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The bloody meat squelched in an all too familiar way as it droped from the packet into the metal bowl. He moved rapidly around the foreign kitchen, placing the bowl on the mat where he'd first found it once he arrived in this damn place and turned his head to the large beast watching him from the livingroom.
"Come." He demanded with an aimed glare. The dog, defiantly, did not walk over but instead stayed where it was, tilting its head in contemplation of the request. Blade, however, did not have the kind of patience and mellow tone the creature was expecting and so he repeated, sharp as his sword. "Come here." The dog did not move, and so Blade decided not to bother anymore. He scoffed, heading out to the small garden. Let the dog starve itself then. Blade did what was required of him. He was not about to force it to eat, not when it clearly didn't trust him — it isn't as if he even had the right to demand much of it in the first place. He was just glad he didn't have to kill the dog in self defence upon their first meeting, despite the mutual mistrust and tension simmering between them.
He sat in the closest of the five chairs at the table and sighed heavily, consiously unclenching his jaw and shutting his eyes. He could almost hear Kafka's languid voice speaking in his mind, accompagning the breeze rustling his hair.
Bladie, she'd say. She was always careful not to use her spirit whisper more than necessary around any of them, and around him especially. The stroke of mara and the subsequent fall out for the Stellaron Hunters as a team it would cause, having his autonomy ripped away unnecesarily and forced into vulnerability once more, made her careful with her words.
Bladie, I won't be nearby every time the mara strikes, she'd said many years ago, not too long after he'd joined (as much as it can be called a joining and not something more akin to adopting a reluctant, agressive animal off the street considering their first meeting) on a day similar to this one. You must learn discipline over it. Not just in a fight, but in the quiet moments as well. To hold it off until I come find you. He'd frowned at her idea then. At the time, he rightfully believed that there was no truly successful means of holding off the mara without Kafka, and in that way he'd been right: despite years of attempts he'd never been able to hold the mara off on his own, merely slow it down. But even that was enough progress for them to consider continuing their little sessions. They'd practised many techniques over many days, trying to find something that would stick, and once they did he only became better and better as the routine built. He'd always been a quick study. And even though he wasn't fighting the mara at this very moment (and, curiously so, hadn't had to since he arrived) , he found it helped to just ground himself at times.
He breathed slowly, feeling the chair beneath him, the sun on his skin and how his shoudlers loosened from their ridgit state. He stayed still, listening. In the wind were the lowest notes of Kafka's violin. In the bells of the windchimes was Firefly's laughter. In the chirping of the birds were Silverwolf's game controls. He stayed like this for a while, his trance only broken by the faint sound of steps in the kitchen, and the slight movement of the bowl. Seems the dog had decided to eat after all.
With a heavy sigh, he thought back to the day he'd been given Elio's final script for him. He'd been called into Elio's office by himself — already a peculiar request. They'd get the scripts together, even if only one of them was featured. At the very least, they were encouraged to share what was dictated in them. Something about "team bonding", "looking out for eachother" and "working in synchronisity" as Kafka and Elio would always repeat. He'd sat in his usual armchair, the cat on its desk (why the cat had a whole desk Blade never asked) and broke the news to him: the funeral he wants will not, as he had believed, take place during the final showdown with the Aeons.
"Instead, you will go to a place yet untouched by anyone in this universe, and find your death waiting there." Elio foretold, solemn as ever when delivering such grim scripts, though to Blade it was anything but grim. Death. The word itself almost sparked new life to a barely burning hope in his chest. Elio had never used that word before; it was always "funeral", or "destiny" or some other euphemism and so hearing it now, so final and simple…
He nodded, the words spinning in his mind. "Is this why you are telling me this privately, rather than with the rest?" he questioned, and Elio's tail swished. "Partly, yes. I wanted to tell you by yourself at first as this is my promise to you, and it is only just that you know. But also," he shifted on his paws "I wanted you to come to terms with the…unknowns of this script." Blade furrowed his eyebrows. Elio not knowing something was rare, rare enough to threaten his growing anticipation. "And what are those?"
"To being with, the rest of the core Stellaron Hunters and I will not be there." Elio said bluntly though not without a touch of kindness. "We will be separated by the fabric of space and the arrangement of Destiny, and so these last few months are the last ones we have left together with you."
Blade stiffened minutely in his chair, a cold and dreadfull feeling rising within him, dampening the fire of his hope. To be separated. It's one thing to die, and another completely to be torn away from them first. To leave the people he'd unwillingly come to see as constants day in and day out, who he'd come to rely on and (dare he say) enjoy spending time with…it seems that was just his lot in life. He nodded again, and ground out a gruff "Fine. Will you be telling them?"
"Yes," Elio went on softer now. He out of all of them understood the cruelty of Fate. "Soon. I just thought it's something you should know first."
"And what of these other unknowns?" Blade questioned.
"I'm afraid to say that the majority is unknown to me." Elio confessed, ear flicking in frustration at his own uncharacteristic helplessness. "I only know that you will find your death awaiting in a different place not found in this universe. The rest I cannot pass on."
"Will I have to wait long?", he couldn't help but growl out.
"I don't know."
"If I did, what then about the mara? How will I supress it without Kafka?"
"Blade, I don't know."
"And what of Imbibitor Lunae—"
"Blade." Elio interrupted sharply. "I don't know. That's all the information I have. I'm sorry."
And as always, Elio's script was never wrong. Having said his final goodbyes to the Stellaron Hunters, he'd gone to his spot on the stage and begun his final performance. It was a vicious affair, his final duel with Imbibitor Lunae. Every strike, every step, every throw, every parry, they were all drowned in their history. Memories of wine, of laughter, of whispers, of stolen looks at full tables and blazing kisses in the quietest of hours bloomed before his eyes with every flash of their weapons, as did recollections of pain, grief, cold and then 1,000 deaths for his sins. He could tell from the looks that Imbibitor Lunae — Dan Heng — was throwing his way that he too was remembering everything. Good. It was only making the duel that much more difficult, his death that much more satisfying.
There, lying in the wet earth of the place of his first death, after everything had ended, Dan Heng cradled his face softly, long hair curtaining them and trapping them in a world of their own. There, Dan Heng had pressed his forehead to Blade's muttering apologies and promises for if Fate is kind enough to grant them a gentle curtain call as his hand worked at grasping the dragon heart between Blade's ribs, laying there right next to his own for so long they'd melded into one. Blade hated himself for thinking Dan Heng had never been as beautiful as he was in that moment.
He grew cold, feeling drops of rain or perhaps something else on his cheek before he slipped away into nothingness.
Only to then open his eyes, and breathe his first in the new world of Elio's prophesy.