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The Thirty-first Battle

Day 23424 5:53 PM

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”

— Thomas Paine

“I promise.”

Manuella holds my gaze, her sorrow and anger so intense they could make a rock cry and roar in rage.

My shame is mostly gone, ‘I promise,’ reduced to merely two words I say because the script demands them.

I look back at the rainbow, once more seated atop the most comfortable quilt in the castle. No matter how I tried to change it, Manuella always asked the question around this time of day, so, with the unpleasant event unavoidable, I at least positioned us where she would enjoy the view the most.

Unfortunately, Manuella seems to have grown numb to the beautiful sky, just like I have.

“Do you still love me?” Manuella says, deviating from the script, and I wonder what it is she wants to hear.

The obvious answer is yes, but she would not ask if that is the answer she expects.

“Why are you thinking so long?” She stares at me, her look wretched. “Is this the first time I am asking you this, and you do not know what to say, while everything else you have heard, so you could give an immediate reply.”

“Of course I love you,” I say what I mean. It will be easy to rectify, if it proves to be the wrong answer. “I would do anything for you. I—”

She places her elegant finger on my lips. “I already know you would do anything for me. You have spent decades and centuries voluntarily trapped in a hell of your own device. What I am asking is whether you love me? Do you see this old crone standing before you for what she is?”

“All I see is my goddess, the most beautiful and the most perfect woman in the world.”

Manuella sighs, once more shedding tears.

“Then you are blind, my love. I wish to apologize to you. I apologize we met and loved, I apologize we spent decades together working instead of devoting more time to each other, and I apologize, but should your redo activate while red and return you back in time to the very beginning.” Her voice trembles, and something in my heart quivers, something which I have not felt in centuries. “Then I beg you to leave me in that brothel. Ignore me and leave me to die.

“This…” She cups my cheek. “This hurts too much. I do not know how unwell you were in your previous life, your condition sounded serious, yet I do not believe your mind has suffered as much damage as it has because of me.”

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Something warm runs down my cheek, and I realized I am crying for the first time in ages. The last time I shed tears was more than one human lifetime ago. She hugs me and draws my head to her chest.

“I love you,” she whispers in my ear. “I love you more than life itself, and seeing you the way you are is killing me. What I want is for you to be free, to enjoy yourself, and to forget this wretched form of mine.”

That is not what she wants. I tried it once, indulged in debauchery with the maids, and the prettiest, willing young women I could find in short notice. Manny sobbed like her heart had broken, and I never repeated the experiment. She does not know what she really wants, but I do. I have spent ages figuring it out.

Warm meals, baths, walks, and sunsets. Massages and soft caresses, whispered arousing jokes which made her blush, and she wanted to drink a lot, but alcohol killed her in no time, as did her favorite sweets.

“You are not listening to me,” she whispers, sounding like a wounded animal. “When I am gone, do not grow attached to people, not in the way you are attached to me. You are a kind and caring man, blinded and bound by your emotions, and if this goes on, you will go insane. Just let me pass away and continue with your life, please.”

“I already promised you,” I say and feel her nod, but then her tears start falling on the back of my head.

“After Valor’s birth, I knew that no matter the circumstances I would stay pregnant after making love with you,” Manuella says something she had never mentioned before. “But you were so happy with the children, and loved making love to me, I only spoke up when I could no longer bear the burden.”

Manuella pauses, drawing deep breaths. “I offered to send women to your bed, but I think I would have hated it if you had accepted it. I might have even resented you for doing what I told you to do. In a way you are now doing the same thing I did.”

I am unsure of what to say. Everything has been following the same scenario for so long, that I find it difficult to think outside it, but Manuella takes my silence as an invitation to keep speaking.

“I want you to be happy. To be free and untethered. To do what you feel like doing instead of being trapped. You need to learn to let go. Why did it come so naturally when our sons died, but you cannot do it now? Am I more valuable than Vic? Than Nate?”

She finally speaks of something I have considered before.

“I would have died dozens or hundreds of times if only I could save them,” I confess, “but I was too far away, they were outside my reach.”

“And how did you learn to deal with your grief? How did you carry on?” Hope drips from Manuella’s voice, but my next words shatter it.

“You were there to keep me whole. To help me when I stumbled.”

“Aang, you need to learn how to live without me. You need to learn how to stabilize yourself, and make your life focused around your goals and not other people.”

She is right. Eventually, in several millennia, I will lose my ability to redo with Manuella, but that problem is for a very very distant future.

Suddenly, I feel a flash of phantom pain, running through my back, straight to my heart. I jump back, but impale myself, with Manuella’s arms still wrapped around me.

“This is the only way I could come up with to help you,” she says as cold steel worms its way into my heart. “If you are killing yourself every time for me, just to stay trapped in this hell, I might as well kill you to free you and let you move on. I have ruined you, my love, and both our lives have become agony.”

I do not struggle. Any minor move might break her bones or kill her, but if I die in her hands, she will explode with me.

“Step away,” I manage between gasps. “I will stay alive as long as I can.”

“No, my love. We shall die together, since you refuse to live without me. If there is a next life and a chance for happiness, avoid me until you can find happiness yourself and learn to let go.”

Manuella opens her mouth, but I cannot hear. Her lips move. I think she is saying she loves me, but my life and consciousness are slipping, and she is too close. So damn close.

“Goodbye, my love.” We explode.