clinging to the edge

Ashe the woods are lovely, dark, and deep but i have promises to keep    She jumped at the hands on her shoulders, but she didn't look up. She couldn't. Instead Ashe started trying to frantically wipe away the drying blood on her arms, over her chest. She couldn't breathe, could hardly see, and --    Her eyes finally flashed up to Vai with fresh tears. Breathe. She couldn't, it didn't seem to want to fill her lungs at all, and she couldn't stop shaking. Vervain was there though, her mother and she listened: her eyes squeezed shut, and she tried to breath, but the air was stuck and ballooning painfully in her chest. It bust from her with a short crack as her head bowed beneath the weight grief. Grief. She didn't want that word in her head, she didn't want to go through it again, she couldn't, she wouldn't, he was fine, he was fine.    'Give them hell.' There weren't supposed to be last words between them. Her teeth clenched as her dripping wet hands braced on the edges of the water basin with white knuckles, tears somehow finding their way through lids that were screwed tightly shut. A sob cracked open from her chest and she stayed that way for a beat before she could move. Breathe. She had to breathe.    She opened her eyes and forced a long and slow breath through shaking lips, then pulled in slowly, released it slowly again. The assassin swallowed past the rough dryness in her throat before she turned raw eyes to her mother. "We were so close," she said, her voice cracking. and miles to go before i sleep.