As A Stranger Or A Friend?: The Swallow And The Drowned Sailor

Fay - 25 Sun's Dawn, 1246 A.D.

"The tonics don't seem to be helping." Alma said worriedly.

"I'm sure they will take some time to take effect." I reassured her.

"I'll send for the medic again. Something isn't right." She fretted anxiously.

I nodded, deciding that stopping her would be both stupid and cruel. "I'll look in on him."

"Yes, do that." She said as she did her best to compose herself before going downstairs.

Perhaps it was that she did not see it or that she did not want to, but he was dying. When he was here some days ago, the medic told me that he would likely not make any recovery and that the best thing to do was ease his way into the next world. The news devastated me, of course, but I wasn't sure if the meaning behind those words had sunk in yet. There was still a part of me that truly thought I would see him up and about as usual and that things would be alright again. Such was not the case.

He'd been declining with each passing day, to the point that now he could only bear to be awake for minutes at a time. He hadn't eaten in three days and was little more than scales pulled over bone. His vibrancy had faded, and I had not heard him speak anything aside from my name, and even that came as a weak whisper, like dried leaves being blown across the ground. I struggled to understand how someone so strong and healthy could be torn down like this and so quickly.

I took a deep breath and went down the corridor to the room where he more or less lived now. He'd been unable to leave it for over a week, and perhaps that wasn't so long, but it might as well have been an eternity for someone like him. I opened the door slowly to avoid waking him but noticed immediately that he was not in bed. Instead, he was slumped against the window frame, breathing in a labored fashion. His scales seemed to be peeling away, and the ruby on his forehead had shattered. I rushed to him and saw he had a glazed look in his eye.

"Wilkes?! Wilkes, can you hear me?!" I asked in a panic.

He slowly looked at me and smiled before dropping to the ground, his head bouncing with a sickening crack upon impact. I knelt down quickly and knew I should try to cast some spell to save him, but my limbs wouldn't move. All they could do was tremble as I looked down at the dwindled form of the man who had been my husband. A slow trickle of blood bloomed from his wound, his eyes quickly became fogged, and we both became still. Shouldn't I cradle him? Shouldn't I cry? But cry for what? What did I have left? Everything I had was taken from me, and once again, I'd become that shivering thirteen-year-old girl. Enough was enough.

"You and me. You and me. Youandme, Youandme, Youandmeyouandmeyouandme..."

The halls, the stairs, the door, and everything else were gone, and I was in the sea, wading out until it swallowed me whole. I breathed in seawater as naturally as I would air and whistled. He came to me. He black as night with those fins and arms of red. He with those endless, starry eyes. He with that sapphire upon his chest.

"Drown the world with me." I whispered to him in Satolish as the last of the air departed my lungs.

He looked at me for just a moment and then seized my legs, twisting them unnaturally on themselves before dragging me further into the sea. The light above me soon faded, and He embraced me as we changed together. A single thought prevailed as I was lost: I should have told Wilkes I loved him one last time.