Fall On Your Sword

Watching her climb the hill to my body. Blinking in the light, now seeing her there. She doesn't cry, face set in a firm grimace, tears dried years ago. Pushing my body up and back, off my sword.

I'm sitting watching the dawn. I whisper my laments, apologies as empty as all the ones that came before. Breathing in, I steady the sword in my hands, tip between my breasts, and push myself forward, falling into darkness. And then light returns.

She's standing above my body, our group has joined her. Yysh the healer bends to examine me but she shakes her head and Kala holds him back. Finally she speaks, "Damn her," spitting in my unseeing eyes. Hardy yet devout, Kala gasps and whispers prayers in her home tongue, then says, "Trem, you can't do that, you can't defile her that way." Yysh has backed away and sat, staring. It's clear he doesn't understand.

I'm climbing the hill, smiling. This will be my one act of grace, taking me away. It will be a mercy, not just for me, but those around me. They don't see what a monster I've become. I reach the top of the hill, the false dawn almost about to come into sight. Stripping, I draw my longsword and set the rest aside.

"Yysh, you don't know what she did to me." Trem is angry. I had never seen her angry, only scared. Kala is gaping in surprise, but Trem continues, "You don't understand. We loved each other." She lets this sink in, they didn't even understand that much. "And no, not as friends," as Kala's gape almost issues words forth.

It's months earlier and we're in that cabin, snowed in. Kala and Yysh are gone in the wagon to trade in town, they'll be sharing a room in the inn, no matter the stares that prompts. If anyone challenged Kala's right to love Yysh, she would kill them. But here it is just me and Trem. "Zell, do you love me?" The question fills me with fear. I remember asking my mother the same thing. Rage rising in me unbidden, I walk out of the cabin without dressing again. Steam rises off me and I walk to the nearest tree. When I walk back into the cabin, my knuckles are bloody.

Kala has joined Yysh, holding him close to her. Soft-hearted, he's crying, a feat I envy. "She made me feel worthless, even though I loved her more than anything in the world. And you know, we couldn't leave her. She was one of us. One of our little family of adventurers, striding the lands, derring the dos." The couple was nodding. "You remember that time a few months ago, you both had went to trade and when you came back, Zell's hands were bandaged? I don't think you saw the blood on the tree, I spent hours rubbing it clean with the snows."

I remember even further back, when I first saw her. Well, them. But I only had eyes for Trem. Her short-cropped hair, her shining eyes. She made even me want to laugh. And I never said a word to her, she came up to me and asked, "What's a hearty warrior doing in a soft-heart's club like this one?" I was more off-balance than when I first learned The Fight at my mother's hands. I managed an, "Uhh," and Trem laughed, "Oh the strong silent type, but with a soft heart too?" I had to turn away, grimacing, wishing I could cry. When I turned back, I cleared my throat, "I just like the music." She smiled wider, "Then clap for me, I'm on!"

The sun was setting, what had I missed? Trem was finishing, mechanically laying my body back, dressing my unbleeding wounds, setting my swords far to the side, "So you see... she managed to wound me forever this way. Now we will never be able to..." And the tears caught her. Kala turned to Yysh, "Fix her, love." Screaming against this, they seemed to hear, but shook their heads. "Must be the wind," Kala chuckled, "though with a tinge of nervousness." Yysh had already started brewing a tea on the fire. Letting it cool, he poured it down my throat, and...

And that is the end as you will know it.