a/n: for the Rinoa fanwork-a-thon at wilderthan's livejournal. prompt: "a walk by my grave"
handfuls of dirt
-irishais-
"Will you come here?" she asks, braiding daisies into a chain, the petals fairer still against her hands. He is fascinated by this, that her hands can still be so gentle after so much. She catches him watching, and smiles, the corners of her lips quirking up. "Will you?"
Her fingers twist the stalks together deftly; if he had tried, they would have crumbled and snapped under the pressure. He reaches and plucks a wayward petal from her skirt; he can barely feel its smoothness under the callouses on his thumb and forefinger.
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, your mother's buried here, too. It's beautiful. Serene. I think a little spot over there, just by that hill, would be so...peaceful."
He follows her pointing finger with his gaze, and sees the little valley, overgrown with wild flowers in pastels, pinks and whites and yellows. "You're not going to die," he tells her. He tries to make it lighthearted, as if this is a joke she wants him to follow along with. "Don't talk like that."
She smiles again. "It happens to everyone. I'm just saying, that when it happens to me, I want to know if you'd come every day. If you'd walk here, and talk to me."
"Yes," he says, solemnly. Had she expected him to say otherwise? The thought of her dying is terrifying enough; talk of visiting her grave every day is doubly so. He doesn't think he'll sleep tonight, if she keeps this up.
She rocks up on her knees, looping the daisy chain around his neck, the flowers warm--her fingers warmer still-- against his skin. "Promise me."
"I will, Rin." He settles his hands on top of hers, and it isn't to feel the pulse beating steadily beneath her skin. It isn't. She looks him steadily in the eyes and says it again.
"Promise, like you did before."
But he had broken that promise--
"Promise, okay? I won't rest until you've said it."
He pulls her hands from around his neck and brings their hands together in the cross made by his legs. There is the span of a hundred heartbeats before he says it.
"I promise."
He doesn't realize that she's been holding her breath until he says it, and she exhales, all the muscles in her face relaxing. She smiles, and says,"There, that wasn't hard, was it?"
With a shrug, the daisy chain rustles against his shirt. He squeezes her fingers. "I'll likely go before you, anyway." He had meant it to be casual, and she looks at him in wide-eyed fear, the sort he has schooled out of his own face long ago-- he hides it, now, quietly terrified, even though death is not foreign to him. His own death is not frightening; it is the idea of hers that leaves him sweating and pale in the dark hours.
"We'll go together," she tells him firmly, when she's regained her composure. Her tone brooks no argument; he isn't sure how to tell her that her idea only works in fairy tales, and their story is anything but.
"It'll be less scary," he agrees. The daisy chain snaps as she throws her arms around his neck.