A Love Story

My life is bound to yours forever, my love.  Mine to yours, and yours to mine.

She smiled as she remembered the moment he had said those words as she stood with him at the very railing she sat on now, looking over this very river so many years ago.  Back then, there were far fewer padlocks attached to the railing that separated her from the flowing water so far below her.  This bridge had been here for many years, and over time, the number of locks had grown so much that the entire bridge, from one end to the other, was almost covered with locks.

Still, it had only taken her a few moments to find the old lock from years ago hanging near the top, exactly where her hand and his had clasped over it, snapping it shut forever on the iron link of the railing.  She gazed at it now, the inscription still as clear now as it had been then, both their names scraped youthfully into the metal.  The key to the lock lay somewhere at the bottom of the river below her.  That was the tradition, after all.

She looked up from the lock, and looked out over the river, feeling the warm breeze on her face, her thoughts very far away, sifting through and reliving all the memories she had shared with him.  Their time together had been a whirlwind of adventure.

She smiled as she remembered the first night they had made love.  It had been passionate, out in the open, under a moonless night, with the entire sky filled with stars and galaxies that seemed to fix all their attention on the two of them together, showering them with untold joy.  She had been his first, and he hers.

Mine to yours, and yours to mine.

She laughed to herself as she recalled their child, born to them at the most inconvenient time.  He had just lost his job, and her pregnancy had come to the point of hospitalization at the end.  They had never been so scared in their lives, but, of course, everything had worked out, and all the worry had been a waste of energy.  It was so easy to think back and believe that now.

Her thoughts turned to sadder times, but even then, she wistfully recalled his arms holding her close as she cried when that same child was lowered into the grave – taken from her by an infection that couldn't be stopped.  It had been so sudden, and she had been given no time to prepare, but as she collapsed, his strong arms had held her, and the two of them had wept together.

My life is bound to yours forever, my love.

Ups, downs, moments, memories, years and years, the two had always been together ever since that day on this very bridge.  Until now, neither of them had returned, since the covenant they had made that day had never left their hearts.

She looked down at the lock again, her eyes misting with tears that were somehow both very happy and content, while also sad and mournful.  Of course, she knew it would all end.  That was the way of things.  She had wished for more time, but death waited for no one.

She cast her gaze over the rest of the locks on the bridge.  So many commitments.  So many promises.  So many lives that were joined together.  So many covenants.  Would they all be honored?  Would they all have the same joyful, painful memories of love that were hers?  She wished it to be so, for their sakes.

Mine to yours, and yours to mine.

As the sun descended over the river, casting the flowing water below into a brilliant orange light, she pulled her ring out of her pocket.  The gold band shimmered in the fleeting light of day, and the diamond encrusted upon it reflected all the happiness and resigned sense of loss of her soul.  With a final kiss, she tenderly dropped it from the bridge and watched it fall to the water below.  After another moment's reflection, she retrieved his ring as well, again admired the golden band, and again, with a kiss, sent it turning over and over all the way down to the water below.

My love.

His voice seemed to call to her on the breeze, caressing her face as a final farewell, and she was sure she saw his smile in the setting sun.  She smiled back, her heart fluttering in his memory.

She remembered again the promises they had made to each other and the covenant they had sealed with this lock.  They would be together forever.  The key waited for her at the bottom of this river, and when one of them went, the other would follow.

Mine to yours, and yours to mine.

She smiled warmly, fully embracing the love they had shared, and with a final glance to the lock before she spread her arms forward, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to fall into what would become his embrace forever.

A Short Love Poem

Warm and dry, and snuggled in, I feel your warm embrace.

Lying here, entwined in love, my lips caress your face.

Normally you'll find me in a melancholic haze,

But demons hush, defeated by your warm and loving gaze.

Dimming lights and gentle jazz surround us, bring us closer.

When she strokes my face, my trembling body surely shows her

That in this soft and dark abode I feel no trace of fear,

For you, my darling, sing a song that only I can hear.

Maybe Chapter 2 - We'll See

"Who are you?" she repeated, unsatisfied with the cryptic answer.

"The Jetzyah are being rounded up, either by an individual or an organization," the skull-faced man spoke dryly, completely ignoring her question, "and that places you in grave danger."

She glared suspiciously at his almost absurd costume, "And how can I trust a man who covers his living face with another man's dead one?"

