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A shrill cry pierced the silence of the woods. It broke a silence of truest form, suffocating and explosive, where nothing could be heard, not breaths of adventures, nor the buzz of bugs, nor the rustle of leaves. Nothing, just a haunting abrupt stillness, which was shattered into a million tiny pieces.
Agony was all that could be heard for miles, the desperate pleas and healing spells were uttered with an anxious urgence, one after another, the words blurring together like a rushing tidal wave or a waterfall. Magic surged around them, pure concentrated arcana, enveloping them like a blanket, although the spells themselves did little to save the fallen fighter. After all, no healing spell, regardless of its potency and strength, had the power to save one who had already perished.
And yet, he didn’t stop, not when his breath would catch in his throat, no matter how many sobs passed through him, leaving trails of salt and desperation behind upon his face, he kept going, he couldn’t stop, not until all the magic that was within him was gone, depleted, leaving him feeling like he was dying.
But he wasn’t, no, it was the man lying beneath him, the one who he cradled in his arms and the one who was bleeding out on the forest ground.
He could almost hear him; “Nagito, it’s okay. I love you. Have hope, just you always told me, my dear,” but it wasn’t okay. How could he have hope in a moment like this? He was never the one in which lied strength, that was his husband, the brave fighter who despite being but a mere human with no remarkable qualities at first glance became the famed hero of the land, one of whom legends would be told in the years to come.
He was magnificent, unlike him, some useless cleric, who couldn’t even save his husband.
He didn’t deserve this, to die from something so minor, a simple expedition gone wrong, suffering a fatal wound from some creature far out of its territory — he wasn’t sure what it was, he finished it off from fear and rage on sight when he arrived — too late to save his husband. He didn’t deserve to simply die alone in the woods with his blood pooling around him to an unknown forest vermin. He deserved a long life, blessed with health and joy, his death to be either a heroic deed or passing in his sleep when his time would naturally come.
Incantations for healing spells kept flowing from his mouth, but they were weaker now, his spell ingredients running low, and his body too tired for anything but the simplest of magic. Perhaps he was stubborn to fault in this instance, but he cared not about that. As long as he had any magic within his grasp, he would cast it. And so, he uttered them, spell after spell after spell, his mind lost in the abyss, forsaken for the pursuit of salvaging his husband’s life, for he would follow him to the ends of the world and beyond if he had to.
For without him, he was nothing.
The warmth slowly seeped out of the body, serving nothing but another reminder that his lover was gone, taken from this plane, to never return, despite his best efforts. He would never see him again, never hear the sound of his voice, gruff and yet soft, warm and comforting. Never again would he sleep by his side and awaken there too, nor read him tales and legends he would hear from the bards.
He would fade from memory, like candles blown out by the wind, until his name would no longer mean anything or be cemented in history. He had done all he could. Now only time could tell what will come next.
There was nothing more he could do. He was empty, drained of both magic and hope. With a final kiss to the forehead of his husband’s corpse, trying to ignore how the skin felt cold and foreign against his lips, he made his way out of the woods in silence, the world in stillness, as if mourning with him.
There was a legend in the woods, of a corpse that refused to rot, no matter how many years would pass. They say that their love was so great, that it transcended life and death, preserving the body in an eternal sleep, surrounded by blood red roses and thorny vines, protecting him from all of those who seek to trespass upon his grave.
They say that sometimes, in the dead of the night, a lone figure would appear, pale as the moon that lit up his form. That the verdure would part for him, and him alone, granting him passage to his lover who had been stolen from him much too soon, mourning him in the dead of the night, with requiems of tears and tenderness, the only noise within the stillness. That the earth would silence for him, the birds refusing to sing, the bugs not buzzing, the trees would sway not for the very land would still, as if mourning alongside the one who had been left behind.
They say that the figure would remain there for hours, telling tales to his lost lover as he once did in life, be they mundane or marvelous. That he would spend time with him as if he were still among the land of the living, any task that he could do by his lover’s side he would.
He wrote poems, sonnets to the man departed, immersed in prayer, for he had nothing now if not faith, mended his clothes and tools the way his husband once taught him, the memory alive no matter how many years would pass.
Some didn’t believe the tale, calling the living lover a folly, unable to let go, or mad and insane, and yet such was the nature of the curse of love and loneliness.
Truly, that is the greatest curse, the pain of living without the one who is half of your soul.