Postcard Writings: Eternal Conflict

never see the sun set

So this is how I die. Pinned like a butterfly to the ground.

It would be a nice day for cloud watching. It's clear, and wispy and puffy clouds dot the sky, stitching white onto the sky. The sun is nearly directly overhead, too, so there'd be plenty of time for it.

I crane my neck to look downwards. Past the swords, I can see Daemon struggling to his feet, deep blue blood staining his white clothing.

Hah. Take that, you pretentious motherfucker. Get your fancy clothes stained with your own blood.

He stretches his wings out for balance and walks over to me. I don't give him the dignity of a greeting.

He stops at my side, gripping the handle of one of the swords embedded in my abdomen and twisting it slightly. Despite myself, I hiss at the pain.

“Still alive, then,” he says.

“What, was it not obvious?”

“It's good to check.” He kneels down, placing a hand over the wound, sword between his fingers. He presses down—it hurts, but I don't move—, looks me in the eye, and then removes his hand. He hums; whatever it is that he's found, I guess he likes it.

He steps over my mangled wing (it hurts like a fucking bitch, why'd he have to remind me that it exists) and sits next to my head. I stop craning my neck.

I stay quiet when he starts running a hand through my hair, lightly scratching at the base of my horns. I don't wanna know if he's got a thing for me or whatever, definitely not when I'm about to die. Unfortunately, his hand is the one thing I can feel that isn't a sword stabbing through my body, so I end up focusing on it. Compared to excruciating pain, it is rather nice. He's steady.

The clouds pass on above us. My body bothers me with its pain more and more, and I have to force myself to not squirm. That would only make the pain worse, and while I'm not afraid of pain, I'm not a masochist either.

It doesn't matter if time wears on or stands still, because nothing changes.

“Sorry for keeping you,” he says, tone something that I would call apologetic if I didn't know better. He snaps his fingers; I feel the swords disappear. “The blood loss should kill you fairly quickly.”

I can still feel his hand in my hair when my vision whites out and my ears start ringing.

(reprise)

The end of the world is not forgiving.

We both know this. We have both seen the way the islands crumble, how the sun wavers in the sky, the protracted struggle of the flora as it clings to life.

There is no undoing what we've all done here.

Still, we sit together on this edge, river of water off to our right. The rivulets of blood that flow from our skin show in the stained clover and moss, turned red and blue and black from our magic. In the dying sunlight, you can't see the blue at all.

"So I've been thinking," I start, "about the end of the world."

"Topical," Daemon replies, not bothering to look at me. He's staring into the sunset, and I almost wish the sun still hurt our eyes, because then he'd have a reason to look at me. "Tell me more?"

"I thought, since it's the end of the world, I should probably say something I've been wanting to say." It's stupid, how my heart starts thumping. There's no real threat here, no danger, aside from Daemon, and he hasn't killed me for a lifetime.

He hums, and the river hums with him.

"And what would that be?" he asks.

"I love you." The words are stilted.

"I love you, too." He says it like he's breathing. "What is it you want to tell me?"

"That was it."

"Oh." He finally looks at me, face neutral. Then he smiles softly. "Well, I'm glad you did." He leans over and presses a kiss to my temple.

I find myself scooting closer so that our bodies are pressed together, like somehow admitting that makes this okay. He wraps an arm around me, then his wing, and I can feel the thrum beneath his skin.

After Fleur and Chaos, he's the closest to a true god.

Something about him changed in the loops, I think. There's no way the same Daemon who went into this, a mortal corrupted with a piece of divinity, is the same Daemon who holds me now. He's too patient, too kind, too soft to be anything like the impulsive and mercurial mortals. Like me. I know I'll wake up tomorrow or the day after and find myself infuriated over something he's done, and I'll snap at him, say something awful to him, and I know because I've done it before.

Yet here I am, tucked into him. Yet here he is, proclaiming he loves me.

And somehow, I'm believing him.

dream again, dream better

“Shhhh, it's okay, it's all okay, you did so well , sweetheart.” The words are slurred and soft, whispered into his ear. Nathan is holding him from behind, inside their mutual tomb of rock. Daemon knows Nathan's dying as quickly as he himself is, knows he has before, knows he will again. He could count the seconds, but he wants to savor this, drink in every touch and word before they're sent back to the start.

Nathan's hand clumsily cups his cheek. He's trying to clean the blood that dribbles from Daemon's mouth, but his thumb keeps missing. It's endearing; no matter how many loops they go through, he's sweet and caring under a layer of snark.

Now, they're dying. He's lost count of how many times. It's another first for Nathan, blessed to forget after every draw of death.

This time, they've been crushed beneath boulders, forced into each other's arms. (Though it never feels forced with Nathan, he muses, remembering violet eyes and violent pleasure. But that's another loop.) Nathan had tried to grab him, protect him, a selfish effort that cost them victory. He's still trying to wipe the blood away.

Daemon can't say much of anything. He's barely breathing, rock threatening to give way and completely crush him at any moment. So he lets him try to wipe the blood away. He keeps trying. Their breathing grows shallow and slow.

The welcome respite of death arrives messily, but it arrives.

Death sees four souls show up at her gates again. A lone cobalt shade shines next to a cluster of green-lime-yellow. They never enter, simply loiter at the edges of the garden, angels tied to their mortal duty by godly chains.

She checks her ledger. This is the seventeenth time. Four more times, and she'll be able to take them by force.

Death has never taken a soul by force before. Once, when the world was young, it was decided that if a soul reached her gates twenty-one times and did not enter, she could force them in. It was a decision made by a pantheon who did not know their world and a goddess who did not know herself nor her role. Now, she understands that everything comes to her in time. Even the world itself will.

It should have already, in fact. The skies should be dark, the land barren, the rocks dust. All the gods died centuries ago.

But the threads that remain tie themselves to one of two beings: an angel called Fleur, and a monster called Chaos. Despite their frail nature, they hold the remaining power of the gods in champions. If Death were any younger, she would hate them.

For now, Death waits. The end will not come cleanly, but it will come.