In response, he raised his hands and opened his cloak, and this time, she did scream, reflexively jumping back.  His mask was no mask at all.  His face was actually skeletal, as were his arms, his hands, and she could also see his rib cage through the torn shreds of the tunic he wore below his cloak.  The only part of him that still had flesh was a pair of eyes, looking out of place, perfectly preserved within the eye sockets.

"It is rare, my dear, that I wear another man's dead face, but I assure you that when I do, his death was far more recent than mine."

"But the liches were all destroyed in the last war!" she protested.

"Liches don't have eyes, Jetzyah," he fixed his piercing gaze on her with his profanely black, but very incorrupt eyes.

In horror, she found herself unable to look away from his face.  After a few moments of a silent stare, the truth – the horrible truth – began to dawn on her.

"A necromancer?" her fear betrayed her voice and the question trembled out as little more than a terrified whisper.

"The Jetzyah are being rounded up, either by an individual or an organization," the creature repeated, again ignoring the question, "and that places you in grave danger."

This time, she had no response that was fitting, so she cast her eyes to the floor and remained silent, humbled by the chilling presence before her.

"You are the only Jetzyah that I have thus far discovered who is still alive as far as I know.  That either makes you more willing to be found, or less skilled at concealing yourself.  I suspect the former, since no Jetzyah would be stupid enough to publish her address so that human admirers can send her gold.  Then again, if you are more willing to be found, especially by the fools who sent you their meager treasures, then your idiocy is already well established."

The insult aroused anger within her, which suppressed the fear she was crippled with, and she looked up at the skeletal face, again with steel in her eyes.

"Good," he hissed, "fear is useless.  Anger is something I can work with.  I'm glad you can respond the way I expect to my words."

Realizing she had been played, she became angrier.

"Well what do you want with me?" she demanded.

"You will remain here, in safety, while I seek out others and investigate what movement is behind this sudden aggression against the Jetzyah."

"You're imprisoning me here?"

"You were frightened by the lifeless night's sky outside this grave, Jetzyah.  Do you really think you can stand against whatever very conscious depravity seeks your life?"

"I wasn't afraid!"

In response, the necromancer waved his arm, and the lights all blinked out, swallowing the entire catacomb in complete blackness.

Her breathing immediately went fast and shallow, and she found herself stepping backward, trying not to succumb to terror.  She froze entirely, mouth open in a silent scream, when her back-peddling ran into something that was definitely not the wall behind her.

"Stay," the voice whispered directly into her ear close enough that his wintry breath seared across her neck, leaving an ice cold shiver all the way down her spine.

She crumpled to the floor and the lights blinked back, illuminating the room as before.  She raised her head to look around her, breathing heavily.  The entire hall was empty.  After one quiet whimper, the trauma proved too much for her.  She skittered as fast as she could to the wall, clung to it with her slender arms, leaned her head against it, and erupted into anguished sobs.

***

Back on the surface, the necromancer walked calmly out of the graveyard.  He feared no uproar from the humans walking along the streets.  As humans, they could not see him while they were still alive.  The conversation with the Jetzyah had, as expected, yielded no useful information about the whereabouts of her people.  The primary goal was to keep her out of the way of whatever was trying to take the Jetzyah out of his care.

That could not happen, no matter the cost.  He had saved the Jetzyah once before and it had cost him every single one of his liches, as well as the one sacrifice he never thought he'd have to make.  Such was the cost of power; in its most primal form, one could only possess it by giving up the ability to enjoy it.

But he'd be damned (literally) if he let all his work over the last three thousand years be undone by someone who seemed intent on supplanting his position.  Whatever intention may be behind such an ambition, the seeker of it was most certainly the world's greatest fool.

As he had been so long ago.

Another Short Story - Possibly Chapter 1

It was so smooth that the brush seemed to flow like water through her silky hair, the shining locks seeming to respond more to her will than to the brush in her hand.  Dark brown, but still shining in the dim light of her bedroom, it flowed seductively around her bare shoulders, dropping far enough down her back to cover her shoulder blades.

The lighting was favorable, and the open window provided a gentle and warm summer breeze across her skin, which was playfully tousling her hair so that it moved rhythmically, twirling around her fingers as she gazed absent-mindedly into the mirror.

Absent-minded, but far from thoughtless, her eyes looked plaintively over her thin body in the mirror.  It had been so long since she had dared open herself up to another person, but the slowly encroaching loneliness was beginning to wear her down.

