Shrike's Heart (#4)

[idolpro]

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

Comments

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[worthathousand]

[ She takes the boy's body from Eclipse, holding him in her arms like a child as she waits for the dance to finish.

Then she begins carrying him back outside. ]

Let us start a pyre.

[ a pause, then she looks back over her shoulder at the wounded man ] Will you survive this?

Re: THE RUINED TOWN

[handpuppets]

[ somewhere in the last few minutes, his eyes have closed, and his breathing has stilled. he still holds the doll in his hands, clasped tightly. ]

F

[worthathousand]

......Ah.

[ well, she can carry him too, then. ]

Re: F

[forgottenmercy]

...ah. May he, and his kin, rest well.

Re: F

[inspiteful]

...Mmm. Rest in peace.

[ T...time to build a pyre. ]

Re: F

[worthathousand]

[ at least there's no shortage of supplies in this broken and literally on fire village.

as she goes, Amaranth stops to bring the other bodies of the dead, as she finds them. ]