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Skye had been laughing just moments before, that light feeling still sat in the back of her mind as she moved to follow Sawyer. Stifling her grin she took a few steps forward, continuing to follow her soulmate as they surveyed the landscape for allies and enemies alike.
Despite the constant tension that had been thrumming through her nerves since day break the atmosphere felt light. Until the sound of thunder pierced the air. Skye's head shot up, a gasp catching in her throat, her feet tripped amidst the grass as she looked for the flash of lightning in a clear sky, though it remained empty, unchanged, the kill wasn't nearby.
Relief lasted for barely a second, to be exact, it lasted up until the very moment Skye processed the names listed in the corner of her vision, the unlucky pair of soulmates who'd met their fate somewhere beyond her field of vision.
Endrvii is a Failure
H010gr4m is a Failure
From beside her Skye heard her soulmate curse,
"Oh shit"
A sentiment she softly repeated, voice small, they had been allied, the 4 of them together.
And right now they couldn't afford to be losing their allies, it felt like everyone was out to get them, Skye had been surveying every hilltop as if someone was lying in wait for her to walk too close.
And now they had just lost the only 2 other people who they had even remotely trusted in this messed up world.
Something within Skye twisted as she reread Endr's name on the screen hovering above her wrist, gaze falling upon the ruined tower they had been scouting around, a place that would now be left desolate without those who built it.
Gently walking closer to the scorch-marked tower Skye began shuffling through her things, checking what materials she had with her. Checking to see if she had what was needed to make a proper grave.
Sawyer was saying something, muttering about the other players left scattered about the map, Skye only really started listening as he spoke the name of her beloved.
"Endrvii… Ol' Betsy, Shoot a Crossbow, went off with a bang…"
Skye sucked in a sharp breath as she stopped rummaging around her items.
Endr was gone… by their own hands, immediately Skye's mind began to wander, visions of her love, shaking hands trying to pull back the crossbow as a battle drew nearer, a misfire, a split second of a blinding explosion and then…
Endrvii went off with a bang
Placing down a crafting table Skye's own trembling hands began to create the items needed for a decent grave, something that befitted the person it was made for, something made with the love that could no longer be expressed directly.
"Next time we see Justice we kill him."
"Okay" Skye agreed absentmindedly as she finished turning the spruce wood in her bag into a sign, since she likely wouldn't have enough time to etch into the stone itself.
"We have to" Sawyer spoke again, seemingly unsure if she had truly heard him the first time.
"Alright…"
It wasn't until her soulmate began to walk off that Skye tore herself from the crafting table, grabbing onto the back of his suit jacket.
"Wait!" She said, voice tight as she clutched the sign to her chest, the cobblestone in her messenger bag feeling like obsidian "I want to make a grave."
It felt like a foolish thing to say, at the beginning, when the first red names fell it seemed obvious that a grave would be made for them, but as more and more of them had died, claiming their soulmate's lives along with them, graves had become a rarer thing.
There was no time to mourn the dead when you could join them at a moments notice.
Rather than pointing that out though, rather than stating that they had to keep moving, that it was dangerous to stay in one place too long, especially at the home of their now lost allies as others would surely come to try and loot it in their absence.
Rather than any of that Sawyer replied evenly,
"Oh yeah, that's fair"
For a moment Skye wondered if he would also make a grave, for the other soul lost, for the last member of their group, but as Sawyer just wandered around the base of the tower aimlessly, gaze far off in the distance, it seemed that Kyler's death would not be marked.
Skye wondered if she should make a grave for him alongside Endr's but compared to the grief that she carried along the sign that would be placed upon her beloved's grave, she just felt it didn't feel as genuine coming from her.
If someone was out there who's heart sank as hers did for Endr, who was busy constructing their own headstone, with their own poorly rushed sign carved with anguish and love, then that was their grief to bear.
As Skye finished carving a small heart into the wood next to a name she wished she didn't have to write she stood from her place beside the crafting table, wishing that she hadn't thrown out any flowers that she'd put inside her bag before.
But there was no time for flowers and she only had so much space within the messenger bag at her side despite that it held more than it appeared, however this meant Skye had nothing to place upon Endr's grave, and likely she would die before she found a flower befitting of one who'd made her feel a type of love she'd never felt before.
