Work Text:
Death is not beautiful.
Death is the desperation clawing at the heart to live, death is fear, death is filled with crying and snot and tears and pain when the life starts to fade from you, death is when you spend your last moments thinking about what you could have done to prevent this, death is thinking what your friends will say when they can’t find you again, death is when your companions will never know what happened to you, death is when you die alone in agony without anyone by your side and someone you thought was dear to you betraying you.
It was for Laelia at least.
Her hands clawed at her throat and chest in a struggle to breathe, blood underneath her fingernails and staining in between her teeth as the person she once trusted drove the knife into her time after time again. Her blood seeped into the snow as the heavy storm fell upon them, snowflakes melting onto her face and joining the sweat and tears as she struggled to make a sound, anything, just ANYTHING that would alert the others. But Kahan, Nannel, and Dazarine… They were all back in Aurithia, and the only person here was… that person who she had once considered her friend.
As black spots dotted her vision, she thought of what Nannel would do when she found out she was missing. Go searching for her? Fall into despair? Maybe even kill herself out of desperation and misery.
No, she shouldn’t be thinking about that now. A tiny squeak came from her vocal chords as she tried and tried again and failed and failed and failed all over again. One hand planted on the ground, and her shoulder would be stabbed and white-hot pain flaring through her body. A pathetic kick and her ankle would be stomped on.
And as the stabs slowly stopped, she thought of how hard she had tried to hold onto her thinning thread of life and her labored breaths as a distant voice spoke.
“Nannel won’t find you, ever. And I’ll make sure of that.”
She barely made out the words as snow fell on her, red spreading and spreading as she took one last final breath.
And so she thought of Nannel, and their first meeting, and how things could have been.