violence
She honors him.
She honors him because he is a first that is not a first: a first kill (in her own body, by her own proverbial hand, no magic, only fury). He is the first and she will always recall the ways his eyes went glazed as death wrapped its skeletal fingers upon his heart and lungs. She will always recall the particular give of his flesh, the way it looked, pierced and ragged, as she torn upon him.
(There had been no reason for it – they did not know one another. They were ships passing in the night, until one ship fired cannons upon the other.)
It is a dubious, unwanted honor, to be the first in this way – to be honored by a madwoman, by your killer. But it is one she bestows, one that can be glimpsed in her fever-bright eyes, in the way she wears his blood like a badge, a sigil.
Honor.
She honors him, but their goodbye is unceremonious – she simply walks away when the deed is done, when he has ceased to occupy the corporeal plane. She walks away, his blood on her, already drying in the terrible sun.
She doesn’t know his name, and he doesn’t – didn’t – know hers.
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
I’d stay the hand of god, but war is on your lips