With a weight in her stomach Skye circled the crumbled tower, while there would be no body to bury it only felt right that the grave stone be placed with care, somewhere open where any who lived beyond Skye could see and remember someone who'd fallen before them.
Finding a relatively flat space Skye began to place the blocks of cobblestone, but as she stepped back, ready to place the sign upon the headstone it just didn't feel right, too cramped, haphazard.
With a whispered apology to the departed Skye collected back the stone, wandering a little further, not wanting to stray too far from the tower to find the right place.
Maybe it was the sorrow in their mind, or the sign still held in her hand, but she didn't notice the movement further down the hill until she heard her soulmate shouting from behind her,
"Skye! Skye!!"
Looking up from the crudely carved letters she saw 2 figures approaching, Justice and his soulmate, Ash.
For a moment Skye tried to shout, to call out, to demand a ceasefire until she could finish the grave she had prepared for her lover.
But as a flaming arrow was loosed from Justice's bow, she knew there would be no delaying this fight, she would just have to survive, to ensure that her beloved would have a resting place, along the hill beside the tower she had called home.
The arrow soared through the air, Sawyer ran in front of the shot, shielding Skye, an ultimately fruitless gesture, the pain radiating through the both of them through their bond.
As Sawyer rushed at Justice, diamond sword glinting in the sunlight, Skye fell back, they had gone over the plan, she was meant to fire arrows from behind and keep them healed.
Except when they'd made the plan she hadn't expected to have to fight in the middle of building a grave, she had expected to have her materials at the ready and as she reached for her pouch of food within her satchel she realized she'd misplaced it, instead holding the sign she'd made.
As more pain flooded her senses Skye rifled through her things, too many items clogging her overstuffed bag, she finally grabbed onto the salmon she'd cooked that morning, kept wrapped in sea-grass to help keep while in her inventory, but by the time she'd started to take a bite she knew it was too late.
Falling to her knees she caught barely a glimpse of the battle going on beyond her, Justice charging, sword aimed at Sawyer's chest as she tried desperately to heal him before the strike hit.
But she was too late, she hadn't eaten in too long, focused only on mourning the fallen to realize that her hunger had fallen too far, even if she managed to finish the salmon in her hand it wouldn't have been enough.
16goatss was slain by JusticeSwordz
Skye_Foxxe couldn't live without 16goatss
Endr's grave was left unfinished.
The first thing Skye noticed was the constant noise invading her senses, there were voices all around her, speaking all at once over each other.
Compared to the emptiness of death it wasn't at all what she had been expecting.
Opening her eyes Skye saw the same single frame of reality she'd seen before she had died, the tower to her left, a trampled wheat farm around her.
The difference was the ghosts, there were so many of them, crowded around as Justice, still alive, began talking with his soulmate.
Skye didn't catch the words over all the sounds of the ghosts talking amongst each other, it all blended together into a cacophony of voices, along with the stress of the battle she'd just died in it all felt too overwhelming.
Until one voice managed to break through the fuzzy blur of voices,
"Skye noo!" She heard Endr's voice, head turning to see a wispy ghost of her lover "I wanted you guys to win!"
Win? Oh… right, that was what she had been trying to do, that was the whole point, trying to win.
So why was it that looking upon the empty ground where she was going to make a grave made her feel sadder than the fact that she had lost.
For so long all Skye had cared about was winning, was to survive to make her soulmate proud, to prove herself as a threat, as competition, for the longest time she had just wanted to win.
And then Endr came by that one day, and those moments sat fishing, chatting to each other and Skye felt like there might be something more in this world than winning.
A bond somehow stronger than the soulmates dictated by Mitsune themself, something more.
As Skye felt a soft hand lay where her shoulder would be is she was more than mist right now.
"I… I didn't get to make you a-…" Skye's voice caught on the words, the whirlwind emotions from losing Endr, to trying to build them a grave, to dying herself, it was all choking her.
Endr didn't hesitate to pull her into a hug, both of their ghostly forms finding some tangibility as they held each other tightly, reunited in death.
"I didn't get to make you a grave" Skye whispered into Endr's shoulder, pinprick tears gathering in her eyes.
