Unreal. That is, in my opinion, a brief summary of the last three weeks. We've been running the maze since for that long now, and where we thought that we would find treasure, power, and the authority to command the guilds, we instead found chaos, nightmarish creatures that met us at every turn, and ourselves. In the midst of the madness we turned about and realized that we could die at any given moment, and so we chose to know what we were dying for.
"Jace," says Liliana as she approaches me cautiously. With all the stress on my shoulders lately, I've been prone to lashing out when startled. Liliana has been unconscious for two days now, and I've been carrying her through the storm since then. People say that I should run away from her and never look back, that she's evil, dark, and can't be trusted. I tell them that I'm the same way, and that she and I need to stick together. I love her, and I think that she loves me too.
"Good to see you awake again," I reply. "I thought you were dead, but I couldn't tell." Liliana hasn't been truly alive in two centuries. There was no pulse to check, no warmth to feel from her, nothing. All I could do was wait, and drag her along the maze with me.
"I was," begins Liliana, "but the demons were able to repair me again."
This is what I don't like about her; she just pushes death aside and comes back a couple days later, unaware of how I've been dying inside, unable to eat or sleep or do anything but fight off the monsters that tried to get to her. I have to ask myself sometimes if she really cares. I doubt she does.
"What do you want?" I ask, and it comes out like I'm trying to shun her. Good thing Liliana never cares if you enjoy her company or not, she just graces us all with it anyways.
"I want to talk." She sits down next to me on the overhang that I'm resting on, a rocky spike that juts out over the Simic pools. They can't see us up here, but falling would mean almost certain death. "The last few weeks, the things we've seen, I've been thinking…"
"That's dangerous," I reply without looking at her. She knows I don't mean a word of it. Unlike her, I value my life, and I know that insulting Liliana Vess could mean the end of it.
"Shut up Jace." She continues, saying "I've been thinking that while I may live for another millennia or two, you're life is bound to end some time."
"I think about that every day," I retort, "I think about you wandering off across the multiverse and leaving me here, an old withered shell of a man, and then you fall in love with some other mortal and just keep watching us little people die."
"I know."
"No you don't!" I yell, standing up angrily. "I can read minds, Liliana! I know that you don't give a damn what happens after I die. You'll mourn for a day or two, and then forget I was ever here."
"That's not true Jace!" she yells back. Auras of magic start to gather around us, fuel for the fire raging in our souls. "You can't see the future; you don't know what will happen! You might be immortal someday too!"
"I can't be, won't be immortal, Liliana!" The mana gathering around us pulses to the rhythm of our words, encompassing us individually and shielding us from each other. "I don't want a life without end, a life without meaning, and I never want to live like you do!"
Suddenly she reaches through the clouds of energy and pulls me into her, kissing me. My energy seems to stay back for a moment as I decide if I really want to forgive her that easily. I think to myself, Screw it, and kiss her back. Our power clashes together, entwining itself into one great shield from the outside world. In that moment, everything around us stops burning and raging and hating and just is. Everything just is.