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“Do you think I’ll be able to try it one day?”
“Try what?”
Daira looked out towards the entrance of Tri-Stone.
Her eyes, a pair of muddied emeralds, trailed along the dense greenery within its stone crevasses and watched as it spiraled and pooled to the other side. Never in her twenty-four years of life has Daira seen green so green before. The flowers that bloomed between the rock, the thick leaves of curling vines that stuck out like pretty fingers, and even the weeds that littered between them, all held a vicious sense of life and vigor the young human never thought they’d lay witness to.
Death narrowed his golden gaze and let out a tired breath. She was spacing out again, Death noted.
“Daira.” The Pale Rider’s voice rose, the gruffness pulling Daira from her momentary trance.
She blinked.
“Oh. Sorry.”
She smiled.
Death groaned, shifting his gaze away from Daira.
It’ll be the death of her, Death realized, all this staring and the spacing out. It was a dangerous habit, one that the rider knew would sooner kill her in a daze of delirium rather than an actual fight. She wouldn’t even see it coming, the blade or the claw. It’ll be like blowing out a candleㅡa small, stumpy candle whose wick was years past use.
Why had he even brought her? Why deal with the baggage of another person, let alone a human, Death often wondered. Had he truly grown old? Had the years finally begun to chip away at his brain? A human riding alongside Death itself was something drunken bards with gnarled voices would sing in the dark. It was a joke, a form of ridicule, and a spit in the face of history so soaked in blood, it’d make even demons weep.
And yet, Death kept the company.
“I wanna try heels.”
Death blinked.
“Heels?”
“Yeah! Like point shoes? The ones thatㅡ.”
“I know what heels are, child.”
Daira hummed.
“Well, I want to try them. Just once. Then I’ll go back to these.” The short blonde wiggled her dangling legs, bringing to attention the worn-out pair of boots clinging to her feet. Metal plates, each more discolored and mishappened than the last, had been fastened to the front and sides with small runic markings lining the corners, “Maybe. I bet they’d look cool though, huh?”
“They’re impractical.”
“So’s having no shirt.”
Death gave the human a sharp glare yet, as she began to chuckle at her own joke, the horseman couldn’t help the smile desperately trying to appear on his face. He could feel the muscles in his face and neck contort and tense, fighting against the emotions bubbling inside his heart and stomach in order to save his corpse-like facade.
She’s going to die soon, Death reminded himself as he watched Daira laugh, and she’ll never see it coming. It’ll be quick. Painless. Forgetful, like killing a fly.
“You should try one when I try my heels. That way we can both check something off our bucket lists.”
“I’ve done more things than a mere bucket can hold, Daira. You forget. Constantly.”
Daira snickered. Her lips stretched, pulling themselves back to release the ugliest, most nerve-splitting laugh in the realms. It rang through Death’s ears like a gunshot, the bullet bouncing back and forth between his skull and brain until burrowing itself deep into his throat.
“Can’t you just play along? For me?”
Forgetful. Her death would a breeze. An eventual exhale.
“No.” Death pushed himself off his spot on the wall. He looked to the horizon, watching as the sun began to sink, “tomorrow we set out for Baneswood. You need all the rest you can get.”
“Come on, Death. You’re my best friend.”
Forgotten. Her grave would be marked by a simple flower. And when that flower died, it’ll be as though nothing was there.
No screaming or rushed questions. No laughing or smiling. No dull promises or crudely kept secrets. Daira would be but a whisper on the windㅡa faint tinge in the chest, but nothing more.
Nothing, Death thought. She was nothing.
She was…nothing.
Death couldn’t hold back the chuckle festering in his throat.
“Never.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”