Amalia
His hand is fire on her skin, a burn against the piercing chill which bites so cruelly at her flesh. Beneath his touch she is porcelain, brittle pallor and cracking skin, a thing which could shatter given just enough pressure at the wrong point. When she cries her bones rattle, ribs and sinew shaking loose. For a moment it feels as though this is the end, and she might as last collapse beneath the weight of her sadness, her failure, her terror, her loss. She thinks of her grandmother, of her mother, of Ludo waiting to take her home, and she aches, again, for that release, yearns to be free of the yearning she feels.
Death is a cold plunge into icy waters: an initial shock, panic and fear, but then the body adjusts, slows, falls. It is the return to air which leaves one cold and broken, aware of the pain that bites and gnaws. It hurts more to thaw and to freeze, and Amalia does not want to hurt anymore. She yearns to succumb to the cold, to let her body and soul ice over and retreat forever away from this place.
But his hand is fire on her skin, and she cannot be frozen anymore.
You are radiant and brave and you are my friend.
A half-laugh, half sob chokes its way from her throat. She lets him capture her chin between his fingers, head turning toward him, eyes still downcast. Her face and hair are damp from tears; she bites her lip, and it tastes of salt. It is a lie, some part of her screams, but for a moment, she thinks, she can accept the lie. Not believe it - she will never believe it - but take it, hold it, wear it as a blanket, a shield against the cold.
She wraps herself in his voice, in the promise of forgiveness at this moment, in this place, where they are both alive.
At last the tension of her body unwinds, and Amalia shifts from glass back to flesh. She can feel her heartbeat in her chest, the breath in her lungs, the cloth against her skin. She can feel him, and he is a beacon, a fire, a tether to the world. Leaning forward, the girl who died falls against her friend, her head finding a place in the crook of his neck, their hair a tangled cascade of honey and blood. "I miss them," she whispers into the space between them. She does not say who- she does not need to. Rory knows the story of her grandmother's death in Long Night, and her mother's fall in this very hall, brought down by a patient's illness. Everybody does.
What they don't know is the child left behind, too quiet to be noticed, too scared to ask for help. She had been alone so long. It is strange, to let someone in.
Death is a cold plunge into icy waters: an initial shock, panic and fear, but then the body adjusts, slows, falls. It is the return to air which leaves one cold and broken, aware of the pain that bites and gnaws. It hurts more to thaw and to freeze, and Amalia does not want to hurt anymore. She yearns to succumb to the cold, to let her body and soul ice over and retreat forever away from this place.
But his hand is fire on her skin, and she cannot be frozen anymore.
You are radiant and brave and you are my friend.
A half-laugh, half sob chokes its way from her throat. She lets him capture her chin between his fingers, head turning toward him, eyes still downcast. Her face and hair are damp from tears; she bites her lip, and it tastes of salt. It is a lie, some part of her screams, but for a moment, she thinks, she can accept the lie. Not believe it - she will never believe it - but take it, hold it, wear it as a blanket, a shield against the cold.
She wraps herself in his voice, in the promise of forgiveness at this moment, in this place, where they are both alive.
At last the tension of her body unwinds, and Amalia shifts from glass back to flesh. She can feel her heartbeat in her chest, the breath in her lungs, the cloth against her skin. She can feel him, and he is a beacon, a fire, a tether to the world. Leaning forward, the girl who died falls against her friend, her head finding a place in the crook of his neck, their hair a tangled cascade of honey and blood. "I miss them," she whispers into the space between them. She does not say who- she does not need to. Rory knows the story of her grandmother's death in Long Night, and her mother's fall in this very hall, brought down by a patient's illness. Everybody does.
What they don't know is the child left behind, too quiet to be noticed, too scared to ask for help. She had been alone so long. It is strange, to let someone in.