She accepted her solitude by choice.  After all, she was a Jetzyah maiden.  Her race had been known for millennia as the fairest and most beautiful that had ever walked the material plane.  She could, without any effort, attract anyone, male or female, to provide loving companionship, as long as she was pleased to have that companionship extend beyond the platonic.

She was Jetzyah.  Jetzyah had no platonic relationships.  That was their curse.  Many envied their many lovers, but few even realized that lovers and friends were not necessarily the same thing.

So she stood.  She brushed her hair.  She gazed into her mirror. In her dimly lit bedroom.

Alone.

A knock at the door interrupted her self-doubt.  As she turned, she gently laid the brush on the armoire and turned toward the bed.  Her hands closed around her silk robe, and she wrapped it around her bare skin, and padded to the door.  She already knew who was there, and knew why he knocked.  With a sigh, she opened the door.

"As usual, these won't fit through your slot, ma'am."

"It's fine.  I'll take them," she responded, trying not to notice his eyes involuntarily roaming over her body.

He handed her the enormous package of letters, and stood there, his professional demeanor quickly giving way to a warm grin.  She smiled politely, and closed the door.  He'd be fine.  The magical effect of her race would wear off over the next few minutes, and he'd remember that he had a wife.  She had noticed the ring.

She casually dropped the letters on the kitchen counter, and returned to the bedroom, allowing the silk robe to slide off and lie in the doorway.  She picked up the brush again and started to finish her hair, but her eyes kept wandering to the stack of letters through the doorway.  She quickly finished with her hair, and pulled some warm pajamas on.  Tip-toeing back to the kitchen, she set the kettle on the stove to boil, and dropped some dried chamomile leaves into a mug.

When the tea was ready, she snuggled under a blanket and began to read the letters that arrived.  She knew the drill.  They arrived every day, in three basic categories: outpourings of love with commitments to live and die for her if only she would accept their hearts, desperate cries of lonely people who believe they will die if she doesn't love them, and the usual outpouring of hatred and anger of people who believe they were scorned by her silence.  Many of them also included trinkets, mostly "keys to my heart", but there was also the usual selection of jewels, golden rings, actual cash, and a diamond or two from the more affluent admirers who provided her income.

She scanned quickly through them, receiving neither flattery from the poetry and doting, nor offense at the bitterness and anger from those who finally realized she would not return their letters.  She separated the useless trinkets from the items with actual value, and shredded the letters as she read them.

Near the bottom of the pile, she noted one unusually thick envelope that had no return address.  Was someone sending her something without actually hoping she would send something back?

She opened the letter, expecting it to be one of a thousand hate notes giving up on her.  The letter was hand-written, but the handwriting changed several times throughout, as if it was written by several different people, but the message flowed naturally:

            Jetzyah:

Yes, I know what you are.  I won't address you by your fake human name, and if this all goes according to plan, you'll never find out who I am either.  For now, just know that I'm somewhere between your guardian angel and your worst nightmare.

Pay attention: the Jetzyah are disappearing, and they're disappearing fast.  I've included a list of newspaper clippings and police reports about missing persons.  Of course, they don't know that they are Jetzyah, but as soon as you see the pictures, you will recognize them for what they are.

Time doesn't permit me to explain here what is happening, but it's bigger than both you and I, and it's moving swiftly across the globe.  They know your fake names, your locations, and they know what you are.

Meet me under Proctor's Pillar.  Come alone.

She read the letter over a few times, growing more alarmed each time.  The newspaper clippings in the envelope fell onto the floor.  When she saw the pictures, both her hearts began beating very fast in her chest.  There were at least two dozen photos.  As the letter promised, they were all Jetzyah.  She tore the rest of the envelope open to get at the police reports and found pages of reports, complete with the fake human names they had taken.

She struggled to slow her breathing down.  Should she run?  Who were the authors of this letter?  Could she trust them?  For all she knew, they were the ones kidnapping – and perhaps murdering – the Jetzyah.

But at the same time, she couldn't turn anywhere else.  She was scared, and knew basically nothing about what was going on.  If the Jetzyah were in trouble, then these were the only ones who could explain what was going on.  Whether she liked it or not, she had to cooperate with them.

