Love Defies the Wonderings

This story contains mentions or themes of: Necromancy, blood, the killing of small animals, the killing of people, and an amphibian woman.

Four hours after I died, I woke feeling particularly rested.

I sat up, swallowing the taste of morning which shouldn’t have fit into the warm afternoon. Someone was crying. Fima. Was he hurt? I looked to my left, pushing against the stone floor to stand, then stopped. Fima knelt beside me, tears streaming down his face, hands stained in blood, and smiling. 

He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, leaving a smudge of crimson. “Fancy seeing you here.”

His words came broken between sobs, but he seemed to be calming down. 

“A pleasure all the same,” I responded.

Where was here? I looked past Fima, to where the sun shone through the stone. The skylight. I remembered now. I was in the ruins of an origin room, where nature had come to reclaim its stone. Vines climbed the walls and weeds grew in the cracks between the bricks. The floor beside me was stained red. My shirt was stained red. This confused me. 

Then, I remembered the newt woman. Warm blood. Cold fingers.

“She killed me,” I said.

Fima didn’t correct me. There wasn’t anything to correct. I knew I had died. I had felt myself slip. I had felt myself let go. I hadn’t wanted to, but I hadn’t regretted it either. Because as death had overtaken me, so too had rest. And I hadn’t been afraid. 

“Did she hurt you?” I asked him.

He shook his head, and an emotion flickered on his face, though I couldn’t decipher it, “She just wanted to ask me a question.”

 The newt woman had shot me. No, not her. Her companion. The fireborn. 

“A question? All of this for a question?”

I looked for the arrow, and found it broken on the ground near Fima’s knee.

“I would guess so.”

“Why did they kill me, just to bring me back?” I wondered aloud.

Fima grabbed my hand, “They didn’t bring you back. I did.”

“That’s…no.”

It was wrong. I didn’t know why. It just was.

“Waen?”

The answer began to coalesce in the front of my mind, “This goes against nature.”

I pulled my hand away from him. “It is against the Wonderings.”

He let go, “It is? Why?”

I searched my mind for the words, and found them easily, “Old life yields to new death. Old death yields to new life,” I looked down at the bloodstained floor, “New death should never yield to old life.”

Fima said nothing. 

“What did it cost?” I asked him.

“Nothing.”

I shook my head, “Something is lost, and something is gained. Always. What did you trade for me?”

“Nothing in the moment.”

“Did you kill the newt woman? Or the fireborn man?”

That might have been forgivable. At least they were murderers.

He shook his head, “I don’t know how I would have.”

“Then, what?”

He said nothing. 

I grabbed his arm, “Tell me.”

“Birds.”

“Birds?”

“And mice. Spiders. A cat.”

I shoved away from him, standing, “You killed birds?”

He nodded.

I nearly vomited. 

He stood, face twisting into something I knew as concern, “Waen?”

“How did you even find a cat out here?”

We were so far removed from even the closest town. 

Fima grimaced, “I didn’t.”

“Then how?”

“I collect life. I’ve done this before. Never with a person, but–”

“No.”

The word was something between a breath and a whisper, but he heard it. 

“Waen, it’s alright.”

“How dare you? How dare you say that this is alright?”

He reached for my hand. I pulled away.

“I thought you’d be happy. You’re alive.”

“I shouldn’t be.”

“Don’t say that,” his face twisted tighter into his concern. 

Fima reached for my hand again, tentatively, and I pulled away, nearly stumbling over a rock. It had probably been part of the roof. Perhaps it was even the skylight’s predecessor. 

I steadied myself, “Don’t touch me. You may very well be a demon.”

“I’m not a demon. I am just a person.”

“Normal people don’t play with death. Normal people do not kill animals when it is unnecessary. Normal people–”

“I never claimed to be normal. Besides, you said that you liked my differences.”

“Because I thought you were a beautiful abnormality, not an abomination.”

“I’m not,” he started, then paused, “Do you really think that I’m an abomination?”

This time, I went silent. I wasn’t sure what to think. 

“I’m not a different person than I’ve been this whole time.”

“Then I guess I never knew you.”

“Is it so wrong to care? Was I just supposed to walk away and forget you?”

I shook my head, “You were supposed to mourn me. Remember me, but move forward. You weren’t supposed to drag me back.”

“But–”

“You went against the Wonderings.”

“I don’t care.”

“Why not?” I snapped.

“Because I love you, Waen. Because you’re the only person who cared about me enough to come help me. The only person. I love you. And I don’t care if I break the rules of nature or the gods or whatever your Wonderings are, if it means that I don’t lose you.”

He was crying again. With a start, I realized that I was too. 

“I wish you weren’t right,” I whispered. 

It would have been easier to be mad at him if I hadn’t known his family. If I hadn’t begged anyone who would listen to help me save him. If Kaid hadn’t moved to the coast.

I swallowed, “I loved you, too.”

Fima nodded, “I know.”

“I was willing to die for you.”

A breath. Something like silence.

“I thought you were wonderful,” I told him.

“You did?”

“I should have known better.”

I looked away. I would not let myself see how those words hurt him. I would only hear it in the way his breath hitched, then almost steadied. I walked past him, making for the doorway. Could I have left through the skylight? Perhaps. But it would not have felt right to become a swallow when birds had been killed to give me life.

I paused, “The woman, what did she ask you?”

“Bryn–the amphibian looking woman–asked how to bring a friend back from the dead.”

Horror crawled from my stomach up to my throat, coming to a halt somewhere between my eyes and my nose, “What did you tell her?”

“I told her that she needs to harvest a life. Multiple lives. More than she’d think she needs. And then burn them,” he paused, “I’m really not sure if it will work for her.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not from here.”

“I don’t think the nature of life and death is a regional thing.”

He shook his head, “That’s not what I mean. When I asked about her amphibianness, Bryn said that she’s from far away. Past the stars or something like that. She also said that her world had ended, and that she had already died once. But her friend had died twice,” Fima paused, “Or maybe once but she’d ended up in a different continuing?”

“What is a continuing?”

“I don’t really know, but Bryn said they were like sieves.”

I sighed, “I will speak to the circles about this.”

“So, this is goodbye?”

“Forever, maybe,” I paused again, swallowing, “I don’t know how the circles will react to my situation. I might die. And they might send someone for you.”

“Oh.”

“Promise me that you will never raise someone from death again.”

Fima hesitated, “I promise.”

I didn’t know how true the promise was, but it might have been enough to protect him. If my word still counted for anything. 

I left, then. I left wishing that there was a pain in my steps. A weariness in my bones. Some divine punishment for the abomination of my continued existence. I left wishing for another reason not to turn back and forgive Fima. Something beyond my will. Something more physical than my identity. Something more personal than the Wonderings of nature.

But not every wish is granted.