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Sacrifice

By Kimra

He’s up there. Hiding in his loneliness, we all stopped looking for him when he stopped appearing. No body ever sought him out. Nobody needed to.

But today I needed him. Needed what he has.

My feet took me up the spiralling staircase, soft clouds of dust rising with each foot fall. It was said he no longer ate, that he had twisted himself after the accident so that even food was not required. It was said he had done it to be alone and the dust spoke testament to his solitude.

I gripped higher railing as I went, hoisting myself and propelling my body with greater momentum. Heart pumping deep within my chest, warning of danger.

He had never left the tower, because it was their tower and no one had thought to remove him. No one had thought they could.

Chest rising and falling I pushed myself faster, the sounds of battle echoing after me a strangled cry somewhere in the midst of the noise. My eyes fastened closed for the briefest of selfish moments, aware of my loss. The pounding of feet ascending steps after me and I pushed on. No fear for myself, fear had stopped when the wall had fallen.

And he waited, living out the life he had been punished too, waiting for something no one understood.

A door arose before me, my feet jumping the final steps, and fiercely I pounded on the thick wood.

Waiting for her.

An eerie creak of forgotten hinges as the door was open, only darkness visible on the other side. My choices where simple: onwards to the unknown, or backwards to death. It was no choice, since the death would not only be my own.

He had been forgotten by everyone as he had forgotten everyone.

I crossed the threshold, the darkness crawling around me and blocking my exit, my heart still pounding deep within my chest.

They had said he was crazy, but they could do nothing.

“She was beautiful you know.” A slick voice broke through the room.

I jumped, automatically turning to a door that wasn’t there. I was shocked and turned back but with covered windows and without a door I could do little but sense his presence. I took a deep breath, trying to still those shaking nerves and calm my heart. If there was no entrance then I was safe.

“Eyes as blue as the sky on a perfect day, her skin that light brown of perfection flecks of green visible only in the twilight. She had a smile that would light the room, dazzle any man who saw her.”

“Master Jaiyaku we need your help.”

“She had this half smile. She would only get it when she spoke with her horse, and sometimes with me. And she had another smile, a smile no one else ever saw.”

“Please, we’re under attack.”

“That smile she had after we made love. And I was her first, I was her only, no one else got to see that smile.” He groaned in the darkness. “God’s I miss her. She was so… soft. Like cherry blossoms, but rarer.”

“We’re losing.” I begged him.

“And she would always wear that oversized shirt and pants, as if we couldn’t see she was a beauty inside and out.”

“The wall’s have fallen, the villages are fighting with shovels and hoes and horse whips.”

“I can taste her too. Sometimes when I concentrate hard enough she is there.”

“Please.”

I felt the hand brushing the side of my throat, intimate and oppressive. My body stilled, only my renegade heart thumping with emotion. With fear.

“What do you taste like?”

The fingers slid into my hair, hot breaths against my clammy skin. My eyes closed against my selfishness willing submission upon myself.

“Gentle spices and wine, flowers and hay. She had a thousand different tastes.”

His presence pushed against me, close and demanding. I felt the hot brush of his lips against my lower jaw, the coarse flesh of his tongue slide across my check to my ear.

“God’s I miss you.” His rasping voice echoed close to my ear.

“We’re going to die.” I chocked back on the sobs that threatened. I was strong, I would not crumble when I was needed.

“Are you afraid of death?”

“Not my own.”

“Is that why you’ve come back to me?” He paused his breath’s ragged against my ear, harsh and heavy, pained. “Because you need me?” He groaned, his body pushing in hard against mine, I felt the wall behind me rough and unyielding. “Because I need you.”

His mouth closed over mine, fierce, hard, and determined. I opened mine, trying to respond to the emptiness with forced emotion. He drew back from me, only a little, his body pulsing firm again me.

“The wall has fallen.”

A sigh came from him wafting across my face like a cares of it’s own.

“Duty.” His voice was harsh. “She always put everything aside for duty.”

The grip in my hair tightened, stinging pain jumping through my nerves and I involuntarily cried out.

“Even her life.” His deep voice resonated into my bones hurting me with it’s animosity. “You wont die on me again Setzeria?”

My eyes opened to the darkness once more. Brief shapes visible, in the tower, light barely existent. I knew what had to be said, but my tongue felt heavy, like lead. My selfish mind turned, to my love, dead at the tower stairs, to my family, already gone in the initial onslaught, my hopes to join the palace guard, to my name a gift at my birth mine alone, and it was not Setzeria. Then I thought of what had lead me here, what my love had agreed to although sadness had been in his eyes. My eyes closed again against the selfishness holding it at bay.

“No Master Jaiyaku.”

Another sigh from him, as if he thought I would disagree and was relieved I hadn’t. The grip in my hair released, the fingers trailing around the side of my neck.

“You will be here when I return, my love?”

“Always Master Jaiyaku.”

“Then we shall become reacquainted.”

I felt his presence draw back from me and vanish from the room. My eyes opened. Small flames blooming around the room at the tips of candle wicks. No door, and just enough light to find the large wooden bed. I sat on it, my eyes closing against the painful light, I did not want to see anymore.

I could hear screaming rising from the castle below.

My fingers curled into the blankets, my body wanting to respond with it’s fear my sense of duty forbidding it.

A wave pushed through the room, through the castle, carrying power as none had felt for many years. And the screaming stopped, the clang of weapons ceased, the echoing sense of impending destruction lifted. Then the cry’s began, joy.

I could hear it so clear as I sat, like it played for my soul and I trapped the sound within myself. Flaunting it at my selfishness, clinging to it like hope, then prepared it to fight my sorrow with.

Then I waited for his return, ready to be Setzeria for as long as it took, forever.