She was terrified, but she changed her pajamas into a black head-to-toe outfit and full-circle cloak to conceal her alluring shape and headed out.  The one thing she did know – and the thought didn't make her feel any better – was where Proctor's Pillar of the Craft was.

***

The streetlights seemed far more ominous than normal as she walked from her apartment down the city street.  In many ways, the city was the same one she had always known.  But tonight, every car held a potential kidnapper; every shadow seemed to house an insidious evil.

The lights were spaced farther apart the closer she got to the cemetery.  The glow of the city faded, giving way to the darkness between the headstones, broken up only by small, blue lights that were expending whatever meager energy that had gleaned from the sunshine that day to illuminate a name here and there among the graves.

In the farthest corner, beyond even the fading blue lights, the trees grew taller, casting dark shadows almost to the point of blindness, but she pressed forward, through the last dozen stones until she reached the obelisk gravestone at the far corner.

The stone stood a full seven feet tall, cold and imposing against the night.  Round the middle, in bold capital letters, the name "PROCTOR" was carved in.  Above and below the name was an ancient rune that identified the stone uniquely in the entire graveyard.  The Jetzyah had used this place before.  But she had no key.  She would have to wait for whoever would come.

Holding her cloak around her, ready to run at the first sign of trouble, she approached the obelisk.  She turned around and around, peering into the darkness, waiting for whatever or whoever it was that would approach.

Several minutes passed, with only the sound of the whispering wind swirling around the grass, lifting and dropping her cloak, almost as if there were some sinister voice within it demanding the reason for her presence in this meadow of the dead.

Silently, she stood there, trying to see some sign of movement toward her, some sign that her presence here was known.  She had assumed that they would know when she arrived, since they had not provided a time to arrive.  Why weren't they waiting for her?

The moments passed, and she became more nervous with each breath.  The temperature became cooler, and she shivered.

After an hour of standing alone in the dark, she was about to give up.  She took a few steps back toward the light, but as she did so, she heard a sharp crack behind her, and she turned to find the obelisk cracked open, and with a scraping sound, it continued to move apart.  The earth beside it suddenly dropped down and out of sight to make way for the moving stones, and revealing four stone steps that led down into the grave.  When she looked down into the hole, she saw the stone vault holding the casket of Benjamin Proctor split lengthwise down the middle and move away, revealing the polished mahogany wood and golden handles that had carried his remains to this place.

She stepped down into the grave and tugged on the lid.  It opened, and she looked for the first time in years on the face of the man whose resting place the Jetzyah had disturbed for no reason other than the fact that his grave was easily identifiable due to his affiliation with the secret order the rune represented, and was conveniently located away from prying eyes.

His body had continued a slow decomposition, greatly delayed by the embalming process.  His skin was tight against his skull, and all his limbs had gone skeletal-thin as the tissue beneath them had disintegrated, but the features were still somewhat recognizable, and a small amount of hair remained, brittle and white, from his head.

Unfazed by the gruesome sight, she took his corpse by the hand and moved his arm away from his still intact suit jacket.  She reached into his jacket, into the pocket that would have been above his heart.  She found the switch there, and pushed it.  The bottom of the casket began to move downward, and she stood, straddling the corpse as she descended a full fifteen feet below the first six of the grave itself, into a tunnel that ran to the west, dimly lit with electric lanterns mounted on the wall.

She stepped off the corpse, and flipped the switch on the floor beside it.  The body was carried slowly back up, and sealed back into its coffin.  She could hear the now distant scraping sound of the entire grave reassembling itself to look exactly as it had when Proctor's family had first laid him there.

Then she turned west and began to walk down the tunnel.

"The main hall won't be necessary," came a raspy voice behind her, making her jump, "as we can exchange information here."

As she turned to face the foreboding messenger, she tried to steady her breathing.  She reminded herself that she needed the information that these people had.  All the same, when she saw the messenger, she almost screamed.

He was wearing a black robe, like she was, but his face was covered by a human skull he wore as a mask.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"Your guardian angel," he responded, "and your worst nightmare."

A Short Story

Fog always has a great deal of figurative power, the older thought, gazing across the meadow that would soon be his home. The future is always shrouded in mystery, even now.  What will all this look like by this time tomorrow?  Next year?  Next millennia?  Will anyone care?

A wry smile came to the edge of his mouth, and a cool breeze slid through the tent and caressed his face, pressing his sleeves closer around his arms.  It was warm and gentle, like a summer breeze in the early morning should be.

