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It felt fitting for him: that the time of his departure would be during a full moon.
Its cold glow bathed the sea in that specific silver colour that seemed to prove the existence of magic. The higher the moon wandered, the more intense it got. Soon it would begin its descent again.
Cassaras felt the ticking of every second deep in his bones.
The rock he sat on was all sharp edges, digging into his flesh. But he didn't shift, appreciating how grounded the pain made him feel. Sometimes he needed the reminder of reality.
With a slight smile he looked down on the knife he’d been passing from one hand to the other for the last hour or so.
The metal blade was sparkling menacingly in the light of the moon. Maybe he’d use it. Maybe he’d just pack it away carefully as he’d always done previously. But for now he stared at it. The memories it carried hit him sharper than the blade itself ever could.
It’d been Hero’s once, a long time ago. When Cassaras had still been younger, a different person altogether. Now, per definition it was his, had been for ages. But in his mind it would never truly belong to him. It would always be Hero’s.
A sharp, sudden pain in his chest made him curl up even more. He imagined spikes sticking out of his back, making him as sharp and awful as the rock beneath him.
Everything about Hero was so… so distant.
Not separated by space but by time. And time was much better at separating than space since it could never be conquered. Never reversed. Never defeated.
Time was eternal. Like even love could never be.
He didn't think of Hero often anymore. (He tried not to feel guilty about that fact. Often he failed.) When he did though, it hit him deep. There was no denying it; Hero had been the love of his life - the one you only find once in a lifetime.
How could you ever get over someone like that?
Cassaras closed his hand around the blade and felt it drawing blood. The blood looked black in the night, as if to reveal his true nature. He wasn’t a human and would never be a nixie. He was a halfling. An abomination. A cruel joke by the universe. The blackness was only fitting.
Drop by drop his blood landed on the rock, becoming one with its sharpness. The steady sound, almost drowned out by the crashing of the waves, marked the passage of time like a clock.
Oh, how he hated time.
He hated time almost as much as he loved Hero. Still, after all these years, that love was what was keeping him alive.
In darker times though, in the silent moments that came with his isolation, he wondered, if maybe there actually was a way to conquer time.
There was something more powerful, more definitive, more divine than even time, after all.
If Cassaras had learned one thing from growing up around nixies, it was that death was nothing to be afraid of. It was something to be worshipped.
He opened his hand again and focussed his gaze on the blade.
Death would stop his time. What came after the stopping of time no one knew. Maybe he could be with Hero again - beyond space and time.
The sane part of his brain yelled at him to not even consider that possibility. The aching part of his heart though… it whispered sweet promises that became increasingly harder to ignore.
It wouldn't even be hard, it whispered. It could be so easy.
Cassaras closed his eyes as his knuckles went white around the handle of the knife. It would be so easy, he thought again. Maybe it wouldn't even hurt.
He opened his eyes again and stared into the night sky, desperately hoping for some kind of message. But the stars just kept on sparkling and the moon just kept on glowing.
And Cassaras resigned.
A sharp motion.
Then the clattering of metal against rock.
Heavy breathing.
The steady crashing of waves.
And time went on.