They never understood. Idiots, the lot of them. Complete morons.
They thought themselves great, the heroes of their age. They defied Voldemort and lived to tell the tale. Or did they?
They thought me a coward and a traitor. Dunderheads, all.
I was never tried for my crimes.
My life was my trial.
Life.
I suppose that's the point of it, really. He felt no guilt sending me to the wolves because I could undo my mistakes.
In his mind.
He did not understand. The doddering old fool.
It is better to simply kill than to kill and resurrect. The resurrection is pain and anger—the resurrection is worse than death. Because who would willingly give up heaven for this hell we call earth?
No one has ever thanked me for bringing them back.
I feel it within me, bubbling up, surging to the surface. Begging to resurrect the plants, the animals, the ghosts. To poison everything with the life it offers. That I offer.
Years ago, before I'd understood what it meant, I'd brought my sister back. I was eight years old and she'd been thrown from her horse and killed instantly. Before I could react, it swelled out of me and poured into her. She was alive before anyone else realized she was dead.
But she knew. She never forgave me for what I did and she died by her own hand mere months afterward.
She did not thank me for bringing her back.
Now I stand, blending into the shadows of his office. All I have done for him and it is time to claim my prize. I pull the darkness around me hoping to suffocate the light from within.
"They call your kind Deathmaidens," he tells her patronizingly. As though she didn't realize. Even now, he does not comprehend.
She does not respond to him; she watches me as I watch her.
"They call your kind Saela, Life," she notes, ignoring the old man's patter.
"I know what they call my kind."
She is not a Deathmaiden; she is death. I feel it within her and I want it. The ultimate challenge: resurrecting death itself. In centuries past, we would have been worshipped as divinity. Perhaps we are divinity. I feel her power; I worship her.
The anticipation is almost overwhelming.
"It calls to me. I've felt it since I entered this place. I've shown great restraint."
"We have both shown restraint," I correct her, and we have. I felt her from the moment she was born: my opposite, my counterpart, my angel of death. Every moment of every day that she has spent in this place has taxed me, pushing the boundaries of my considerable control. She understands.
"If we were to proceed, I might kill you," she warns. What a blessing it would be to I resurrect myself?
Would I thank myself if I did?
"And vice versa," I respond to her. "What is Life to a Deathmaiden?"
The old man leaves us without comment. He senses his own mortality here as her death surrounds him, mingling with my life. If she were to kill him, this beautiful angel, would he want me bring him back?
Both our lives have built inexorably to this point in time and space. Everything that came before was nothing.
The eternal battle between fire and ice, good and evil, darkness and light rages between us.
Which am I?
I am drawn to her; so gentle and sweet, so deadly. My hand reaches to caress her face and I begin to lose myself as it builds within me to heights I've never imagined.
She rises to meet me, nearly trembling from the energy and anticipation building within her.
Life turns to death turns to life and we exist in limbo. My light is drowning her darkness as it blankets my light and we find each other in the shades of grey.
A perpetual war of bliss and carnage; redemption.
It lasts only a second before the energy begins to fade and we call the Others back into ourselves. She is shaking in my arms as I tremble in hers.
The Life rests within me, sated and intoxicated and terrified. It has stopped begging for the first time in years.
I lift her, light as a feather, and descend into the darkness. I place her reverently on my bed and wrap her in my arms, claiming her.
"You are mine for all eternity," I whisper. And she is.
"I am yours till you no longer sustain me," she murmurs in reply. I smile in amusement. So brilliant but she does not realize that in all the universe I was created for her alone and she was created for me.
She is mine as I am hers. She will learn.
I sleep contentedly.
The universe has paid me my due.