The rain intensified, thick sheets of it pouring out of the dark sky. It hissed on grass and leaves, pattered on the freshly-turned soil, conjured up drums on roofs of nearby cars, and tapped out a frantic, restless rhythm on the tombstones laid out in uneven rows of the graveyard.
I gently lifted my arm out of the woman's grasp, held it out over her, extending out flaps of skin like sails. A canopy. She shook herself a little more dry, the squirrel tucked into her hood doing the same.
The man standing before the recently-filled grave did not flinch at the downpour, allowing the rain to soak him to the bone. Hesitating, I moved up until we were beside him. Held out my other arm. He didn't seem to notice the rain stopping at first, eyes still fixed on the tombstone. One of a pair, years apart.
I read the inscription. The name, both familiar and not. The date, just as Pizza had reported. A week ago. Car accident. That somehow made it worse, although I wasn't sure precisely why.
The man glanced up at me, eyes hollow, devoid of emotion besides grief. "Who?" His voice was hoarse, choked, like breathing itself was a burden, and his lips moved silently for a moment afterward before he just… gave up.
The woman looked up at me, following my lead. She huddled into me against the chill and the wet. The man just stood there, waiting.
"She was important," I said, although I wasn't… entirely sure. She had been important to someone. Besides this man. Not personally, but in a bigger picture sense. Something that came up in my dreams, my songs. Just outside of my reach, but also removed by a few degrees, like it mattered to someone that mattered. Distant echoes.
"Yes," he croaked, looking back down at the grave. His glasses were still streaked and beaded with rain, but it didn't seem to bother him. He coughed a little, worked his jaw. "She was the most important person in the world," he continued, still raspy, but more audible. "She was all I had left."
I glanced at the other grave marker. She taught something precious to each of us.
"I'm sorry for your loss," the woman offered. Still confused, but there were social niceties. Ritual words.
The man said nothing. That, too, was expected.
Thunder pealed, rolling over the hills and trees surrounding the graveyard. The rain pelted down like bullets, now. A proper storm. It set my fur writhing, sympathetic snaps and pops of lightning I kept carefully away from the fragile humans beneath my wings.
The man stunk. Unwashed, faintly alcoholic. The rain only did him favors, yet it couldn't remove the pervasive scent of despair coming off of him in waves. I felt a vague sense of responsibility, somehow. Some way I could have helped her, helped him. Perhaps I still could.
"If you could forget her," I rumbled out, and his breath hitched, his fists clenching. "Stop feeling that pain. Would you?"
He looked like he might hit me for a moment, our size difference be damned, but he just tightened his fists and tensed his jaw. It suited him better, that little fury, even if I didn't understand it. It seemed a reasonable offer.
"No. Never," he spat out. "I'd die first."
Ah. Well.
I turned his answer around in my head, looked at its edges, saw how they fit in my thoughts. There were a great many holes, there, but it slotted in somewhere in my past that seemed to mesh, if a little uncomfortably.
"...You're stronger than me, then," I acknowledged, words spilling out of me like boulders tumbling down a cliff face. Slowly at first, then picking up speed, growing in meaning. I had to be strong, because I had been weak. Always looking forward, always moving forward, no matter what you left behind, what it cost. I grew—in my own way, on my own path—because to stop growing was to… die.
The man said nothing, slowly relaxing his jaw, but the woman dug her fingers into the fur on my side, getting my attention. Protected from the rain, she looked up at me, her eyes finding my face, eyebrows furrowed, a small frown on her lips.
"That's not you, not anymore. You're gotten stronger," she murmured, barely audible over the rain, the thunder.
I looked up at the dark sky, sheets of rain pouring over my face, tracing paths where my eyes had been down my cheeks, like tears. "Yes," I growled back, throat tight, baring my teeth to the oncoming storm. Saying goodbye. "I have."
I heard the mournful wail of sirens a heartbeat before the others did, turning my head towards the sea. The woman followed suit, but the man didn't so much as blink, gaze still fixed on the graves. I looked down, meeting her eyes, my hearts pounding faster, pulse quickening, lightning crackling in my veins. The storm had arrived.
A part of me simply wanted to leave her behind. A much smaller part considered leaving alongside her, to safety. The greatest part simply watched and waited, seeing what she would do.
The hoops of metal on her black lips quirked as she grinned at me, indulgent, warm. Lipstick. My hearts thumped slightly out of sync, seeing that, seeing her. "Go on, you beautiful monster," she said, giving me the gentlest of shoves. "I'll be here when you've finished having your fun."
I turned to go, my body aching in anticipation of the battle and pain and growth to come, but stopped. My tongues snaked out between my lips of their own accord; one gently kissed her rain-soaked cheek; the other touched the leather cord tied at the base of my broken horn. A name etched there in bone I didn't need to read to remember.
"I'll be right back... Mera."
Her smile practically banished the clouds.