Stories of the short variety

BONDMATE

Listened to the song in the thing, many inspired, here have this crappily written short story. 

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Everyone has a bondmate.

A kindred spirit who never really leaves your side once you meet, a soul that understands yours without ever speaking a word between you. Once you meet, you are no longer two. You are the same, united until the moment that death rips you apart.

Even then, there are legends that sometimes even death itself is not enough to separate you.

Most find their bondmate early in life. My sister found hers when she was five. Never have I known her to be without him, but his grey hairs are more numerous each year. When she loses him, we will also lose her. Bondmates share their lifespans. One will shorten to gift their partner with years they would never have known otherwise. When I asked my sister if she was scared about that, she said she wasn't. It was with nothing but bliss in her gaze as she told me that fifteen years were a blessing with him, that she would have taken a single day if her only option had been to never know him at all.

I envy them. Watching them fall asleep, his head on her lap--I want nothing more than to find my own bondmate.

Mother has tried to comfort me, telling me that my bondmate will come along eventually, but I can't help but feel that I've missed them. I can't help but worry that maybe, just maybe, I'll only ever get that single day my sister spoke of and be left hoping it is enough to change me.

I don't want to be a human without a bondmate. It is said the gates of paradise only open for those humans who have been cleansed by their bondmate's innocence. That only an animal's love--only that pure, selfless devotion--can wipe away a human's sin so that they may pass through the gates and into the eternal.

Eighteen years of sin. That's what I've been living with. Most people barely go twelve. Fifteen maximum.

Bondmates are supposed to give you direction in life, too. Those chosen by dogs or wolves are protectors, those who you can turn to and know you will not be judged. My sister is one of the best fighters we have in our village. Those bonded with owls are our wisest, our scholars, while those bonded with deer are healers who can stave off death itself. Our swans are our dancers and our elephants are in charge of the stories that we pass down to the next generation.

And without a bondmate, without being deemed worthy in an animal's eyes, you are not worthy in the eyes of your race, either.

Maybe that was why I was out here now, alone and running through the winter snow in nothing but my leggings and a thin shirt that was meant for summer or the inside of a house with a blazing fire. Maybe it was because of the looks I'd recieved after Nyala had finished telling the story about the human which every animal had rejected. The human who had tried, so, so hard to bond, yet at every paw, fin, or claw, had only found rejection.

That human's name was lost through the ages. We now only know them as Slaughterer, the immortal Bondless one. They wander the land, still searching for their bondmate, refusing to let death take them until they find it, slaughtering any animal who rejects them. According to the story, the Slaughterer's rampage started in a once-lush oasis, but the innocent blood they'd split had parched the land and bleached its soil, turning it into the death trap we now knew as the Red Desert.

I stopped, breathing hard, the snow up to my knees, finally giving myself a chance to look around.

Aside from at the edge of a cliff, I didn't know where I was. I'd been moving blindly, so caught up in my thoughts, not particularly caring if I didn't make it back before dark of if the healers could fix the frostbite I was going to get from being out here like this. That maybe it was better if I just died, if I didn't become another Slaughterer. Maybe death wouldn't want me either.