|
All That's Left (A Scene) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
“It seems we’re all that’s left of the original heroes.”
He turned, irritable, and scowled in response to the smile playing on her lips as she stepped free of the shadows. He hadn’t felt her presence, which annoyed him just a tad bit more than her current conduct, so he chose not to answer her.
“Well, except for Shiva, of course, but then, no one knows how long she’ll live, anyhow,” she continued, uncharacteristically chirpy, “though I’ve always suspected she’ll manage to outlive us all.”
“Why are you here, Raziya?” he growled, in no mood for such idle talk, wishing she would just leave him to his misery and self-pity. He’d earned it. “If it’s only to chatter incessantly about matters that no longer have bearing on my life, then I suggest you leave…in a hurry.”
She crossed the room in a lithe manner acquired from her years studying her beloved horses, and sat on the ottoman a few feet in front of his armchair. He glared down at her, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon.
“They have bearing,” she told him, suddenly forceful, the way she was supposed to be. “It feels like the world is over, but it isn't. Everyone else out there is managing to go on with their lives.”
“Not many of them know what we have learned to live with,” he replied shortly. “Think, Raziya—how many friends have you seen die? How many of your loves have expired? How many of your damn horses have been put in the ground?”
“No need to be snide,” she replied coolly, leaning back and bracing her hands on her knees to keep from lunging at him. Her tone was icy, more fitting to him, but her golden eyes blazed with the familiar light of battle.
“There’s every reason to be snide.” He looked away, mouth set in a hard, immobile line. He sat, stone-like, for a full minute and a half (she’d know; she sat just as still, silently counting the seconds as they ticked by), without crying, sighing, or screaming, managing to collect himself completely before continuing, “We lost Scorn today. Aaron and Mithura, not to mention most of their family line, have been dead and buried for centuries now. My own children are ailing. And Amadahy…” He shook his head, silently refusing to even think of her, not her, never her, not again.
“And how many others have you lost before them?” she countered. “I’d guess hundreds, in all the years you’ve lived, all the battles you’ve fought and wars you’ve survived. And there will be millions more before you either decide to find a way to end it all, or the end of days finally settles us all into blissful oblivion.”
“You’ve come to terms with that? Accepted that?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t like to admit it, but he believed her. There was nothing but cold resolution in her eyes, even as he tested the murky, torrential memories that made up her mind and saw her thinking of a long dead love, a child she’d barely known before he, too, was killed in battle, all the other sorrows of a too-long life. She had lived, and she would continue to live, without regrets. This was the life she’d been given, the same as he, and she was determined to meet it with the very same fiery passion with which she faced everything else.
“Then you’re a lucky woman,” he sighed, and was startled by the feather touch of a comforting palm, her tough, slender hand, on his knee.
“Don’t give up just yet, Xenon,” she said, almost pleading, for she, too, knew that she would forever be haunted of the memories of those who had gone before; she needed him around, as an ally against forever. Then, reiterating her original point in a solemn tone, “We’re all that’s left.” It was obvious that the statement meant something to the defiantly unsentimental Raziya; Xenon couldn’t help but admit that it struck a chord within him, too.
 OuEstLaCraie · Sun Feb 22, 2009 @ 03:51am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
