A/N: This is pain. Pure and simple pain. I wanted to see just how much I could cram into a short fic, so if you're at all familiar with my previous work, you should know I'm not kidding. Putting all of it under the cut, because I really mean it. This thing hurts. Prompt from this, which states that swans mate for life, and at the death of one partner, the other could die from a broken heart.
She promised to keep her armour off, but her heart made no such assurances.
It whispered memories in her ear during the quiet moments, clenched painfully tight as she sought distraction in her family, her friends, the coming battle. It murmured quietly of him, of the future she'd buried in the ground beneath the stone with his name. It painted pictures of his face, clear blue eyes stormy during their final goodbye, and every goodbye before that.
But still she pushed forward, helping the town, her loved ones, going through the motions despite the pain that consumed her soul. She wiped away the tears, forced determination on her face, and soldiered on. She'd lost before, she'd get over it in time.
It had never been true love, before, her heart sang when no one could hear.
Nights were the hardest. The quiet suffocated her with its screams, she broke down more than once, sobbing into her pillow so no one would hear. They didn't need to, to know, her parents taking turns to rub circles on her back, to allow her tears to soak their shoulders, to chase away the silence with their murmured strength.
But it wasn't enough.
Morning came, without him, and she couldn't pull herself from bed. They gave her space, her family wanting nothing more than to ease her soul. But her heart, her heart belonged to him, and it fluttered weakly inside her without its other half.
She ate at some point, she must have, because there was food in the bucket when she threw it all up, but she couldn't remember getting up, and she didn't really care to try. Visitors came and went, merely shadows on the wall that crept up where he'd once cleared a path, the wall that built itself despite her promise. The shadows changed, grew more concerned, as the days and nights twisted together in their dark dance upon the sky.
Her heart wove stories of only him, and she felt herself drowning in the fabric that had been their life, the future hidden behind the tangled curtain she now wrapped tightly around herself to keep the light out. It was better, in the dark. She could remember clearer, she could imagine, she could hold onto the hope she knew was false but clung to it anyway.
Nothing else mattered, as she gave herself over to the shattered whispers of her heart. Even breathing seemed wasteful, when he had no need for air anymore.
She couldn't notice the way her family tried every form of medicine available in the land without magic. She couldn't care how each attempt was fraught with failure, her life slipping away while they watched, cried, and waited. She couldn't see their quiet acceptance as her pain overtook the heart that wanted only him.
She was already gone, when he returned to her, his life restored for heroics rendered. She didn't hear his voice, thick with tears and unashamed sobs, as he cradled her lifeless body in his arms.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come back sooner."
She looked for him, in the reddened world below, the cruel mirror of the one she'd left behind.
She looked, but he was not there.