Lujic was dying.

A frail old man, with sunken cheeks and hallow eyes, was sleeping in the bed before me. All of my memories of the tall, broad shouldered and young knight were so fresh in my mind, that I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

How had he gotten so old so quickly?

“Grandpa? Your friend is here,” a woman who looked as young as I did knelt next to the rickety bed, tapping his shoulder as to wake him.

He didn’t wake.

The girl tried a few more times, but I gathered myself enough to clear my voice. “It is fine. Let him sleep,” I was barely able to whisper.

She glanced up at me, and then with a knowing smile nodded and stepped away. She left the little room, leaving me and my friend alone.

I heard her talking in a hushed voice with the other members of Lujic’s family. She was asking if I really had known him, but Lujic’s children were once again verifying my existence. They sounded awed, but I knew better than to rely on their fascination for long.

Humans were fascinated with legends and the odd, until that fascination faded and only fear and hatred remained.

Yet…

A tiny wheeze brought me out of my thoughts, and I flinched.

Gulping, I took… one single step towards the bed that my friend was laying in.

It really was decrepit looking. It was only a foot or so off the ground, and the sides of the bed were unfinished wood. They still had bark on them. Poor Lujic would likely get splinters just by touching them, especially since his skin was now so thin and frail and…

I blinked away the thoughts and looked again at my friend’s face.

Who was this man?

He had Lujic’s appearance. The way his hair parted in the middle more than not, even if it was now a dull grey instead of the light brown. His eyebrows were shaped the same, although now wiry and needing attention. His chin was still oddly shaped, thanks to the heavy metal boot of a knight when he was young.

Yet… for as much as I could see Lujic, I could also not see him either.

They had said he had become bedridden a few months ago. Months! Mere months…

I’d only been gone for a few years. A small trip. A simple one.

One that hadn’t been needed.

I shouldn’t have left.

“Lujic… It’s me, Renn,” I whispered as I stepped forward one more step. I was now within reach of the bed, and thus Lujic… but I dared not draw closer.

He looked so frail. So skinny. Was he eating at all?

Surely they weren’t neglecting him, right?

Looking around the tiny room, and the obvious purpose of it… I hoped my assumptions were baseless.

They had put him in the storage room, alone, simply because they had nowhere else to do place him. Surely… not on purpose, right?

His children hadn’t been rowdy. They had been respectful. Kind. He had been so proud of them. So much so he had named one of his daughters after his precious sister.

They were good people. I was probably just growing upset over their treatment of him, because I wanted to use it as a good excuse to ignore my own failures.

“Lujic…?” I called for my friend again, and didn’t like how he didn’t even fidget. He was sleeping so deeply it felt a sin to try and wake him.

Why did his face look as if he was in pain? He was sleeping… he shouldn’t be hurting just because he slept…

Taking another deep breath, I regretted it.

I smelled death.

Closing my eyes, I did my best to fight the oncoming onslaught of tears.

It had hurt to bury Ginny. But I had been able to endure it because he had been there.

Not because he had been strong enough to support me through such emotional turmoil, but precisely because he hadn’t been.

Lujic had broken. He had sobbed and cried out in such grief that I had been able to push aside my own, as to keep him in one piece. I had stayed strong for the young boy, since no one else would. I had gone from a sister, to a mother.

And now that same boy was the one dying. Leaving me behind.

Who would help me now? This time?

His children? Theirs? I knew them, and they knew me… but not well enough.

Once Lujic had married and settled down here, I had started to travel a little. I felt out of place here, amongst their growing family. Not only had he been raising a family, and settling down… It had been weird to listen to him and his wife during the late night hours… especially since he had always been that little boy playing knight to me. It was almost wrong for him to grow up so quickly.

My leaving occasionally was me simply trying to be courteous. Lujic would have never told me to actually leave, or send me away, but I had not wanted to intrude. Although I had practically raised the boy, he still had his own life to live. His own story to tell.

And it wasn’t like I had ever stayed gone long. A few years at most...!

Yet my frequent trips, which I had not thought much of… had obviously taken their toll.

Not only had my friend grown so old he couldn’t even get out of bed, his family had gotten older as well. The children remembered me, but only because he had told them all the stories about me. Stories that had become family legends. Only Ginny really remembered me in any real fashion, since she had been his first born.

The children now had children. And some of them were as tall as me.

“Will she eat him…?” someone asked from behind the half closed door.