As her gaze shifted onto the landscape around them she felt tear tracks carve their way down her face, she had everything she had needed, she was headed towards the perfect place to build it, looking upon the ground it felt barren without the marker she was going to place upon it, a monument to love and loss.
Now it would forever just be an empty field with blood soaked soil, beneath a ruined tower.
Skye had missed her last chance to create something for her dear Endr.
The first few tears that gathered in her eyes Skye was able to wipe away before her love noticed, but as she continued staring out upon the empty hillside she couldn't keep them from falling onto Endr's sweater.
"Oh.. no, Skye, it's okay" Endr whispered, pulling back a little to guide Skye's vision away from the tower and towards them, a careful hand coming to caress her cheek as more tears began to fall "I'm still here, we're together again. You're gonna be okay."
They spoke softly and just the sound of their voice gave Skye comfort, and she so desperately wished that she could feel more than the barest wisps of sensation, wished that their last interaction hadn't been on opposite ends of a battlefield, distrust sown between both of their soulmates.
She wished she could remember what Endr's hugs really felt like, wished they had just had some more time together.
Wished they existed somewhere that wasn't destined for a bitter end, where one of them wouldn't have to carry a sign for a headstone with their lover's name on it, where friends didn't have to glance at each other over their shoulders to see if the other was preparing to stab them in the back.
Skye could still feel the weight of the sign in their bag despite the fact that it shouldn't have weighed anything at all, silently they tuck it away in the furthest depths of their inventory, it didn't matter now.
Losing didn't matter now, Dying didn't matter now.
All that mattered was Endr's wispy hands tucking a strand of hair behind Skye's ear, their eyes meeting once more, Endr's eyes back to their original hue rather than the unnatural red brought on by the blood lust of this world.
"Is it stupid that I missed you so much even if you were only gone for a minute?" Skye says with a strained laugh, a smile in her words as tears still gathered at the corners of her eyes.
"Not at all, I missed you while I was standing right next to you."
"Oh God, did you see me take down the first grave I built cause I thought it looked bad" Skye grimaced, remembering the half-hearted apology she thought she gave to thin air.
Endr's stifled laugh was the only answer Skye needed in order to bury her face back into her lover's sweater out of shame.
"Don't worry, I thought it was sweet!" Endr said, her hands finding a bit of tangibility as she rubbed Skye's back comfortingly.
"I thought it was in a bad spot! I wanted to put it somewhere better!" Skye tried to defend despite the fact that her beloved didn't seem to find any fault with it, she ran her hands across the grass but they just phased though, no sensation passing across her fingers.
As she took a second to take in things outside of Endr's ghostly form pressed against her Skye noticed that everything had gone silent around them at some point.
In the middle of the sea of emotions Skye had been feeling she hadn't noticed that all the voices had quieted, looking up she noticed that there were no more ethereal figures floating over the hillside.
"Where'd everyone go?" Skye asked quietly, almost afraid to break the peaceful silence of the empty battleground even though she knew her voice would not carry into it, forever bound to a world parallel.
"Off to go watch someone else get killed probably" Endr muttered, having been trying to keep the group in order but their chaos was hard to contain, especially with the lasting effects from dying as a red name.
Skye just hummed in response, unwilling to leave just yet, wanting to spend just a little longer in her beloved's arms, their ghostly forms twisted together in a way that was strangely beautiful, closer to each other than they could get whilst mortal.
As the silence continued between them Skye wished she could think of something to say, she almost wanted to apologize once more for not finishing the grave but she knew Endr wasn't upset at her for it in the slightest.
They stayed there even as more deaths began to announce themselves through sharp cracks of thunder, it would probably be all over soon, as soon as the strong hunted down those left hiding everything here would be left behind.
The sun slowly set, Skye and Endr only shifting slightly in order to watch it together, still unable to pull themselves away from the other's embrace.
"I love you so much you know" Endr spoke into the quiet as her hands found Skye's, filling the space between them with the only words that mattered now "I really hoped one of us would win but… I like having you with me here right now."
Skye could feel warmth in her cold wispy cheeks as a faint blush brought colour to her translucent skin, the solid point of contact between their hands keeping her grounded.
"I love you too Endr, in life and death."