There were three figures. Perhaps more, but vision was hardly a thing at present, and three definitive figures made the most sense.
One was glowing. One was crying. One was backing away. Two were afraid, one was angry.
Three were hateful, in their own ways.
Shouting. Screaming? It was dulled and ringing. Ringing, everything ringing. Vibrating like a goddamn tuning fork. Spinning and wobbling and wavering but still there enough to make out a fight, or at least an attempt at one.
The large shape was making a final stand, a desperate plea as the glowing shape held out her hand in a quiet act of power, beginning to move her finger hypnotically across her palm and speak something alongside.
Hearing what she said was hard. It was ringing, there was a scream of pain but it was dulled by the wailing in my ears. The large shape lunged.
Then it was silenced. Light, dark, intersections and doorways and jail cells in a spiral of nothing. And everything. It was too bright so I closed my eyes.
Ringing. I should have been crying but it was just ringing and the comfort of shut eyelids that saw the nothing of my friend move out of the way slightly too late.
A bell. A bell? Something was ringing in my ears. Why was there a bell in the forest?
A forest? A flower field.
That's right, we called it the flower field. We called it the flower field because that's what-
"Juno!" I screamed as I stumbled to my feet and ran, tripping over countless times as my palms itched with a hateful fire and my head swarmed with a thousand bees, buzzing and buzzing. My other friends were barely upright, the bees just as relentless in their heads as mine, and so they didn't register the same way I had.
Mrs Golde was crying. Oro - I supposed I should call her. Tears glazed her wrinkled face in a thick barricade between air and skin as she tried to mourn her barely living grandchild.
"Child of the stars," she repeated softly, "you have always belonged to the sky."
"Mrs Golde!" I was crying too. I wasn't sure entirely what was happening and the headache was almost incapacitating, but I was upright and I could see. And I could hear - that awful noise was fading into the background, finally. She held the body close to her chest.
I could barely hear myself. "Can't you do some ancient magic? What fucking use are you? You're a god? A titan? More than human? Heal my best friend."
She shook her head softly, tears still flowing in a steady stream. "It doesn't work like that."
"Then make it work like that! I can't- I can't lose anyone else." I fell down to the ground next to their body and knelt very still for a long time. Aubrey and Mike were beginning to stir, slowly rubbing at their hands and wincing as they pressed their palms against their head. Noticing the scene in front of them in a quiet shock, we stood stationary in silence for a while.
The forest was glowing.
For the first time in what felt like forever, a gentle, natural light blanketed the corners of the leaves, tainting everything in a warm gold and casting real shadows across the forest floor. Small clumps of leaves danced surreptitiously with the steadily calm breeze, waltzing to an unheard, unsung count of one, two, three, one, two, three.
The extent of our silence surprised me. We remained, staring, attempting, really attempting to process. To feel. It was hard.
I was struggling. The knife was still on the ground. Runes still worked. What would be stopping me? My parents? My best friend? It was my fault. I knew it was my fault. If I hadn't been so selfish, they might have made it. The hardest part was my fucking inability to feel sad. I should have felt sad. I just felt something dull, like eventually it would crack and I would feel the way grief is supposed to feel, but I just couldn't. It hurt.
