and pull them to my face, kissing the backs of each. They're so cold, even colder than the stone floor I kneel upon.
"Thank you. It's so nice . . . you're so warm. I had forgotten the warmth of human hands." A smile creeps over her death-stained features. "Isn't this funny, Felix? We of the North are meant to be immune to the cold, but I can feel the air like ice on my skin."
"After this is all over," I can hear myself saying, "I'll take you back to Prox. Everyone was worried about you. After this is over, I'll carry you home." One of my own tears falls onto her cheek.
She winces slightly and tries to pull her arm back to wipe at it, but she still can't move. "Felix, are you crying for me?" A choke interrupts her before she can say anything more.
"Yes." I wonder if I am choking too, from the guttural undertones in my voice. "Yes, Karst. The tears I cry are meant for you."
"Don't be silly. If I can live to see the beacon's light, then I'll be fine. We'll go back to Prox."
"Yes. Even if it takes all my strength, Karst, I'll do my best to carry you home."
She gives me that vague death-smile again as her eyes flutter shut. I kiss her softly on the forehead and curse myself, knowing that I cannot keep my promise to her.
I tear away a piece of her cape, pocketing it. Standing up brings me more sorrow because it means that I've taken the first step in leaving her behind.
But only angels can carry the dead home.
************************************
Please review. . . .