"Morning," came the always jovial voice of his younger brother from the next tent over.

"I'm sure it was," the older muttered under his breath.  He had heard the sounds coming from his brother's tent the previous night, and had seen the silhouette of the woman leaving a mere two hours ago.  He really ought to scold him for what he was doing with last night.  But then, ultimately, if it made him (and her!) happy, then was it really his place?

Also: the scolding never amounted to any change in the reckless young man anyway.

"You look way too sober, as usual, my brother."

"I'm stoic."

"Sullen."

"Stoic."

"Miserable," the younger smirked, knowing this argument from the thousands of times he had won it before.

The older let out an exasperated sigh, and reached over to grasp his brother's arm.

"Listen.  I know you seem to get so much more cheap joy out of life than I do, and normally, I'd say it's a character flaw, but given our current circumstance I'm willing to let you have this one."

The younger's eyes turned a rare shade of serious, and the older's arm fell to his side.

"I thought we were pretending it wasn't happening until it did," he protested, "We agreed on that, brother."

"My apologies.  You seem so much more able to forget than I."

The conversation petered out into silence, and the two brothers turned to face the slowly brightening glow that was shining through the fog, creating an almost fuzzy effect over the meadow.  Everything about it was exactly as they remembered from when they were children, with the one notable exception of the single stone that was just becoming visible in the center of their vision.

"There it is," The older brother motioned with his hand.

"You know, I think it looks better every day." The younger commented.

The older looked at the younger incredulously, "It's Dad's grave," he remarked, "when did those start looking good?"

The younger shrugged, "Fine.  It looks awful."

"Not what I meant."

"Depressing!  Horrifying!  A despairing and constant reminder that we are but mortal men, doomed to die, never to be seen again, and with all we knew-"

"Aw, shut up."  But they were both laughing now.  It was good to share this moment with each other, and to be able to laugh about it.  The rest of the day would be significantly more trying.

As the laughter faded into yet another long silence gazing over the meadow, the fog began to quickly fade, and a brilliant sunrise made the entire meadow almost shine with radiance.

"Beautiful," the younger whispered.  No matter how many times they saw the sight, it always gave them the same tranquility.

"It's never looked so majestic," the older agreed.

They stood shoulder to shoulder and watched in silence as the sun rose over the meadow, and the glow slowly shifted to what appeared to be another normal day.

"So what should we do with the day?" the younger broke the silence nonchalantly.  The older raised an eyebrow.  What indeed?

"Well, we have no way to know for sure when we're due, so why don't we just act as if we have all day?" the older suggested.

At first, the younger seemed to not like the idea, but eventually, his face softened as if to recognize worry for the waste of energy and time that it was.  He smiled, nodded, and the two of them walked into the meadow down to the headstone.

The older's eyes began to mist over as they approached.  It had been so long since his father had died to save them, but the wound was still so very real.  The familiar lump rose in his throat, but he forced his feet to keep walking.

The older knelt down and brushed the dust away.  It had been too long since they had been, but life, of course, had kept the living away from the dead.

And every second of it all was completely pointless, the older thought to himself as he knelt there staring at the inscription.

"Dad," he started, "today's the day.  We're leaving very soon, and we won't ever come back.  I know we promised we'd stay forever, but we can't keep that promise.  We weren't strong enough.  We – we failed you," his voice caught in his throat, and his vision blurred through the tears.

"He can't hear you, brother," the younger's voice was softer than it had ever sounded before, but that only served to fuel the older's emotional tailspin.  As he descended into sobs, the younger knelt beside him and wrapped his arm around his shoulders, holding him up so he didn't fall completely prostrate.

For a few moments, the only sound between the sobs wracking the older was the wind bustling around.  The flowers swayed and bowed in the wind, seeming to mirror the older's prone position, as if in that moment, the entire world was kneeling somberly for the lost father.

Steadying himself, the older rose to his feet, and stared wordlessly down at the grave.  The younger came near and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Not your fault, you know.  You did all you could.  We both did.  It's just time, that's all."

"How do you so easily make peace with this?" the older demanded.

"I don't," the younger responded, "you think this is easy for me?  I may cope differently than you, and I may put this smile on and wave at all the horror as it flies at us, but that doesn't mean I'm not just as torn up about it as you."

