The years fly by in a searing blur.
Faces.
Sounds.
Sights.
Pain...
All a part of the kaleidoscope of life.
Suddenly, the young man inhales a breath of something he has not in a long time.
Cold.
Sweet, refreshing cold.
He blinks a few snowflakes off his lashes.
An endless expanse of white stretches out before him.
In the midst of the white is a little coastal town comfortably blanketed in snow.
Despite the weather, it is undoubtedly alive.
…
…
…
An old woman stands atop a cliff facing the Northern Seas.
Her breath congeals in the crisp Lunatime air like a spectre manifest.
She smiles gently and revels in the wet pinpricks of snowflakes on her wrinkled face.
Her aqua blue eyes glitter warmly with the coming sunset.
"Obleika?"
The old woman continues to gaze out at the frigid waters.
"Obleika Mia?"
Mia slowly turns around. She catches sight of a tall, brown-haired man standing by a pine tree. "Ah...dear Justin," she says. "How are you today?"
Justin snorts. "I might ask that of you, obleika." He folds his arms. "What are you doing outside in such weather? You know your condition, and—"
"I am intimately familiar with my 'condition,' Justin, as you so eloquently put it," Mia answers. Her gentle voice is a whisper of what it once was. "As a matter of fact...we are very good friends. Which is all the more reason for me to be out here, enjoying the blessings of the land."
Her former apprentice looks quizzically around them. "This is a blessing?"
Mia starts to laugh, but she is cut off by a vicious coughing fit. She claps a hand to her chest and hunches over.
Justin quickly rushes to her side. "Obleika!"
Mia waves him off as she suppresses the last of her coughs. "Even after all of these years, you still cannot stand the eternal Lunatime here in Imil," she said, amused. She fixes her headscarf, shaken loose by her coughing fit. "That's all right. Not many people can. We can get used to it...but it doesn't mean we like it any better."
Justin shivers, even though he's wearing a fur parka, gloves, a hat, and boots. "It depresses me," he mumbles, moving closer to his beloved teacher. "The cold reminds me of death...of stillness..."
"And being a healer doesn't?"
"Well, I mean, of course being a healer means I have to constantly deal with death," Justin hastily adds. "But sometimes, it just gets to be too much...and I just want to see green grass and blue waters again. I just want to feel...warmth...again..."
"All the more reason to search for life around you." Mia gestures to the frozen sea, to the crystalline air. "Can you feel it, Justin? The bite of the winter air? The sting of the icy ground? Such things remind you that you still live. They invigorate you, wake you up from a suffocating stupor of existence and make you keenly aware of the warm blood that runs through your veins, because you stand on the opposite extreme of your surroundings. It's true that with the coming of the snows, the trees shed their leaves, the animals dig their own graves, and the waters cease their dance. But remember this: they merely sleep. They still live in their souls. We are as much a part of the cycle as they are, and so we must take a lesson from them and remember that even in these harsh times, we are alive...maybe even more so than in other seasons."
"That's until the frostbite kills my nerves," Justin jokes.
Mia chuckles hoarsely. "Well-countered."
Justin glances at the dark violent sky. "It's getting a bit dark Won't you please come in? I don't like the idea of having you out here alone, especially at night."
Mia sighs and casts her eyes seaward again. "I suppose...I am getting a bit hungry, anyway."
Justin nods and lends Mia a shoulder to rest her curled hand upon.
Steadily, teacher and student begin to head for civilization as the sun fades away behind them.
The chains pull him out from the arctic sea.
He lands hard on the frozen ground and winces as the metal links cut into him.
A shiver crackles through him as the waters bleed into his shredded skin.
He looks up from behind a curtain of dripping hair...
And sees Mia's frail figure.
"No..." he whispers.
The chains yank harder at him.
He struggles against them, slipping and kicking at the snows.
"NO!"
He loses the battle...and the war.
As he's dragged along the worn pathway, he feels icicles of despair gnawing at his heart.
…
…
…
"Here." Justin places a ceramic bowl of steaming food in front of Mia. "Venison stew with peppers...one of the few things I can make."
Mia smiles. "It's very good," she says, sipping daintily at the scalding liquid with a spoon. "Be proud."
Justin beams.
"Now you head on home. You...your family's waiting for you. I bet little Helena's wondering where her father's wandered off to."
"Are you sure you don't need anything else?" Justin asks, clutching his hands together. "Your condition's been getting worse, it seems. Can I prepare more tea for you, or medicine, or—"
"I'm still capable of making both of those things—not to insult your abilities in either of those areas," Mia says. "I simply need to rest...and to know my student still knows how to live." She waves a weak hand. "Go on. Everything will be all right. I've been feeling better lately."
Justin sighs and puts on his winter gear. "All right," he says. "Good night, obleika. Please don't push yourself too hard." With that, he disappears into the night.
He steps through the door moments before Justin closes it.
The candles on the table flicker with the cold draft.
Mia sighs sadly.