I wanted to growl at them for such a statement, but oddly… couldn’t get angry enough to do so.

“He’d probably see it as an honor, really,” another said. I recognized that voice, which was Ginny. Lujic’s first daughter. She knew me, and I knew her. She used to ride my shoulders as we walked around the village. She was really the only one I didn't need to worry over, in that sense at least.

Oddly she actually sounded similar to her namesake. But she was older now. Ginny had died young. I never would have thought that Lujic’s children would someday grow older than Ginny had ever been.

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Yet it was… a good thing… wasn’t it?

Lujic wheezed again, and I gulped down the tears.

Even if he woke… would he recognize me?

Would he smile? The last few times I had come to visit, he had felt distant. Not only had he been forgetting certain things… he had been oddly tired last time I had been here. Now that I think about it, he had likely been growing sickly even back then. I had just misunderstood. I had overlooked it, thinking it was just a trifling moment of illness that he’d be over by the time I saw him again.

“A blink of the eye,” I whispered as Lujic wheezed again.

It hadn’t been. It had been years and years. Yet I had obviously taken those years for granted. I knew humans aged quicker, and became frail. I’ve known this for a long time. Not only had I been told growing up by my family the weaknesses of the humans, the witch had made it clear too.

At least he had lived a full life… that was not only more than most humans got, like his sister, but it had also been something he wouldn't have gotten without me. He and his sister would have perished long ago, in that muddy crevice, had I not pulled them free of it.

“You did well, Lujic…” I whispered to him. He slept through my words, but I continued anyway. “You raised a family. Built a home. Your sister would be proud. I’m proud of you. To think that terrified little boy grew up and accomplished all of this…” I said gently.

Lujic’s tiny little breaths continued, unfazed as I began to cry.

I shouldn’t have left so much. I should have stayed. Now I was a stranger in a home I had helped build. I had paid for most of the lumber that made these walls he was dying within.

“Did father wake up?”

Wiping my face, I turned as Ginny entered the small room. I had to step aside as she came to stand next to me, as to look down at her father. She smiled softly at him and sighed. “I’m sorry Renn. He’s… he’s just old,” she said softly.

“It’s okay. Let him sleep… It’s my fault for showing up unannounced,” I said.

Ginny sounded like her namesake, but didn’t really look like her. She had taken after Lujic’s wife instead. She had darker hair, and a bigger nose. Yet… somehow, she smiled in the same way as the one she had been named after.

“Is… is he in pain?” I asked.

“Yes. I don’t know what it is, but he’s always holding and complaining about his stomach. That’s why we let him sleep as much as possible,” Ginny said gently.

Then I really didn't want to wake him. How did Ginny smile so warmly while saying such a thing? Even just hearing it made me want to cry. Cry harder, at least.

She was a strong woman. Stronger than me.

I was about to ask if there was anything I could do… but I knew better than to speak the thoughts aloud.

If there was, they’d be doing it.

He was just… old. Humans grew old. Then they died.

It was just…

“Would… would you like to stay? I don’t think it’ll be long, Renn… we can bury him together, and give him a proper funeral,” Ginny asked.

Although I knew she was not only trying to be nice, but was actually being very kind with her offer… I still felt as if I had just gotten slapped across the face.

“Bury him…?” I whispered as I looked back at Lujic.

“It’s… why you’re here right? For his final moments? He’ll be so happy. His soul will rest easy knowing it was laid to the earth by your hands,” Ginny said.

Shivering at the things she was saying, I blinked blurry eyes.

Bury Lujic.

The young, little boy… that proud knight, who had spent years training… Who spent every coin he had saved up for years on that dull sword, only to break it on his first mission.

I had saved him and his sister. They had been tossed aside on the side of the road. They hadn’t been half starved, they had been long past that point. It took them weeks to even recover enough to walk on their own after I had pulled them out of the mud and corpses.

It was odd he looked similar to how I remembered him, all those years ago in that ditch. He was bigger now, and older, but just as thin. Just as weak looking.

The only real difference was the lack of pure terror. Though that was a blessing, at least.

“I…” I started to speak… to tell Ginny I’d love to stay. To be here during his final moments. To see him laid to rest. To weep alongside them, and spend entire nights telling stories of his youth to them. Stuff that likely none of them knew. Stuff that would let them better appreciate the man who gave them such a happy home.