The older continued to look down, but was listening very intently.

"I want nothing more than to wake up and see that this is all a nightmare," he continued, "but you and I both know that there's no undoing this.  God knows we've tried.  All we can do is heal as much as we can, and face this. Together."

Finally, the older looked up.  For the first time in a long time, there were tears also in the younger's eyes.   The sight was both unsettling, for the older was very unused to the picture, and also reassuring, for the gravity of the loss was obviously not lost on him.

The older extended his arm, and the younger took it.

"We're not going to treat this like any other day, are we?" the older asked with a smile.

The younger sniffed, smiled back, and said, "No, brother.  I don't think we can."

"So what do we do then?"

After a few seconds, the younger met his eyes again, "I don't know, brother."

Together, they turned back to the grave in silence.  The breeze picked up to a small wind, the whispering grass now rustling louder to herald a coming storm.

"Let's go get drunk," the younger suggested.  He knew that the older would never have agreed if this were any other day, his conservative approach to life being very much at odds with his more licentious tastes.

The older brother smiled at the deliberate ploy to get him to abandon his morals for the day.  For so long, he had fought with the younger on how to live life.  Now, in front of this grave, it all seemed so trivial.

"Let's go get drunk," he agreed uncharacteristically.

***

The sun had passed over their heads and approached the horizon by the time the older and the younger stumbled back out of their tents.  The two of them had spent several hours tasting the myriad different libations that the younger had accumulated through the years before collapsing into a drunken sleep, reawakening, and continuing the festivities.  They had spared no bottles at all, cracking open every single one.  The wind had begun to howl by then, but they were giddy, warmed by the alcohol swarming through their systems.

"That was fun!" the younger exclaimed.

The older grinned widely back at him, "You…scoundrel," he waggled his finger playfully in the younger's face, "that…that, sir, was not… was not…" he searched for the words but was trying not to giggle, "was not…fun."

"Hey, it was fun!" the younger laughed back, "I've never seen someone so quickly conquered by a bottle!"

"Hey, hey, hey, hey," the older countered slowly, "you… don't know!  You don't know!  Maybe…eh?  Maybe I'm not conquered at all!" he couldn't maintain his fake indignation, so he just grabbed the younger and collapsed onto the ground.  The younger, not exactly steady himself, came tumbling down with him, and the two of them lay together watching the world spin, laughing at the slightest provocation.

About twenty minutes later, as the alcohol worked its way through their systems, the giddiness gave way to a profound honesty.

"Brother, I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you with my choices," the younger leaned against the older and wrapped his arm around his neck.

"Your choices were always your own to make," the older responded, "and it was I who was the fool and let something so trivial come between us.  It was I who divided us for so many years, not you."

"I never stopped caring about you, brother.  I know I acted like I didn't care, but I always did."

"I know.  I always did as well.  That's why I was so angry for all those years.  I couldn't be angry without caring, could I?"

"Well… I love you, brother."

Before the older could respond, the howling wind suddenly died down, and a rumbling sound began softly growling in the distance.  It was like thunder, but the rolling sound came on, not as if it had started from a lightning blast, but as if it had started out of earshot and moved closer to them.  Unlike thunder, it didn't rumble back into silence, but continued rolling, a constant soft growl from the western sky.

The older sat up and stared, suddenly very sober.

"It's time."

The younger rose to his feet and held his hand out to the older.  He took it and the two of them stood together to face the western sky, the lowest point of the sun just touching the horizon.

"How long?" the younger inquired.

"A matter of minutes, brother.  Shall we make our last stand?"

"A hopeless cause?  I'm glad I'm drunk."

"If you want to just let it happen, I'll understand," the older offered.

"You wouldn't ever let it just happen, and after the day you've given me, there's no way I'm leaving your side."

"Then we'll stand together."

"As it should have been all along."

They looked at each other, and the younger's eyes had a powerful fire in them.  They nodded knowingly and moved into position.

The older reached in front of him, and a black line appeared in front of him and expanded into a hole in the air.  He reached inside and pulled out what looked like a smooth black stone.  The younger responded by doing the same, and they both held the Elder Stones out with both hands toward the sunset.

The rumbling was getting louder every second, and the sunset before them began to blur out, with the sky growing lighter at the edges instead of darker, as the fire spread through the sky.

