Absquatulate
Verb: the act of leaving without saying goodbye.
Death is silence, Maka has learned.
When her pet cat had gotten caught in a trap when she was seven, it had yowled and cried until Mabaa had put it out of its misery. The emptiness that followed as Maka watched the light of its soul fade was worse than the yells that had filled Mabaa's cabin seconds ago. After that, she quickly learned to avoid people when their souls started to flicker and beat unevenly, the only harbinger of the approaching silence only she and Mabaa could see (it was also then that she began to understand why soul magic regularly drove its users mad.)
But then Mabaa had moved them to the remote castle in the west, where the people around Maka hardly changed, something which eased the ache that sometimes came with seeing souls all the time.
When she first arrived, Maka stayed in the disguise that Mabaa made her to promise to wear till the treaty was signed until Maka had seen the boy with the darkened soul. Souls generally shined brightly, no matter what lay within them, or were completely consumed in darkness, like she had seen only once before, but his soul's light was dimmed like a new moon, blanketed but still pulsing. The mystery made it impossible not to follow the boy when she spotted him sneaking into the forest, though she hadn't said that when he caught her watching him.
Soul (she had never been been able to pry his real name out of him though she could have easily gotten it from Wes) had a soul that moved through phases, like the moon. Mostly, it stayed blanketed, with only a little light breaking through. Occasionally, it shone brightly like when he carried her in the forest after she twisted ankle; she could never look at him directly for long then.
And then were the rare times she found Soul caught in a nightmare and his soul shrouded in darkness. It was something she suspected happened more often than not but the edginess in Soul's voice and his tendency to change the subject had stymied her attempts to bring it up. It wasn't a choice she liked but she respected it, pulling him out of his mind when he got distant with distractions and conversation.
Then war had separated them and all she had of Soul were letters while she remembered what the dread of death's silence felt like.
War did not give Maka the same warnings of death like the ones she had seen in her childhood. When Mabaa died, the pulse of her soul had been loud in Maka's ears until it was not and Maka was alone. The same held true during the endless battles and skirmishes over the last four years; war, like life, was loud, from sparks hissing as witches from the lizard coven threw their flames to the rumble of the earth before the badger witches split the ground open. It was the abrupt quiet as both her allies and enemies' souls winked out that was much more jarring, however.
The fact that the absence of sound means absence of life is all but engraved in her mind as she stumbles to her feet after Medusa's arrow attack.
"Soul." Maka's words are thick on her tongue and she swings her head from side to side, ears ringing, no sign of Medusa or Soul anywhere.
Her steps are slow and faltering as her head clears, the shadow of the snake coven's castle falling on her making it hard to see much of anything. She grits her teeth against the sudden bolt of pain running from the gash in her shoulder and calls out for Soul while looking out for Medusa. The witch had ambushed them in an empty pocket at the edge of the battlefield; her arrow attacks had proven too strong for Maka's shields and she had been knocked off her feet, tasting unconsciousness before rolling on her side to get up.
From beyond comes the noises of the rest of the dying battle but it's too far away to be a concern, though she knows Wes will come looking for them eventually. It's only as she's about to call Soul's name again that Maka realizes it.
It's too quiet.
"No," she says to the silence.
Her heart goes cold as the silence slices through to her bones and she forces herself to move faster-no matter how horrific the deaths, the silence has never touched her before.
It is too late, she knows, when she finally spies Soul's body, still and pale. It is too late when she gasps his name and drops to the ground in front of him, begging her eyes to be wrong. It is too late when she hugs him to her chest, pressing her healing magic to him.
It is too late, she is too late, but it is all she can do and no matter how loud she cries and screams, the silence consumes.
There is a bleak fog that hangs over the camp as people attend to the wounded and account for the dead-too many have died for their victory to be a celebration.
Maka sits in front of the fire in the middle of the camp, staring into the embers blankly. Numbness has replaced silence; she hardly registers the blanket that gets thrown over her shoulders.
From across the fire is Wes' tent, positioned among the tents of the other lords and ladies. He found her shortly after she'd come across Soul's body and had been the one to pull her away from him.
She can't imagine how Wes feels, how he felt seeing his brother on the ground, but at the same time, she can't find the will to move. Talking to anyone about what happened will make it real, though the distant voice from the back of her mind repeating he's dead he's dead he's dead over and over reminds her that it's real whether she talks about it or not.
The only thing Maka is able to do is twist her necklace in her hand mindlessly. She'd nearly taken Soul's necklace as Wes was pulling her up but then she'd remembered their promise from last night.
Something stings at the corner of her eyes but she wills it away, sinking into surreal denial. It's impossible for her mind to process the Soul from last night-laughing, warm and alive-alongside the one from today-motionless, cold and dead.
And it was her fault, a not-so-distant voice screams at her. If she hadn't insisted on taking on Medusa, Soul would have never had to take the brunt of the attack Medusa aimed at her and he would still be alive. Objectively, she knows she's wrong-Medusa would have pursued them if they had ran but anger at herself is easier to feel than the pain needling at every inch of her body.
"Sad day." A shadow by the fire blinks and Maka turns her head towards it, vaguely recognizing the cat familiar.
When Maka doesn't answer, the cat hops up on the log she sits on. "Happy day too."
Her fingers curl. "I don't want to talk, if that isn't obvious."
"I lost my witch just like how you lost your human," the cat sniffs. "I'm trying to look on the bright side of things."
"He wasn't my human," Maka says sharply, glaring at the cat. "He was my friend."
"Seemed more than that by the way you talked about him," the cat replies, licking her paw.