Plus they’d be able to tell me of him. And themselves. Maybe I could… stick around even longer, even after the funeral. Maybe I could come and go from this house, and this family, for years and years. Generations, even…!

But as quickly as those happy thoughts and ideas came, so too were they brushed away by the terror inducing nightmares.

Burying children. Again and again. It had been Ginny. Now it’s Lujic.

Tomorrow it’d be his daughter. Then her children. Then theirs.

Shivering at the terrifying future, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“Honestly Renn… he might not remember you. He doesn’t even remember me. I must not look like aunt Ginny at all, based off the things he says,” Ginny said with a sigh.

Although that was true, it hurt to hear her say it. Did that mean he was cruel to her? How did that feel…? To be forgotten by your own father, who you were caring for in their final moments.

But… that meant he might not remember me either. Especially since I’ve been gone for so long…

I hadn't aged a whole lot since I had met him all those years ago... but I had changed a little. Grown a littler taller. My hair had darkened a little more. I had even had to buy new clothes a few months ago, and not just because they had gotten frayed and faded.

Sniffing, I almost sobbed.

“Renn…? It’s okay to cry. It’ll not wake him, I think,” Ginny whispered compassionately. She even reached over and grabbed me by the arm, gently supporting me.

She was like Ginny indeed. Sweet. Too sweet for this world.

“Bury him near his sister,” I said as I opened my eyes again. Lujic was blurry. So blurry that I instead saw the Lujici I remembered lying before me, not the old man.

“Under the big tree, yes,” Ginny said.

Big tree. It had been nothing but a sprout when we had buried her there.

Taking another deep breath, I nodded. “Please. I’m… Know that I loved your father. And his sister. They were lovely people. And I’m glad he has such a big family now, to carry on his memory,” I said to her.

Ginny nodded, and her hand on my arm gripped a little tighter.

Stepping forward, I bent down and placed my hand on Lujic’s head. His hair was dry. Coarse. Pointy.

Nothing like the soft ruffles of his youth.

Again I’d be saying goodbye to someone I cared for. Again I had blinked… and they were gone.

Never again would I tease him over his training. Never again would we talk about Ginny. The world wouldn’t even notice his death, as it hadn’t noticed Ginny’s, and I’d have no one to share it with.

“Goodbye Lujic. My brave little knight,” I said to him.

Lujic slept through my goodbye, but that was for the best. If he woke right now, I’d break. I’d scream. I’d cry so harshly, I had no idea what I’d say or do and… even more so if he didn’t even remember who I was.

Turning away, I didn’t even wait for Ginny as I left the room.

I knew this house. Even if the furniture was out of place. Even if there were different people, and smells. I knew this house. I knew every nook and crack. I had helped build it. I had helped furnish it. I had argued with Lujic and his wife, when she moved in, as to where to place the baby’s crib. They had wanted to put it near the window, and its cold draft.

So leaving the house without assistance was easy. And no one tried to stop me. No one said a word as I hurried out the house… and out into the yard that I no longer recognized. Plants that had been there were gone and now places that had been just grass were bushes and trees.

I didn’t spare a glance to the big tree off nearby a hill, where I knew a tiny tombstone laid.

I didn’t recognize the fence anymore either as I hurried up to it. It was now a bright yellow. It used to be brown. And the gate was bigger now, with something of a locking mechanism. It took so long for me to open it; I nearly just jumped over it.

I didn’t even close the small wooden fence gate behind me as I passed through it, and stepped out onto the dirt road.

Turning right, as to head away from the small village nearby… I picked up my pace.

“Renn…!” Ginny called after me, which only hastened my escape.

A small trot turned into a full on run.

Sobbing as I ran away, with no destination in mind… I fled.

I ran. From the reality behind me. From the harsh truth. From the heartbreaking certainty to this life.

Humans died. Far quicker than I could comprehend.

The people I loved and cared for would fade away, without warning. I’d blink and they’d be gone. No matter what I did, or how hard I fought.

It was so hard to find good people in the first place. So hard to find a human who wouldn’t run or try to kill me, once they realized what I was. It was so hard to find people willing to put up with my oddness. It was so difficult to find someone worth loving and caring for…

And this just once again proved that even when I did find them, it only ended in sorrow and despair. Inevitably.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

I gasped for air as I ran away, abandoning Lujic in his death bed and his family.

Full of shame and sorrow… I ran.

Again.