Death was… warm.
I could still feel her touch. Every receptor in my body still tingled, infinitely reliving the way it—she—felt against my skin, and that urge, that need… it felt more than just a desire more, or a deep craving to be quenched. This wasn't a succubus' allure.
Being here, and being with her, more than hunger, more than yearning… it felt like I just simply, well… belonged.
"Restrain yourself, if you're able," I heard her say, a stream of different voices, familiar voices, ringing out their request as one. It took a full second to realize she had vanished, or many I just hadn't noticed her move. I spotted her again just a little further ahead in the front yard, peering at with many pairs of loving eyes. "Would you walk with ?"
There was no feasible way for to refuse her. Soone could've had strung up, legs and feet crippled in all sorts of odd angles, and I'd still find a way to do as asked.
Sohow, I made my way down the porch steps without tripping. She was considerate enough to wait, to maintain a slow, casual pace as I trailed after her, gathering whatever bearings I had with whatever the hell this all was.
My eyes were forever tethered forward—every blink, every step—finding myself accompanying soone new entirely.
Normally, people had certain aspects to them, distinct features, the bare minimum to lay a foundation for so kind of familiarity. I'd say she was the total opposite, but no, she wasn't even that. If anything, she was the epito of it.
She had everything, was everything—a vivid impression of sothing, of soone, just constantly morphing, ebbing—and as such, she looked like… nothing.
But her appearance wasn't the only thing in a state of flux.
In the corner of my eyes, all around us, trees would promptly sprout, grow, and eventually wither—vast adows in a perpetual state of blooming and withering. Stray leaves transitioned between seasons in a single freefall. Nothing was stagnant.
With her being the most egregious example.
It was a good couple dozen steps along the fence line before I heard her speak once again, as she briefly slowed to a halt, turning over to admire the neighboring vista of open plains that had been ho for the majority of my life.
"Most often, for the young, ho is what they associate with peace and serenity. A little piece of heaven, as they say, as you say…" her voice reached as more than just re words. "You're still quite young. No exception to your own youth. But I do wonder when you're much older, when you've returned back to … what peace and serenity may look like to you then."
Everything about her was its own bliss, its own rapture to be wholly consud by, suffocating more and more every second spent lingering in her presence.
"Am I dead?" I asked her, and imdiately it all felt automatic. Like soone had just pressed a button—had speaking without any sense of volition. That's how far gone I was under her spell.
"Worried that you are?" She asked, voice echoing with the most tender comfort. "Or perhaps rely wishing that you are. What could it be, I wonder?"
"I…" for so reason, I had to think about it. And for the first ti, it really unnerved just how hard I had to think about my answer. "I don't want to be dead."
"Now, now, there's no sha in having any… ulterior thoughts," her hand slid across the fencing, shapeless, undefined, as she shuffled closer toward . "Many couldn't have given an answer like yours even if they wished to. I admire resolve like yours. Always the brightest souls. I'm keen to have you. Eventually…"
"So I'm not dead?"
"No, I'm afraid not," she said patiently. Like a mother indulging her child. "You're still fast asleep in your bed, in your ho, dawn only minutes away, you'll wake up soon, and then you'll return to your life as normal."
Suddenly, I blinked. Or perhaps the world did. Suddenly I was seated, elbow propped against the round kitchen table, my palms warm with the heat from a mug of coffee… and she was there too… wearing Sammy's wide, confronting eyes and frown.
"But first," she proclaid, sounding far less imposing than what Sammy's expression suggested. "I feel it necessary to warn you before you go."
The coffee still tasted like coffee, surprisingly. I took a sip, hoping it'd do so good. Instead, all I got was a mouthful of coffee.
"And that's why I'm here?" I asked, still sounding more daft and stiff than I would have liked. "Why I'm with you?"
"You defied , Nara'hym," she said simply, a hint of sothing more behind her formless smile. "Encompassing existence, nothing could ever be beyond my reach but then for a short while, there was. In a small space, a little expanse of your making, to my absolute dismay, I did not exist. Can you see now why I may have a problem with you?"
Perhaps it was lucky it wasn't possible for to feel any fear. Hearing that death itself has got it out for you wasn't sothing I'd definitely take too well if I was really myself.
"That wasn't anything against you," I said quickly. "What we did that night, what I did… it was all just to…"
"I know why you did it," she interrupted , Irene now echoing in her voice. "Ria Ignis. You want her. You want her to co back. All the tis you've transgressed , I have willingly turned a blind eye. But as for your most recent attempt, I'm afraid you have taken things quite too far. Not many can upset the way you have."