"Who are you?"
"Clara was my witch," the cat says by way of explanation.
The name rings familiar. "We worked in the north for a few months," she recalls. "You're Blair."
"Naturally," the cat answers.
Maka sighs. "Isn't there any cat witches you can go bother?"
"If any of them were alive, yes."
"Oh." Maka looks back at the fire. "I'm sorry."
"This isn't my first life," Blair says with a dismissive wave of her tail. "They'll be back in a century or so."
Visions of a conversation she had with Soul about reincarnation cloud Maka's vision. "Is that how long reincarnation takes?"
"Give or take a century."
The slim hope that she might be able to find Soul again in this life dies-she wasn't born with the longevity that some witches have. "Wonderful."
"Though your human's soul might have rotted away by the time you do find him," Blair muses as she swats at a moth. "It was a monster of a curse Medusa put on him."
Maka's blood runs cold. "What do you mean?"
"Cats see curses," Blair says, rising and stretching. "And I have never seen a curse as big as the one that was placed on your human. Souls can't bear that kind of burden for many lives."
The cat yowls as Maka picks her up. She ignores the angry bat that Blair swipes at her hand. "What do you mean?" she demands. "What curse?"
"I can't tell what kind it is," Blair answers, writhing in Maka's hands. "All I know is that it's a curse with no end. The kind of curse that wears down on the soul until there's nothing left."
Maka leaps to her feet. "I can't let that happen to him." She raises Blair to her face. "How do I help him?"
"You can't." The cat stops struggling. "Not if you want to keep your powers."
"I don't care about that," Maka says in a hiss. "How can I save him?"
Blair stares at her for a minute before finally rolling her golden eyes. "Go pack up your things, you're going to need it."
Maka frowns in confusion as Blair takes her through the remnants of Medusa's castle. "Why are you taking me here?"
Blair swishes her tail as she jumps over the wreckage of a snake statue. "You'll see."
The answer makes Maka grit her teeth but she follows the cat, pulling her pack's straps to make sure it's securely fastened.
It hadn't taken much work to sneak out of the camp-there was too much to deal with to notice a lone witch disappearing off with a cat familiar. Still, she looks over her shoulder from time to time, eyeing the tall shadows on the walls.
"Here it is," announces Blair after several minutes of walking down a maze of hallways.
The doors sag inwards and the golden snakes are covered in dust but Maka recognizes where she is. "Why here?"
"Come on." Blair fits herself in the gap that broken doors have created. "We have to see if it still works."
"See if what works?" grunts Maka as she wedges herself into the gap. It takes a few minutes of strained effort but she finally makes it through, breathing heavily.
Blair is already halfway down the stone path and she jogs to catch up, not catching her breath until the cat comes to an abrupt stop. Inhaling deeply, Maka looks at the well that she and Soul had leaned against as they gazed at the stars four years ago.
She ignores the pang in chest. "This? It's only a well."
"A well that leads to the depths of time and space," corrects Blair. "This will take you where you need to go."
Maka peers into the inside of the well, catching the iridescent gleaming of stardust that she had first seen when Medusa had taken her here. "I thought it was only a myth perpetuated by magic."
Blair gives her what she thinks is a smile. "We'll all be myths one day."
"Fine." Maka swallows, clenching her hands. "What do I do?"
"First, you need to offer up your magic," Blair says, leaping up on the edge of the well's wall.
"I do."
"Not like that," she says impatiently. "You need to offer it with something precious to you."
Immediately, Maka's hand goes to her necklace. She hesitates in taking it off, however.
"Go on," Blair urges. "It'll be alright."
Slowly, Maka takes off the necklace and holds it over the well. She closes her eyes as she drops the necklace. "I offer my magic."
"Look," hisses Blair. "I told you it'd be okay."
Maka opens her eyes and sees the necklace floating in the air; inside of it shimmers the same stardust that she spied at the bottom of the well. "What is this?"
"Your magic." Blair stands and begins to circle the well's edge. "Every time you use it, the well will take some of it. When it runs out, that's the life you're stuck in."
Maka continues to stare at the necklace as it dangle in the air.
"Get it," Blair says. "The necklace will be your portal when you can no longer access the well. Flip it three times to return to the inside of the well."
The glass soul pulses like a heartbeat in Maka's hands as she wraps her fingers around it. As soon as she is sure of her hold, she yanks her hand back and pulls on the necklace in one motion, breathing out a sigh of relief. "How do you know all of this?"
"Cats have many lives," the cat states simply. "And very good memories."
"How does it feel to be reborn?" she asks.
Blair sees through her question. "To you, it will feel like eternity has stretched out its weight on your skin. But to him, it will be nothing more than a moment." For the first time since they met, she hesitates. "If you use all of your magic, you're giving up the rest of your lives, you know."
"You're saying that like I'm going to change my mind." Maka pulls herself up on the stones of the well's wall, balancing herself carefully.
"You can still turn back."
Maka smiles at the cat. "Thank you for your help."
With a deep breath, she steps off the ledge.
It feels like she's falling into the dark, vacant spaces between the stars, plummeting into nothing and everything.
Eventually, she becomes aware of the millions of souls weaving invisibly throughout the darkness. They glimmer like tiny stars under the power of her soul perception and for a long time, she listens.
When she hears his soul, seconds or eons later, she breathes out and opens her eyes.
For a second, she sees him, just ahead of her and reaching out his hand.
Maka stares at Soul, breathless.
Just before their hands touch and everything turns black, she thinks she hears him call her name.