Of Spinning Gold and Song

| Twenty Nine | The Aftermath

The sword flew true.

Straight to the heart.

The whole.

World.

Shattered.

The dragon reared up on his back legs, letting out an ear splitting roar... and then he... didn't. And then he fell back down, falling down right on top of that blade and it stopped. Moving.

The shimmering and glittering stopped. The dragon stopped moving. The only sign of life was a faint trickle of blood, oozing out from beneath the creature.

Everything that had happened that day, the battle, the dragon, everything; it all came crashing down on me. Abruptly, I turned and puked on the ground. It seemed it went so far down, down, down, down. In that moment, all I wanted to do was follow suit. If I could just lie myself down on the ground and not get up, if I could just lay there and stop breathing--

I didn't know. Perhaps I would have been happier.

Perhaps then the pain would go away.

And so would the guilt.

If I had just believed Rosie the first time... if I hadn't insisted so hard we keep coming back for the dragon...

Who could have known?

I staggered backwards and plopped down on the ground like a small child. My vision was tunneling. I couldn't see straight. All I could see was the blood.

So much blood.

Why was there so much blood?

It just kept pouring.

And pouring.

Pouring.

I thought someone may have been talking to me. I wasn't sure. All I could see was the pain.

Who said that pain wasn't a physical thing?

Of course it was, and it was everywhere.

It was the red.

And the fire.

It was the sharp edges of my fuzzy world.

Was I crying?

Was that a tear?

So.

Much.

Pain.

---

I didn't know how much time had passed but somewhere, somehow, along the way I had picked up a stray little sister. And there we were; the two of us were huddled on the ground sobbing. I didn't even really know why.

I had long, long since given up on Pap. Before that wretched dwarf had shown up, I was sure that he was dead.

After the dwarf had shown up, and I had as good as sold my soul to him, I had given up very shortly thereafter.

It was the hope that killed me.

This was why I had condoned dreamers. Why I had resigned myself to my mundane life and tried as hard as I could to never let anyone see what I really wanted. To never even let myself see what I had really wanted.

Because hope?

Hope killed.

---

"Sparrow." The voice was low and immediately I wanted to kill its owner. How could he? How could he? After what I had told him? From someone who had claimed to love me?