"Would it help if I said it won't happen again?" I looked at her, staring at a swirl of features beyond recognition, hoping to find a semblance of... sothing, sowhere. "I don't know what you know. But Ria made it clear she didn't wanna co back, and none of us have any plans to - "
"I would say that you are lying," she cut off again, as kindly, as gently as she did the last. "And not just to , but to yourself too, Nara'hym."
That sa inexplicable blink of the world happened again, and this ti, we were out by the lake, sunlight gleaming across serene waves, splashing the tip of my feet laid outstretched by the rim of the lake.
Ash's white locks then slowly spilled onto my shoulder, and she continued to speak, "Souls like yours, resolve like yours. I know sooner rather than later, you'll refuse to leave things as they rightfully should be, and in turn, you shall choose to defy again."
I was quiet… and she… she was right.
At so point, I would have tried again. Tempered and bolstered by a reason, any reason, convinced without a doubt that this ti would be different. The look on her face before she went… I can still rember it… just that alone would have been reason enough for .
"Ria Ignis belongs to now," she said. "I need you to understand that, okay?"
I glanced down at her, the bundle of pure white now flowing much grayer. "Even though she isn't dead?"
"She isn't even supposed to be in the first place," she answered, giggling softly. "Nothing eludes , escapes because everything returns to eventually. It is simply the way of things. Ria Ignis had already lived. I am owed my due."
"But she isn't dead."
"Yet she longs to be," she retorted. "Not dead, yes. But the closest she can ever be to her desire. Don't take that from her. Don't take her from ."
I didn't want to argue with her. It seed like a stupid thing to do. Who was I to disagree and critique sothing that transcended beyond existence? And yet a small piece of , that sa piece that thought long and hard for , was not ready to comply.
"What happens if I refuse?"
My knees began to buckle beneath . I looked down, suddenly I was standing again. I looked up—open fields t my stare, a line of fences stretching beyond the horizon, and once more she stood there imrsed in the view.
As if we've never left.
As if nothing had ever happened.
But sothing did happen, the way she turned, that feeling less than kind, the way she t my eyes.
"Don't refuse," she said. "That's why I've co to warn you."
There was sothing about her then that had clamping up. Not an inch of her felt nefarious, dangerous. All throughout, she had been nothing but polite and patient. Maybe it was sothing innate, a sort of primal instinct… it wasn't fear, far from it… this feeling… it went beyond that.
And I didn't want to know any more about it than I already have.
"Sothing tells you understand now," she said to , smiling a smile plain and empty. "With that out of the way, I shall give you back your slumber. But first…"
I saw her murky figure turn toward again, glimpses of familiar faces in her kind expression.
"Is there anything you wish to know?" she asked. "Any lingering questions I may answer before I leave you be?"
It's like she's reading my thoughts long before I even have them. If so, then do I still need to even say anything?
"Several, actually," I muttered. "I'll need a while to.... just to straighten them all out."
"You don't have a lot of ti," she warned cheekily. "Make it count."
"It's about Ria again."
"I believe we have moved past - "
"I just want to know one thing, alright?" I hurriedly spoke. "Here, how has she been doing over here?"
"No longer a concern of yours, Nara'hym. Now if that is all you wish to say, then…"
"Fine, your… your face, then… you..." I said, stamring out the next best thing that ca to my head. "Why do you look like…?"
Once again, wearing an all too-knowing smile, she promptly finished the rest of my thoughts.
"The mind isn't able to perceive what it cannot comprehend. To compensate, it latches to what is familiar. It hears, it sees, what it wishes, what it desires. I appear to you how you wish to be."
"Then what do you really look like?"
"In ti," she assured . "Perhaps, in ti, you will be able to comprehend as I am. The next ti we are to et, Nara'hym. Till then, I shall eagerly await you."
"Nara…?" I felt my lips fumble at the attempt. "Why do you keep calling that?"
"I simply refer to you as you are."
"That's not my na."
"No, it isn't," she agreed completely. "I know it isn't."
"Then, what does that - ?"
Suddenly, for the last ti, I blinked—slowly fluttering my eyes open to the deep, pristine white of my ceiling, my question fading away to the chirping of birds sowhere outside my window.
This ti, actually for real this ti, groggy, dazed, and my head heavy with far more than just fatigue…
I was finally awake.
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