03-07-2017, 08:32 PM
It’s a hard thing to forget, your own death.
Still, he does his best. Memory, in its own kindness, has blurred the worst of it, blurred the exact nature of his pain, so that what he recalls is the memory that he hurt, but not how the hurt itself felt.
And now, in a new body, remade in an image of flesh rather than glass, it’s even easier. He forgets his own fragility, under this armor of solid bone and thicker skin, with wings that know what it is to bear heavy things aloft. Things are better. He is better.
And oh, there are dreams – of course there are – where he dies and breaks and bleeds, where he screams her name. But not every night.
He does his best not to think of her – of her face and the way it distorted, a wolf at a door – because it is painful, the memory of her, the memory that is made of so many things. For he loved her – or thinks he did – and she is the thing that killed him first.
Find what you love and let it kill you, the saying goes, but it’s not a saying he much likes.
But just because he does not think of her does not means she ceases to exist, does not mean their paths could cross again – and indeed, here she is, and here he is.
Crossing paths like strangers until he looks up and - oh - his breath catches and his heart speeds up, and he thinks of terrible jaws and terrible laughter, and he feels hot and cold all at once.
He stops – he can’t help himself – and looks at her. There are so many questions but they all lay on his tongue like dried, desiccated things.
Instead, he says only her name: “Tyrna.”
contagion
be careful making wishes in the dark