Work Text:
Manami crosses her arms above her head as Astra’s sword comes lunging towards her. Her heart pounds in her chest as she waits for the pain, hears Zayne and Xavier call out for her to move! but Astra is faster. Astra is a god and Manami’s a mere mortal, failing to protect her loved ones again and again.
She hears a grunt, eyes opening when the light dims just slightly as a shadow covers her. Her heart stops beating as she watches blood bloom through a white shirt, reminiscent of those flame lilies that he loves so much.
Rafayel turns to smile at her, blood spilling out the corner of his lips as Astra pulls their sword from the God of the Sea’s body.
“Foolish,” Astra yells with a laugh as Rafayel drops backward into Manami’s arms. They raise their sword once more only to come down against Xavier’s own light sword.
Manami isn’t paying attention anymore though, tears running down her face as she presses her hands into Rafayel’s wound, trying to stop the bleeding. She feels numb despite it, can’t process the fact that Rafayel is dying in her arms. Again.
“Rafayel,” she shouts, her heart breaking into millions and millions of pieces. “Why did you do that? How could you do that?”
Rafayel just laughs, fingers coming up to cup her cheek gently. His hand is still warm, brushing away the tears that slip down her cheeks.
“How could I not? I couldn’t live in a world where I watched you die,” he breathes out.
She can feel his heartbeat fading beneath her finger tips, his blood spilling warm into the cracks of her hands.
“And I can’t live in a world with you,” she gasps, pressing her cheek into his hand, desperate to keep him here with her. To keep him alive. She glances around, looking for Zayne. Maybe he can do something, anything, but he’s too busy assisting Xavier, fighting the God that continues to torture them all.
“Zayne,” she cries out. Just one second. She needs him for just one second but Zayne can only glance at her, an apology in his eyes that he still can’t do anything for her.
“Don’t call for another man when I’m in your arms,” Rafayel jokes, thumb slowly stroking her cheek. She glances back down at him, angry that he has the audacity to feign jealousy right now, angry that he’s put his life on the line for her.
“Is this the time to joke,” she begs and Rafayel laughs again, wincing as the pain in his chest begs him to do something. Blood spills past his lips as he chokes, body keeling forward and Manami holds him tighter, presses her forehead against his as he’s done to her so many times before.
“Rafayel please,” she whispers, but his body is going colder in her grasp. His life force is disappearing and she can’t even do anything about it.
“I love you,” Rafayel whispers through a mouth full of blood. He has to let her know, to say it again so she hears, so that she remembers. He loves her. He would never stop loving her.
“I love you too,” she tells him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. She feels his hand drop then, a chill running down her spine before she sets him gently down, fingers brushing his eyes closed.
When Manami stands up Astra turns to her, giving Xavier and Zayne just a moment to rest, a moment to breathe. Something Astra hadn’t allowed for Rafayel. She stretches out a hand and her wand appears in her hand out of thin air.
“Did I kill that God of the Sea,” Astra asks with a soft laugh. “I’ll have to apologize. My original target was you.”
Manami closes her eyes, steadying her breath for just a moment and when she opens them once more, her gaze is clear, devoid of emotion.
“Don’t worry,” she says softly. “I’ll send you his way so you can apologize in person.”
-
Astra’s body disperses into thin air the same way wanderers do. A blue light shines in the middle of Astra’s body and then, like a firework, it explodes, throwing all three of them back before the sparks fade into nothing.
Manami’s eyes turn to look towards where she’d last left Rafayel. She doesn’t need to look for Xavier and Zayne. They’re fine. She’d seen it for herself when they’d managed to steady themselves against Astra’s death.
When she looks though, his body is fading and she feels her throat closing up as she begins to choke on sobs. They’d won. She’d killed Astra but the gods still refused to reward her, could not even leave her lover’s body as she watched it also fade into sparkling blue flakes and return to the sea.
“Please,” she cries, crawling towards Rafayel’s body as it disappears. “Let me keep him. Let me have this much.”
An arm wraps around her waist from behind stopping her from moving forward and she struggles as Zayne holds onto her.
“Manami,” he whispers, voice pained. “He’ll return to the sea for the reincarnation cycle to start again.”
Manami shakes her head, trying to push herself out of his grasp. “No, no, no! Screw the reincarnation cycle! It’ll take forever! I need him here now!”
She watches with tears in her eyes as Rafayel fades but before he can fade completely Xavier covers her eyes, pressing his chin to the top of her head.
“Don’t watch,” he says softly. “He wouldn’t want you to remember him like that.”
Manami breaks down like that, in the arms of her two dearest friends, without her lover at her side.
-