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“I do not ask for much,” It says.
But what is ‘much’ to someone who can never see the end? What does that word that sums up a quantifiable amount of something into a single syllable mean to someone who’s still walking in a tunnel with no light at the end?
There is someone up in the sky that does not harbour a face or a name, called to only by those that call for something else. A darkness never meant to be. A promise. Its name is god. He is a cannibal.
She offers up something, already resigned to it. As long as she can have him, still with her, she’s willing to restart. God asks for something else instead, something more. At the cost of this, there wouldn’t be any more struggle. No more looking at the sky, wishing for a different outcome. Wishing you were looking at a deferment moon. Emma doesn’t have it in her to say no–to refuse.
His eyes are green. The color of a forest right before it is set on fire. The tiredness behind them are a testament of his years, a formative youth spent fighting war. Intrepid, faceless, horrific war.
War maims, takes what the children are giving, leaving nothing behind–not even the bones. When you rally up your kids, shout at them and boast propaganda and morale, they go into a battle unprepared, willing to fight, ready to die without knowing it.
You watch as violence slips into the cracks of your life like water threatening to break a river dam. You cry for your girls who loaded the ammunition and organized each weapon by handgun or long gun. You cry for your boys who buttoned down their army coats and wore bullet-proof vests. You mourn because you will never get to see the people they could have grown into. You grieve for their future selves, hold a piece of them to your chest; tears bunching up at your waterline at the landscape before you. They will never get to see beyond this. They went to see what the end of war was like, yet still remembered to give you a kiss on the cheek first. They found the end of it; discovered that war only ends for the dead.
Emma almost grieved him. This time around, Ray will grieve for her. He knows this very well, but won’t let go. He does not have to kneel or beg to know, he just does.
Everything, everything, everything, is alive. Freedom finally has a chance to bloom, humanity has been met with more humanity, and there is nothing else that can stop them. The wreck that Cuvultitidia was cannot follow up with what happened at the imperials, nor can it explain how Ray’s mother is suddenly alive and well.
Suddenly, life seems to actually be something he can reach for, not something out of bounds–kept on a shelf too high for him to reach. It seems as if it had fallen to the ground, shattering like a jar. Gracefield is the headquarters of the human world–their transport. They can stay here for as long as they want, because there is nothing and no one that will close that gate. If only for a day, he stands in the field of his childhood for much longer.
He’s out, looking in the branches for a memory, just on the edge of that free, open space. Emma comes up to him, walks slowly, heavy with feeling. Her curls shine a brilliant orange from the sun’s light, a warm embrace in the late spring.
“I need to talk to you.” He nods, but she doesn’t say anything. No one says anything for a while. She just holds him, blouse ruffling against his turtleneck. Thin white against black. Funny, how these things go. Where, he firmly believes that she is the good of him. The only good thing about him. There is nothing that can tear him away from her.
Held in each other’s arms, Emma presses so hard and tight that it’s like she’s saying goodbye. Her touch is a language Ray has come to understand over the years, one that he will not deny, one that he wants to continue to grow fluent in.
She’s murmuring against the softness of him, all warmth, all heartbreak. She cradles him in her hands, or rather, what’s left of her. His face is smooth, save for the scar he got from an arrowhead all those years ago–it nicked his jaw. Bangs in the way, eyes closed, his lips are barely there against hers, holding in breath. Because, maybe, if he doesn’t breathe, then neither does the moment. The both of them can be still, encapsulated by time. Emma says something against his mouth, Ray echos it back to her. Bury. There is a sense of loss that follows. Why, why, why?
“Bury me here.” She repeats the full sentence, pushing back just enough that their eyes can meet. Misunderstanding colors him, like the wind has whispered something to him and he doesn’t have the strength to listen–he has no strength in him to listen any more. Why, why, why?
She goes back to kissing him, a slack-jawed, confused lover of a boy. “Bury me in that house,” each word buried between kisses, “in Neverland.” Like a confirmation. No–a confession. Of guilt.
There, in the open field, she is confessing the worst sin he has ever known. He has had blood on his hands but nothing can amount to this. “What?” He asks, lost, voice hoarse. She looks at him, then presses one last meaningful kiss to his mouth.
(He didn’t know it would be his last.)
Ray sits on the pristine white couch in Mike fucking Ratri’s living room with hands on his knees, shaking. How can he say that he knows where she is, when she is no longer to be found? How much more can this heart take, already a mess from the battlefield? She’s gone. Emma is gone and she is never coming back. How can she fucking do that? Is the voice in his head, a barrage of both frustration and sorrow pounding on his chest. It's a selfish thought: How could she leave me too?
He shed his armour (a bullet proof vest), does he have to shed tears too?
The wind took her. Took her and ran away, the air decided to no longer foster her breath, instead, took it out of her completely. She was so, so cold–her hands touching his. Like she was dead.
Ray has her necklace in his hands, amulet in the palm. Another thing to be haunted by.
Bury me at the house in Neverland / leave me here / because I will become dead / I will no longer grow / I will be a locket in your heart / a memory you cannot rid. Leave me here / if you don’t / you never will.