Written for lyriette on tumblr.
The Prompt:
"Fakir dies in Ahiru's arms, never confessing his love"
Rating: T
Trigger Warnings: Major character death, blood
Genres: Tragedy
"Fakir, oh, Fakir, no," Her voice is strangled, and he feels something wet hit his cheek. She's crying, and somehow this knowledge stings worse than his wound. "No, no, no, no, no. Fakir, listen to me."
He's trying to. Fakir pulls in a ragged, scorching breath that does nothing to soothe his aching lungs. His insides are burning, as if his very flesh is being turned to ash. Beyond the burn he can feel the slow and steady throb of blood, can feel the heat of it as it soaks through his shirt and pools beneath his form. He has just enough strength to open his eyes so he can see her face.
Tears stream down her flushed cheeks, nose running and shoulders hunched in such raw grief that it nearly winds him. Don't cry for me, please, he wants to beg her; I'm not worth crying over. But he is weak, in far more ways than one, and so he can only manage to murmur a broken, "Don't…cry…idiot,"
But her eyes are a rainstorm; blue and grey and cataclysmic. The world around them shatters around her eyes, falling away like molted feathers. On the thought of feathers he notes somewhere far away in the back of his mind that the incessant cawing of the crows have stopped. The entire story seems to have ground to a halt, this tragedy taking center stage. Fakir would comment on the irony that he's managed to fulfill this wretched fate after all, but he refuses to give that bastard the satisfaction. Instead he raises a pale and shaking hand to her cheek.
Her skin is warm to the touch, but not like the slow burn that steals the life from his bones. She feels the way the summer sun feels on his face, or the way a fire feels when coming in from the cold. He's been cold for so long, now.
She takes his hand in hers, clutching his blood stained palm to her cheek. She holds him tightly despite the way it smears against her skin and bleeds into the white of her skirts, and he wonders how he ever could have thought to live without her.
"You're the idiot!" She sobs, voice cracking. "What were you thinking, jumping in front of me like that?"
Fakir makes to gently brush his thumb over the bruise on her cheek. Her skin is littered with them; patches of dusty blues and purples blooming against her skin like peonies. He sees her split lip and his heart threatens to do the same.
I couldn't let them hurt you anymore.
But words are tiresome, and he's so very tired already. So he sighs, a heavy sound that creaks his bones, and thinks to a time before this. Before bloody rainfalls and the screams of crows, when she had smiled at him so earnestly. When he had felt the weight of her pendant in his hands, when he had felt the weight of her figure in his arms. He thinks to a time not long ago where he had promised to stay by her side, and it's bitter on his tongue.
The regret that knots in his throat is thick and copper tasting. How funny is it that he only realizes how badly he wishes to stay with her when he only has but moments left? His vision grows hazy, her face blurring into shadows. Still, he feels her skin.
"You can't go," He hears her cry. Her fingers tighten around his own as if her grip could anchor him. He focuses on her eyes like the last pinpricks of light in the dark.
He knows he can't, but he also knows he will. His body is in bloodied shambles, a ruined monument to Drosselmeyer's magnum opus. And how very pleased the man must be, to have the knight who couldn't bother to die finally learning his place in the world.
The gears begin to turn again.
Fakir cannot see very well anymore, and despite knowing that she still has his hand, even her warmth is lost to him. All he knows is the blue of her eyes, and the aching want that lingers in his breast. A want to see her happy, a want to dry her tears. To tell her what he had only just hours ago realized in the depths of that lake as he held her close and promised her forever.
But he has broken her enough, he thinks, and holding his tongue is the last kindness he can do for her. Fakir refuses to burden her heart any more than what he knows he has already, because she's too kind for her own good and her heart too wide and open. He knows his death will mar her, and as wretched and unworthy as he is he knows she will carry him always. He does not deserve such kindness, but he refuses to add to what he knows will be a heavy burden with any more of his selfishness.
So Fakir musters the last of his strength to smile for her, as she has always seemed to do for him, and tells her to do the same. "No matter what," He tells her, "Smile."
He cannot see her anymore, and her cries have long since faded. To be honest he isn't sure if she had even heard him, but he hopes that she understands him. She's always been able to before.
The regret is not so bitter now as he sinks into the darkness. He's in the lake and floating down, and there is a peace he hasn't known before. No, he has before; once, not long ago in a similar setting. He's felt this peace before he realizes, at the bottom of a lake with a girl in his arms and a love that's frail but fierce. She may never realize it, but as he sinks deeper he thinks, this is okay. For a girl who's given him every kindness, this is the least of what he can return. He only hopes she takes it.
