Title: Embers Of A Hero
Author: Signs of Sun
Spoilers: In My Time of Dying.
Note: This might be the shortest fic chapter post I've ever made. Anyway, just the opener and curious if it sounded interesting. I have some work done towards the other fic I had planned on posting next, but this idea came to me and seriously intrigued me. So I'll have to pick which one first since time is an issue. Hunter's Crossing is for the most part done, just needs polishing as I go along posting so I wanted to dig in to the next fic a bit.
Any thoughts on the opening of this one would be appreciated. I have gathered thoughts on the other one I was dabbling on. But I'm writing this one if there's any interest at all. So please let me know. Much appreciated.
And I'll shut up now.
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Embers Of A Hero
Embers dance in the wind, as if they have wings, as if they can fly. They are miniature torches glowing intensely, burrowing holes into the blackest of night skies. Their gathered troops swirl around the fabric, the deeply familiar and unique costume, once worn by a heroic soul. The fabric, the flesh, this now hollow shell will dwindle into ash, the fine dust of a life once tenant there.
The embers, like guardian light, carry the final traces of essence off to a place I can not follow.
The words float effortlessly in my mind and travel down, sinking into my heart. They come to me so vividly that I must have read them painted out in black ink in a book somewhere along the way. The words can not be mine. I do not own them. I am not their creator. I'm not a crafter of portraits brought to life through the weaving of words. I'm just a man, a hunter of evil, a brother, a son left behind by his father.
This is what he would have told me to do if we had ever verbalized it. But words weren't necessary, not for this, and not between us. I stood at his side many a time while flames ate away at a body that no longer housed the essence of the person once resident there. And on each and every one of those nights the instruction was there in his eyes.
When I go you'll have to burn the body. I'm sorry, but it needs to be done. I know you know and will do as I ask.
But doing what he asked, lighting the fire that roars in front of me now, was not the hard thing.
The hard thing is living without him.
Sam is at my side, invasively close and far too distant all at once.
Only one sensation rivals the tortuous sadness gnawing away at the pit of my stomach and that I am ashamed to confess is fear. I'm terrified that when the flames die down and that last ember journeys off into the night I'll be torn in two, one part of me unable to stay to bare witness a single second longer, the other unable to leave because leaving means an ending of the chapter of my life that included Dad.
Sammy has lost the battle to reign in the tears. He is silent, but he swipes at his eyes with his sleeve. I am paralyzed, physically unable, to give him the words I long so desperately to say to easy his heartbreak. The words that whisper inside my heart to him, Sammy it'll be okay. The words will not pass over my now slightly parted lips. They won't depart because they are a goddamn lie.
This will never-ever-be okay.
The wind has kicked up and with it the flames lap taller toward the sky. Time is now both my enemy and my friend. Torture to stand here, agonizing second after agonizing second, as flames steal the last tangible connection with my father from me. Once the fire burns itself out the physical thread is broken forever. And at the same time fire is very much a living breathing thing and burns long and intense before the last ember is extinguished. It is buying me time before…
I have to walk away.
My dad left me a message, one whispered to me and me alone. Most of it is something I can't even grasp a hold of yet. But there was one little piece that guides me where to go when I can manage to carry myself away from here.
At the tail end of those hushed words in my father's voice he left me with a message, a direction.
Three letters and six digits.
The location and combination of a post office box.
To Be Continued…
