Lukesse Oneshots~2018 Wattys

~Emerald Eyes~

~ With one look in her eyes, he told himself, 'This is going to hurt when it's over.' ~

That was what Lukas thought when he saw that look in the young woman's emerald green eyes. While she appeared confident and brave, just as she had always appeared. A smile was spread across her lips. Her smile told them that everything would be alright, that they would overcome this and any challenge that would come their way. But her eyes...

Her eyes told a different story.

Those green eyes of hers, eyes that glimmered like emeralds, glowed like a lush forest, told something else entirely. They said that she was scared. That she knew something would happen no matter what course of action they took, and it was up to her to make sure the price paid would not be too high, that it would be as okay as it could have been.

But the price paid was much too high.

The young woman laid there on the ground, her diamond sword glimmering with its enchantment just out of her reach. Her green eyes that once sparkled with such hope and determination had dulled. The once emerald eyes had faded to a murky green, their glimmer lost for good. Her armour, which had been ever so carefully crafted by a man of many hobbies, was scuffed and dented and scratched, some old, others new. The armor looked similar to a night sky with its blacks and blues and pale grays, but what stood out most was the pool of red steadily growing from a hole through her chest.

Blood dribbled out from the wound, along from many others littered along her arms, legs, stomach, and face. A faint trail dripped from her chin, the blood escaping through her parted pale pink lips. The same red blood was stained upon the sword lying nearby. Stabbed by her own weapon. The very thing she had used to defeat so many mobs and villains bringing the blow that would bring her down. It was almost ironic.

Her opponent lay on the ground a little ways away. His face was creased in pain and fury, his glazed over eyes staring straight ahead at nothing. A single stab wound had killed him. Right through his heart. Only one dagger had been capable of the feat of making him bleed, and now it had killed him. Just as he had killed the woman with her own sword, he had been killed by his own dagger.

The dagger resided in the hand of a blond male. He didn't rejoice in his triumph, but rather stared down at the fallen woman with blue eyes wide behind his locks of hair that had fallen from their slicked back position. Multiple cuts littered his own body, none too serious, but he paid them no heed as he fell to his knees beside the young woman. His arms enveloped her limp body, cradling her with the utmost delicacy as if she was a piece of cracked glass. He brushed her black locks out of her face, the strands sticking from the sweat that lay against her pale skin. A look of excruciating pain crossed her face as her murky green eyes met the diamond blue eyes of the man. "Jess... Jess why..."

Sobs and pleads barely escaped the man's throat, the world falling into silence as it began to mourn the sacrifice made. The woman didn't have the strength to say anything, she suffered in silence as tears rolled down her cheeks. There was nothing that she could say anyway, no amount of words could describe her swirling feelings of guilt and grief she felt, no words to try and apologize to him with. It was a torturous few minutes for the two, knowing full well this would be their last moments together.

"Please, Jess... Don't leave me... I-I love you...!" the blond sobbed, his voice barely louder than a strained whisper. Jess weakly reached her hand up to the blond's cheek, wiping away the tears that fell down his face. He held his hand over her own, keeping it pressed against his cheek as if his warmth could give life back to the dying woman. "I-I-I... lo... ve... yo-you... t-t... too..." she whispered. Her voice cut off by violent coughing, her body shaking as more blood flowed from her wounds and down her lips. The blond could only watch on in horror as her coughs began to weaken, her body stopped shaking, and the warmth began to fade from her body. "N-No! Jess!"