18 – 2
I think I want her dead.
The air isn't still enough for those words to echo, but they linger nonetheless. I felt them strike Clarke, how they rippled through her. She hasn't said anything, not one word, in the minutes that have passed since. She's just stared, fixed her gaze on the back of my head. I shouldn't have said anything. I should've kept my stupid mouth shut and let her take my silence however she pleased. It would've been better.
The elk-spirit treads tirelessly on. It carries us through a misty valley strewn with moss-green boulders and down a spray-slick path beside a tumbling waterfall. It strides through the charred remnants of a short-lived forest fire, a near-perfect circle of ashen black surrounded by living forest. It doesn't speak to me either, but I expected as much. Why should it care?
Why does Clarke? She was there, why hasn't she said anything?! It's been an hour, maybe more, and I can't bear another second of it, “Say something,” It was supposed to be a demand. It ends up a plea, “Clarke, – please – !”
She breathes in, sighs it down the back of my neck. “What do you want me to say?”
“Anything! Tell me – tell me I've lost my mind, that I'm evil, that you can't stand me, just say – something – !”
Instead, she asks, “Did you mean it?”
If I were to look her in the eye, right now, what would I see? Her voice is calm, but its presence is forced and the veneer, thin. Her arms circle my waist, but its distant and impersonal, where before she held me close. What would she do if I said 'no'? What would she do if I lied?
What will she do when I tell the truth? “Yes, I did,” Silence falls, just as horrid as before. I shouldn't have said it. I wish I could take it back. It takes more courage than I expected to ask, “Clarke?”
She sighs again, this one seeming to drain something from her. She slumps against my back, brow on my nape, “You're not evil, and if...if you've lost your mind, then I suppose...I suppose I have, as well.”
What?
It's caught behind my teeth, on the tip of my tongue, or at the back of my throat. I can't say it. I can't say anything. Every time I try, I manage nothing more than a squeak. Did this happen to her? Did I just fail to notice? It must've been, and I must've done. I can't think of another reason.
She agrees, then, or at least, doesn't condemn me. I'm overcome by relief I didn't know I was waiting for, the tension I didn't know I carried leaving me in a gusty sigh. I drop back against her, close my eyes, and find my voice. It's hoarse, hushed, and a little choked, but it's there, “Do you mean it?”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Arms around my waist pull tight, her nose in my hair, her mouth at my temple, “Yes, I do,” As quickly as my voice returned, it flees; twice speechless in as many minutes, “Zira?”
Nothing. Not even a squeak this time.
“Zira, please say something.”
I turn my face into her neck, breathe her in, and breathe out, “What do you want me to say?”
“Anything.”
Anything, hm? Alright, “You're not evil, either.”
Her breath stutters, her lips brush the little hairs at my temple before pressing a kiss there. Quiet settles over us, altogether different from the horrid, choking silence of before. There's room to breathe in this, room for the crunch of leaves under elk-spirit hooves and the sighing sway of long, yellowing grass in the breeze. There's room for sunlight, broken into rays of warmth by naked tree limbs and the needles of evergreens.
There's room, in this quiet of ours, for a destined death.
I don't know how it will happen, nor when, and I don't much care; not so long as it is by our hand. When I left my family and set out on my walking road, I did so in search of growth, beauty, and wonder. Of growth, I found much. Of the rest, precious little. There has been sickness and smoke, fire and fear, blood and bruises; and now there is this:
Merigold will die. Her death will be the end of my road. Whoever I've become by then is who I will be for the rest of my life. I hope that my family will be able to love her, and that they'll forgive her for not being me.
- - -
The elk-spirit comes to a halt, tossing its magnificently antlered head at the thicket sprung up in front of it. The motion jars me out of the circle of thought I'd fallen into, a cycle of what if and but then, and I'm appreciative of the distraction; even if it's with something as simple as why have we stopped?
Here it is, plain as can be: the way forward is obscured, hidden from sight by overgrown nettle bushes draped in shawls of clinging, climbing ivy. It's a wall of stinging yellow-green, interrupted only by the dry-brown trunks of slender, strangled trees, their dead trunks bare of bark and branch. I wouldn't want to shove through that mess, either, though I think we might have to.
It's been weeks, but I think the road to Amberdusk is on the far side. I think the spirit has brought us as far as it will. In short, “I think we're here.”
Clarke rouses from whatever deep, meaningful thoughts have occupied her while mine chased each other's tails. She rests her chin on my shoulder and hums, her keen mind deciding much faster than my own. “I think we are. So, what now?”
Find Jeremiah, I could say, and tell him his sister's dead. Tell him that I feel responsible, that I am responsible, and I'm so, so sorry.
Find somewhere to rest, I could say, somewhere to get our strength back and figure out how we'll kill Merigold. Maybe the Thorngages will help us.
I was hoping you'd tell me, I could say, because I'm not sure of anything, anymore.
I don't get the chance to, the elk-spirit answers first. It lowers its body to the ground in halting jerks of movement that would topple the unwary or cause the inattentive to almost bite off her tongue. Once settled, it looks back with a large, dark eye that seems to say Now, you get off.
We do just that; me first, then Clarke. She takes my hand once we're dismounted, stands beside me as the elk-spirit rises back to its considerable height. We turn to match it as it paces around us, turning back to the way we came from. A new message shines in the eye it turns on us: a farewell, I should think.
I put my free hand to my heart, fingers splayed, “Thank you,” I whisper, “for all of it, thank you.” Clarke bows her head and says nothing, her gratitude clear in how strongly she holds my hand.
The elk-spirit dips its head and leaves without a sound, vanishing into the trees. It leaves no prints in the leaf-laden earth or knocks twigs from branches with its magnificent antlers. The only sign it was ever here at all is us, standing before a thicket of stinging yellow-green, a thicket we're on the wrong side of.
Clarke frowns at it, blinks, “Did it...?”
We're going to itch for days, “It did.”
She sighs, rolls her shoulders, “Fine. Let's get this over with.”