Concentrating hard on the stones, the older and the younger merged their thoughts together.  Focusing on the energy that they were channeling through the Elder Stones, they willed themselves into the air, floating up about five hundred meters in seconds.  From there, they could see the desolation that was coming.

A massive column of blazing fire that seemed to be coming from heaven itself was descending on the ground and blasting along the ground.  Both the older and the younger knew that the demon within it would not stop till everything on their world was completely consumed.

Open the field, the older commanded with his thoughts.

The energy is dissipating as quickly as we build it, the younger responded.

We need to contain him as long as we can, the older knew it was hopeless, but he'd be damned if he didn't at least slow the demon down.

I'll go around the back to flank him!  If we hold the field from both sides, he'll have to divide his attention between us, with a blink, the younger vanished and reappeared several dozen kilometers away, on the other side of the demon, can you boost your field?

I'll do my best, the older responded.

The rumbling had grown to a roar at this point, and the fire had burned away all the grass and melted the headstone, and the mountains in the distance were beginning to melt down into a molten ocean.  A red glow was angrily rising from the very earth as the crust began to give way to the magma below it.

I'm holding him back over here, the younger shouted through the telepathic link.

What's the sequence? the older grasped onto the hope that maybe they could stop him.

A long string of thoughts came back to him in quick succession, and he quickly organized them and flung them with all his might into the field he was generating before him.  The column of fire swelled to the width of the mountain it was consuming, and the heat came rushing at the older.  He steeled himself fast, but he still felt the fire hit his field.  It pushed him back slightly, but he held fast, and with a mental grunt, flung it back.

It's working, he yelled to his brother.

Of course it's working, doofus!  It was my idea!

How are you sarcastic right now?!

In response, the older could hear his brother's maniacal laughter through the link.

He refocused his energy on the demon, determined to fling its version of hell right back on its face.  He moved forward, shielding more of the land he was putting behind him.

Can you get closer, he asked the younger, I want this damnable thing damned!

Last one to the center of the mountain is a rotten egg, the reply came.

The older laughed and with an angry growl he pushed forward, slowly forcing his way toward the column.  The fire angrily jettisoned flames in every direction, furiously trying to penetrate the two fields that were closing in on it.

The older found every centimeter was getting harder to cross, and soon found himself at a standstill, unable to charge any further forward no matter how hard he willed it.

I'm not getting anywhere over here, the younger's frustrated voice came through.

Me neither, the older responded, it's too strong.

We need Dad here, the younger complained

The older didn't respond.  He didn't have the heart to tell him.  Not even now.

I'm losing my field, the younger reported.

Back off, younger, the older commanded, we'll regroup and charge it together from a single angle.

I'm coming.

With another blink, the younger was back beside the older, his skin blackened, and his smile gone, the fire in his eyes replaced with a resigned knowledge that this was his last fight with this demon, and that they would lose.

I'm going in for a last ditch strike, the older grimly thought, you with me?

Let's end this, the younger responded.

Through the Elder Stones, the younger and the older together merged closer, their bodies converting to energy and merging into a single unified force of will.  Elongating their field into a long spike, the fire immediately swirled around the field as its edges compressed inward.  With the landscape completely stripped bare, and nothing left of the world they had spent thousands of years protecting, the two brothers fired themselves and their sharpened field directly toward the center of the column.

We're going to make it, the younger's mind shouted.

The older didn't respond, knowing what they would find if they ever reached the center of the column.  Instead, he just shouted back the closest thing he could imitate to a war cry.  The younger joined him and they flew faster than they'd ever flown before, both screaming in rage at the demon before them.  All sound was drowned out by the roar of the flames that began to lick hotly at their very souls, searing them both with pain.

The mental spear plunged into the center of the column and burst through the surface, exploding into the central area where the hottest plasma immediately began to undo the fabric of their souls.  The older knew they would only exist for a few short moments in here, but he intended to do as much damage as he could in those few minutes, preferably without the younger realizing what was happening.

Suddenly, in the swirl of plasma in front of them, a furious visage appeared, human, but with elongated teeth bared at them in rage.  The mouth opened, and a deafening, ghoulish eruption of all the rage and hatred of hell fell upon them.  As the older felt the last of his field drain away, he could only hope that his brother didn't see the face he just saw.

Despair crushed that hope when he heard the younger's last word before they both dissolved into nothingness:

Dad?

