and yet she's beautiful all the same

~

In the orange light of sunset she falls, and yet she's beautiful all the same.

He doesn't often open his eyes, but at seeing his wife with an arrow shot straight through her heart, he makes an exception.

The exchange doesn't take more than three seconds. And yet in his eyes, it feels like millenniums pass before she hits the ground.

He cannot even bring himself to move. She's laying there, blood splattered onto the ground, and yet his feet are glued to the ground. It's hilarious; when his partner needs him the most, he can't bring himself to even take a step forward.

A gasp. His trance is broken, and he rushes to her side. The canyon ground swirls with dust around her, the dry brown soaking with red. He holds her in his hands, carefully. Her pink hair spills over her face as she coughs up more blood. "Henry," she says, and his heart shatters at how rasped it is.

His eyes dart around her body, but his mind fails. Now, of all times, is the time he finds fear in death? Surely there's a hex he can use to close her wounds. He bites his lip and flips through his book, but the last Risen attack broke it. He drops it, and forces a smile on his tear streaked face. Since when did he cry?

"Nya ha! A little wound never stopped the great Cherche. Let me take you back to camp where Lissa will heal you right up!"

She holds her hand in his, weakly, and turns. When he looks over her body, he only now notices the magic ebbing through it. By the looks of it, she's been hit by at least four mage attacks. His hands shake as he starts to realize just how badly she's been injured.

His body finally finds it in him to move. Wrapping his arms around her, he gets up and starts bolting back to the camp, the sun dipping back into the horizon. His clothes stain with her wounds. A realization dawns on him, as he skids to a stop. They had flown here on wyvern's back, and even then, it had taken a half hour to arrive.

They wouldn't make it back to the group in time.

Panic rises in his chest as he instead puts her down, trying to think rationally of how to help her. He lays her across his knee and pulls out the arrow. She cries in pain at the action, and he almost drops her. He tosses it and smooths her hair behind her.

"Henry," she says again, and her voice is barely a whisper.

She lifts her hand to his face, cupping it. He looks down at her, trembling.

"Hey... I'll go look for a medic nearby, okay? I'm sure, I know that someone will be able to heal you."

She only smiles at him silently, as the night darkens around them. "Take good-" She coughs. "T-Take good care of Gerome for me, okay?"

He can't move. He finds himself nodding. "I will. I promise."

Her smile falls, and she goes limp in his arms.

In the black shadow of the night she dies, and yet.

She's beautiful all the same.