"Oh, Justin...p-please forgive me...for my lies..."
The young man listens.
"You are so full of life, so antagonistic towards death that I'm surprised that you've kept at the healing arts for as long as you have. But perhaps that hatred for death is precisely what makes you a competent healer. And maybe it is your endless love for vitality that keeps you sane in your work. You have achieved a delicate balance in your life...and I don't wish to take that away from you by imposing the burden of my dying self."
She stands up carefully, the chair squeaking against the wooden floor.
Her trembling fingers clasp the edge of the table for support.
"I've given so much of my life to others as a healer. It has undoubtedly been rewarding...but not without a price." She smiles. "It is a strange thing, healing others...it gives one life and drains it away at the same time..."
She shuffles over to her bed and lies down.
He shuffles over to her bed and sits at its foot.
He hesitates.
Reluctantly, he takes a chain and lowers it into Mia's soul.
He grits his teeth and looks away.
"I feel...as though I have given all of my life away in my work," she murmurs, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. "The refugees from the Tolbians all those years ago...having to tend to them and take care of them...that took the last of my resources from me. So much suffering, so much death..."
Her hand moves to rest on her stomach.
"But I have learned to befriend Death in my experience. It was the only way I could deal. Make Death your enemy, and you cannot see it with anything but fear. But make it your friend...and it comforts you, eases the pain."
She shudders as she speaks her last few words.
"I am ready. Mercury knows, I am...r-ready..."
He grips the chains linked to Mia's soul.
His nails dig into his lifelines.
His breaths become shallower.
Her breaths become shallower.
Then...
"Alex?"
His head snaps up.
She's looking right at him with wide, glassy eyes.
His jaw drops.
"Mia?" he asks.
She attempts to sit up, but another round of wheezing forces her onto her back.
He shakes.
Mia stares into the air.
"Alex, is that you? It...it's been so long..."
"Mia..."
The log cabin dissolves into the desert landscape.
The two face each other, naked and vulnerable.
The humidity presses even heavier.
"So...you are my Reaper," she whispers.
He swallows and brings himself to keep eye contact. "I've come to kill you, Mia..." he utters. "Just I like came to kill...your other friends..."
She regards him impassively. "You were always inclined towards Death, Alex," she murmurs.
He gapes at her.
"You didn't commit heinous murders or senseless killings or anything of that sort. You weren't even unnaturally violent." She looks out at the landscape—the crimson ether, the lifeless land. "But as I taught you, I could feel it within me, this...warmth within you. Not a living warmth...but a rotting warmth. It was a penchant for Death, the worst type. You killed people from the inside out. Unlike a healer, you didn't hate Death or befriend it. No...you made it your tool for your own selfish purposes." Her voice shakes and lowers. "Just like you made tools out of us, Alex...out of m-me..."
He starts to approach her. "Mia, listen—"
"No, you listen!" Mia whirls on him.
And in a swirl of cool vapors, she returns to a younger form long-forgotten over the decades.
She is lively.
Fierce.
Determined.
The young man retreats in awe and fear.
"How could you, Alex?" she demands. "How could you betray me like that? Everything you and I had shared, had created together...you threw it all away the instant you joined Saturos and Menardi! And even them...poor them, they only wanted to save their hometown! But you craved power and perverted their good intentions!"
"I..."
"You forgot about us so easily," she continues, mercilessly stomping over any words the young man was prepared to say. "It was like I never existed to you."
The young man bites his lip. "I was wrong, Mia," he says quietly. "I know that now. I...I'm sorry, truly. Please, just rest now..."
"And when I rest, will you forget me again?"
He blinks.
Mia's eyes are brimming with tears.
He takes a breath and steps towards her.
"I never, ever forgot you, Mia," he says. "I love you too much to do that."
"You had me fooled," comes her bittersweet reply.
The young man's hands shake.
"I have not forgotten, and never will forget," he says. "But you will. And for that...be grateful."
And he takes her into his arms and kisses her.
The softness of feminine lips lasts for only a second.
But the kiss itself endures for much longer.
He steps back and stares at her bare, black figure.
Unbelieving.
He doesn't even notice the final layer of chains on his shoulders.
He only sees...
Her.
Forever gone.
Forever stone.
He collapses to his knees.
His eyes are clenched shut, burning with restrained ears.
He hugs himself.
His nails tear through his skin as they retain their death grip on him.
He shudders horribly.
He gasps for air.
And when he gets it...
The young man heaves forth his soul in one ear-shattering scream.
Nothing answers him but a ghost of his voice.
He clutches desperately at his ooze-soaked hair.
He hurls another scream into the lonely desert.
And another.
And another.
Until his vocal cords bleed like the sky.
He grabs at the chains on him, trying to rip them off.
But the metal is burnt into his flesh.
Still he tries to claw his way out.
They only strangle him more.
Finally, he falls back.
But he won't cry.
He won't cry.
He won't.
He cries.
Silently.
Surrendering...
And his sorrow is swallowed up in the darkness.
