My Keeper

Catch Me Once You Kill Me

"Friend or foe, lover or hater, whoever we are, whatever we were, was is worth the price, or will we forever forget?"

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We stood together, alone in the center of the woods. The air held an eerie, untouched stillness, broken only by the soft, winding melody of trickling streams and the occasional whisper of a breeze that stirred the leaves around us. The light that filtered through the canopy above was thin and ghostly, casting a muted green over the forest floor, and I could almost feel it breathing, alive in a way the world outside this place could never be.

I glanced up at him, my gaze tracing the contours of his shadowed figure. His sword-a bulky, dark creation forged from metal as cold and unyielding as the man himself-hung heavily by his side, its tip scraping against the moss, leaving faint tracks on the earth. He looked like a specter, a relic of some past life, and yet here he stood, trapped in the quiet beauty of this untouched place.

"We look so out of place," I broke the silence, my voice trembling in the vast quiet. His expression was unreadable, but I could sense a glimmer of something, a hollow uncertainty as he took it all in. "I'm not sure what you were before... what you could feel, what you would do in a day, or if you ever slept at night." I inhaled, my chest tightening with the finality of my words. "But I hope it's worth returning to once I'm gone."

He wouldn't be able to access this forest without me, closed off to this world of light.

His eyes shifted slightly, and he replied, "It was the same, every day."

My gaze lingered on him, caught somewhere between curiosity and sorrow. "What would that be like?"

He began to walk slowly around me, his heavy steps sinking into the moss, each one a careful imprint left upon the ground. His gaze traced the trees, the green canopy overhead, the rays of sunlight slipping through branches, illuminating patches of moss and lichen that clung to rocks. The sounds of water echoed softly around us. How long had it been since he'd seen something so pure, something that moved with its own quiet grace?

"It is quiet, the ashes move without sound," he said, breathing deeply, as if savouring a distant memory. "And the world around me, predictable. The sky never changing, the black mountains never ceasing."

"You say you're a king, but over what people?" I asked, a hint of bitterness in my voice. "They seem more like souls passing by, not souls staying."

He halted in front of me, towering over me like a figure carved from stone, his shadow cast long and dark in the sunlight. I could feel the immovable presence of him, something that felt eternal, a force that would never bend or break. This wasn't a man I could fight, nor a death I could deny. He was a being who carried the weight of countless forgotten lifetimes, an embodiment of fate, of death's unyielding patience.

For a moment, the forest seemed to pulse around us, the trees holding their breath, as if listening to our exchange. I thought of death-not as a single act but as a shroud, veiling the world in layers upon layers of separation. A sword, a vial of poison, a fading heartbeat-all merely passageways, aching and inevitable, leading to the same endless void.

"I ask we don't delay this any further," I whispered, feeling a hitch in my breath, a sensation like iron caught in my throat. His gaze found mine, his eyes a storm of grey and black, filled with a strange, flickering glimmer-a spark of orange, almost like the last embers of a dying fire. He drew his sword in front of him, lifting it with a fluid, deliberate motion, the metal catching a faint glint of sunlight.

I couldn't tear my gaze from his as he pulled the blade back, and in that slow, eternal instant, he did what the sword was created for.

Thorough and swift. How could something so cold feel like fire? He held it in my abdomen for a moment but quickly slid the blade back, catching me, dropping his blade. His arms wrapped around my torso. He led me to the moss carpet.

He brushed my dark hair away from my face softly. A small hush leaving his lips as his calloused fingers danced on my hairline.

I took a few partial breaths as tears streamed from my eyes. He took his stone and placed it into my hand and tucked it over my chest, "take it with you."

I shook my head silently laughing through my cries, "you can't kill grief, Vaerandor. It wasn't mine you felt, it was your own," I whispered half awake, "you just forgot what it feels like."

The air slit in half, and a dull this stuck him from behind. His eyes didn't leave me. He didn't react to the arrow lodged in his back. Another one cut through the wind and it struck him once again.

I sat with great effort. I slid his arm over my neck. He hobbled beside me as we pulled each other deeper into the trees. I followed the echo of rolling water until we found the pool hugging a small waterfall. It was shaded, we slouched in the shadows away from anyone's sight.

I leaned him back on a tree and soon lowered myself to the floor, laying on my back, sand and grass beneath me. I stretched my hand out so the water could run over my skin. He leaned forward and dragged himself beside me. He nestled my head onto his lap, pulling my hair away from my fluttering eyes.

"I don't want to lose you," he wept with a kind of anger I've never heard before.

Who shot him with the arrows? Who abided here? Whom have we walked in on? It didn't matter now, because we wouldn't be here tomorrow.

"You were doing your job," I whispered half faded, "and it's not one others could do."

"I'll come with you."

I shook my head as the warmth of the stone in my palm began to ebb and flow along with me. I handed it to him, trembling. My hands were stained with crimson, "it's ok to feel sad," I said softly, "that just means you care."

The amulet began to flicker and become more stone than light, "it cannot save me this time?"

" I can stop the spread of poison, but I cannot catch blood that falls."

I tried to listen to the sounds around me but they drift further away, it felt like forever, changing the way I see this world. It was full of silence and a sizzling warmth that even here his ashen realm's heat held fast. Whether amongst the decay of a mountain or within the life thriving here tucked away, green and alive.

"It's almost done," he said hushly, comforting me through each phase of passing, desperate to ease the pain, "Raela."

He handed me a name, something for him to whisper, perhaps that comforted him. He laid me on my side to watch the waterfall trickle over the glassy crystal surface. His shaking hand on my head. Curling within my strands of hair.

"Is it you?* I spoke with desperation, mouth dry, " is it you I grieve over?"

His eyes narrowed in thought, his own blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. His breathing ragged, "I don't know," he frantically searched my eyes, "I don't know."

" I want to remember you," I promised as his eyes began to close. It was too soon to tell, if I'd remember him as someone who tried to show me mercy. Or someone who wanted to help rid me of grief. Or someone who is selfish, wishing for me to be gone, to rid themselves of the grief.

His hands began to lose strength in my hair until it was stilled. My eyes made the branches swirl above me, slowly devoured by darkness. Gradually this heaven became a shadow.

My eyes wouldn't close, staring out at the crystal pool, his hand still resting on my head, even if his soul was no longer with me.

It was as if we knew each other for years on end. Draped with the same guilt, the same burdens. Sharing the same life, feeding the same grief.