It happened before he had time to react.
She stood there, invisible inside the light.
That hellish, gorgeous light.
It surrounded her, flowed from her, consumed her, and blocked her almost completely from his sight. Shining impossible colors wove around her in the blinding brilliance, deadly threads of power tying her down and raising her up all at once. He stared through it, desperate and screaming her name in denial.
And in an instant, the light went out like a switch had been flipped.
He felt the moment her heart stopped, and in that instant, his own did.
He ran forward, catching her limp body as it fell. He was crying, he was screaming, he was wailing like a child, but more importantly he was pouring his very life's energy into her corpse. It was a dangerous thing to do, and he knew it, but without her, his soul would wither and die anyways.
Someone was pulling at him, trying to separate him from her. Or maybe it was multiple someones. How long had it been? He was lost in time, thoughtless as he clung to her, refusing to give up. Refusing to give her up. A fainter, warmer light was surrounding them as he continued to pool his life into her.
It was like trying to pour water into a vase that had been inverted. His energy slipped off the edges, nothing entering the hollow shell of the body.
Something inside him was broken. The threat was forgotten, all that he had was her. She was his goddess, his only meaningful memory, his truest love. And she was lost.
Even now, her corporeal form was fading. Like the stardust she was made from, her body was breaking into points of light. They twinkled and stole bits of her from his grasp, until he was left clutching nothing but air and sobbing.
It was a relief when blackness stole his vision.
When he woke up, he wasn't alone. The blissful nothingness of unconsciousness didn't prevent the ache inside his chest, and he knew even before becoming aware of his surroundings that he had lost something irreparably precious.
He was in a field, green plants on all sides. A forest to one side, mountains behind the hills in the distance, it dimly registered that he was not where he had been.
It didn't matter where he was though, because she wasn't there with him.
The figure in front of him was an unfamiliar woman. She had long blonde hair, and her skin seemed to radiate with light. Was she dangerous? Did it matter?
No, he decided. It didn't matter. Let her kill him so that he could join his soul mate in the oblivion.
"Endymion, you are not this pathetic," she said, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning at him.
He blinked at her, eyes burning from exhaustion. She was wrong, he was pathetic. He felt like a cord was wound around his heart so tight it throbbed down to the tips of his fingers. Breathing was an effort.
"She's dead, but she's not lost." She knelt down towards him, hair spilling over her shoulders. A memory invaded his mind like an ugly smell, reminding him of a moment when his love had knelt down in the same way, her platinum hair falling in the same manner. He wanted to whimper, but instead he just closed his eyes as more tears spilled out. Grief was a living monster eating him whole. "This isn't your first lifetime together, and it won't be your last." He opened his eyes and saw she was seated in front of him.
"You want to do what she did last time. Kill yourself and then wait a few thousand years until you're reborn with her again." She watched his expression. The notion was tempting, but she interrupted him before he could commit to the idea. "But you'd be an idiot to do that, because as we both know, the bond isn't broken." She favored him with a sympathetic smile. "And that can mean only one thing."
His usually sharp mind couldn't quite wrap around what she was trying to tell him. As if reading his thoughts, she repeated.
"She's not lost."
And with that, the glimmer of hope for salvation was rekindled. He was suddenly at full attention, fixed on this woman in front of him. She was tall, slender, with young smooth skin, but her youthful features were betrayed by the weight in her gaze. She was older than she appeared, an old soul, probably older than he was. More than any other feature about her though, the thing that struck him was how familiar she was to him. And yet, he had no memory of ever meeting her. But she knew him, and this confirmed his belief that they had in fact met. It was hard to see details of her through his blurry vision.
"You were always the protector, always stuck in the notion that you needed to guard something. Your kingdom, your love, your honor. Now you have nothing left to guard." She tilted her head to the side. "Your kingdom is safe, thanks to her sacrifice, but because of it, now she's gone." He sucked in a shaky breath, hating her for repeating the cold truth. "And you're on the verge of death now too, thanks to your own actions." He frowned, trying to remember. How much of his life had he tried to transfer into her? The memory was sweet acid in his mouth, he had been willing to give her all of it, and had tried to do just that. But, even with the knowledge that he would soon die, he heard the most important distinction in her sentence.
"Too." He repeated. His voice was foreign to him, coarse and weak from screaming.
She smiled, pleased he'd caught the insinuation. "Yes, too. She is on the verge of death as well." Her smile faded. "You can't save her though, not as you are now." She studied him as he tried to fight off despair. "That is why I am here."
"Who are you?"
She shook her head. "No. That is earned." She stood up, offering him a hand. "If you complete the tasks before you, you will be with her again. In this life, and not the next."
He couldn't take her hand fast enough.
"Anything," he said.
She gave him a knowing, sad smile.
AN: This is a retelling of the classical story of Orpheus. I've kind of thrown you guys into the deep end of the pool first, but its intentional, I assure you. The reason and context of her death, time frame this story is written and everything else will be revealed through the unraveling of the story. The grammatically horrible 'fragment' style emphasis writing will not continue in future chapters, but for this chapter I wanted to mirror his disjointed thoughts.