Eternity Glass

XV: My Little Salvation

"Zafiro, of all the god-awful tasks you've made me done, this is the most heartless of them all." Fallon massaged her temples before casting a dubious look at the male witch enjoying himself at the bank of the lake.

Neither of them initiated this meeting; it just happened, in a way. At one second, she'd decided to continue, at long last, what she had been putting off since before summer break and start writing. Her dependence on the one solace only she could help herself with proved faulty when, even after everything that has happened, Fallon could not find it in herself to put any words to paper.

When she came to, she found Zafiro already at the edge of the lake with his eyes closed. With how still he laid, she would have assumed that he'd been asleep should she not already have the knowledge that astral selves did not need to sleep just as much as they did not need to sweat or cry or even take up a solid form.

He'd undoubtedly sensed her arrival, but didn't open his eyes until a few seconds later, as if to pretend to have awoken on his own accord. Fallon would never mention her opinion of him aloud to anyone, including the man in question, but she had a bit of fondness for his slight inclination to the dramatic. He'd probably never admit it himself, either, but with his accounts of being the palace prankster before Eyal took over, Fallon could see it as clearly as the ink on a newspaper.

When he regarded her presence and asked what brought her there, she confessed to not knowing full well herself and simply told him that she was just suffering from Writer's Block. After a further explanation of what that was, Zafiro proceeded to toss her an empty journal and a fountain pen with the simple order "write."

"Where did you even get this? Do you just carry it around?" Fallon flipped through the leather-bound book. None of the other pages were touched, and the binds still had that satisfyingly fresh crackling sound.

He shrugged. "It was your birthday, wasn't it?"

No.

Him. The right hand of the emperor of the Underworld, the Grim Reaper that haunted his way through every fairy tale and dark myth in the planet... got her a birthday gift.

Fallon debated between laughing at the subtle irony and checking if the journal was cursed. She still had the journal Lita gave her, but that one filled itself up with lessons and notes. There'd been no time to write for pleasure among those pages.

Her mother did always teacher her that it was rude to refuse a gift, no matter who it was from.

Perhaps she never really met a celestial. Fallon had lost count at how many times someone warned her about accepting gifts and offers from mythical beings.

She let the pen hover above the blank sheet.

Starting a story came only second in the list of nuisances in writing; the first was coming up with a title.

A bit ago, she'd gotten the chance to return to her work in progress, only to come to the conclusion that the story lacked any sort of base or plot. The series of predicaments she'd placed upon the main character turned out to be streams of consciousness with only a little planning behind it. Her biggest enemy, she found, reflected the entirety of her own self: risk.

Tristan had been kind enough to act as a beta reader, and he pointed out exactly that. The format and syntax were much to his liking, yet he didn't feel obligated to finish and see where the main character ended up.

"Predictable, really?" Zafiro craned his neck.

Fallon gave him a pointed look.

"Sorry, your shielding isn't... never mind."