Author's Note: Written for the Sean Circle Challenge number 12. This is also the D/J fic that I keep meaning to write; though not the fic I did write and won't show anyone (not even my cat).
Warning number 1: It is un-betaed. Hopefully not too horrible, despite that. ^_^
Warning number 2: It is an f/f pairing. If that's not your cup of tea, hit the back button or feel free to check out my, uh, two het pieces.
Disclaimer: Delia, Josiane, Alanna, Jon, and any Gods mentioned are property of Tamora Pierce or whoever's lucky enough to have bought them from her. They are not mine.
Reaching
by Seereth
"Could I? Please? After she has come…"
Whispers among the Gods. Frowns. Who would ask a favor such as this?
Well, she is mad-
Should we not be-
The audacity of-
Her family, after all, has-
Stop. She may wait. It will not be long.
A pause among the deities. Careless of them, to neglect asking the one who's power extends over this mortal. Unusually so.
Mithros shrugs, Very well. It is your realm.
Yes, his brother says, and if one didn't know better, one would think his manner a trifle impertinent, it is.
***
Very little care is given to the bodies of prisoners who die during their incarceration. They are handed over to the poorer temples of the Black God, or on occasion to the university so that their anatomy may be studied by the more anxious type of healer. Their cell is stripped of the few belongings they are allowed to accumulate, the sheets and blankets of their bed boiled or burned depending on the manner of their death. It is all done very methodically, very expressionlessly…As if no one cared.
Three people cared when they heard Delia had died.
The first was the king, who found he was thinking slightly wistfully of her, or rather of himself when she'd been a problem. The second was his Champion, who tried not to grin in front of the messenger or in front of her husband. The third was her mother who wept very quietly for her daughter's life and what it had become.
Delia herself hadn't cared; she expected the afterlife to be much the same as its necessary antecedent, or at least the last part of it. As it happened, she was wrong.
At least as far as the first part of it was concerned.
She wasn't entirely sure – all right, she had no idea – of exactly what had happened. She knew she was dead, and truthfully she was rather disappointed in this. Delia thought that her current surroundings resembled the set of one of the more expensive type of play. It is regrettably clichéd, damp and cold, Delia's ankles – well, not exactly her ankles – are covered by rolling grey mists. Had she been in a different mood, she would have been disappointed in the designer's lack of originality.
As it is, her mood prohibits this type of thought.
Peering once more through the grayness, Delia can almost catch a glimmering of gold and…something. The shape or merely the suggestion of a woman's body.
A fall of long gold hair.
A flicker of blue eyes in an alabaster face.
Delia remembers.
She remembers everything.
Not that she really had a chance to forget.
"They told me…" Josiane says, wetting her lips with a tongue that Delia also remembers. "They told me I could wait for you." She smiles crookedly. "They couldn't believe I'd asked."
"I imagine not," Delia whispers hoarsely, reaching for Josiane, wondering at the same time if she can.
Josiane is reaching for her too.