I'm a Train

"I think I can, I think I can," the little train cried out,

His engine running hotter while he strains against his doubt.

"I think I can, I think I can," the little train would shout.

But sockets slip and trains will trip with boilers burning out.

"I thought I could, I thought…," the wreckage crumpled to the bottom.

His parts now rusted, beaten, busted from that spring till autumn.

"I wish I could, I wish…" the broken spirit now despairing,

His face a rush of mud and slush, his fire beyond repairing.

"You know, this giant mess is all my fault," the train would say.

"Why try at all? I've not a chance to get there anyway.

It's better just to settle in the mud where no one sees me.

I'll stay, I'll cry, I'll live, I'll die, I'll rot here where it's easy."

Thus, with eyes now pale, the little train was rent asunder

Nevermore to shine with pride or gaze with eager wonder.

Till the end, the little train was far too cold to shiver,

He sat afraid, unsure he stayed, and broken by the river.

A Muse's Friendship

I have a muse.

Normally, when one talks about a muse, one pictures a creative, lively presence, usually in the form of a beautiful young woman, an angel, or a fairy. 

Mine is also a beautiful young woman, but there are no wings or halos as far as I know.

The interactions with her are profound and insightful, and the way we share our thoughts make me almost feel as though I speak with her lips instead of my own, despite her stubborn insistence that my creativity is a gift from within.

Today, I reflect on my friendship with her.

To me, friendship is best described as the ability to share.  But it's worth noting that, contrary to Hollywood's version of budding relationships, it won't happen in the midst of crisis.  You don't fall in love, platonic or otherwise, with anyone while you're both being shot at and things are exploding right next to you.

No, when two people have just met, the friendship begins over tiny slivers of insight into them, on their own, to be almost irrelevant to their character at large.  I'm not talking about faith, grief, reaction to crises, or profound joy.  I'm talking about finding out that they like the color black, have way more interest than I thought was possible in online make-up tutorials, or have a passionate phobia of germs that arises when someone else sips their coffee.

...for which I remain eternally penitent.

These little moments are what carry friendships through getting shot at or things exploding right next to you.  Love and friendship are carried through crises, not formed in them.

To put it more colorfully: fires may purify silver, but they don't create it.

I Feel Like Not Feeling

The thing about depression that is most crippling is its all-encompassing impression it gives me of myself.  It's likely not accurate, but in the world of mental illness, actual reality scarcely matters.  The impression's "reality" so easily trumps it.

There are countless people who, with the best of intentions, try to arm me with tools and resources to feel better, get better, be better.  Sometimes those tools are useful.  Often, they aren't.  Not because they don't work, but because I lack the strength to wield them.  That's "reality" number one.

What a curious paradox I am.  I am introverted as all hell, but the life of the party.  I'm a bubbly fountain of energy when I'm with my peers, but as soon as I close my door, I collapse into a quagmire of utterly hopeless despair.  I shower those around me with praise, but I can't silence the cold voice that howls judgment like a wintry blast through my soul day in and day out.  I act out love, friendship, joy, and excitement, but feel no warmth of any of it in the echo chamber of my heart. That's "reality" number two.

It's almost like I desperately seek the love and affirmation of others (that I cannot feel) because I am unable to create my own for myself (which is why I can't feel theirs when they give it).

These idiosyncrasies have made me an excellent student of human behaviour.  I am a person who has to act alive while feeling dead, and as such, the living people around me are my only reference point.  That's "reality" number three.

But how good an actor am I?

I think this is why there's a limit to how close people get to me.  I'm a mirage.  I look whole from a distance, but the closer you get, the more scars you see, and the more you understand that my "feelings" for you are imitated.

Not that I don't care at all.  My emotions are dead, but I can still acknowledge the familiarity of someone's presence in my life, and I can appreciate that familiarity, and understand that they do have an actual feeling of friendship (or love) toward me.

I envy that.

But I also understand that eventually, these people can get close enough that the mirage falls away, and they see that all this time, they've loved a loveless creature, capable of nothing more than an intellectual assent to their existence, a mathematical calculation of their value to my life, as well as a similar calculation behind the value I have to them, and therefore, a conscious, vested interest in continuing the relationship.

When you find out that the "love" you've been getting is as cold as that, it's easy to feel deceived or even betrayed.  But most of the time, they never get close enough to see behind that curtain, so I can keep even my closest friends in a place where they know I'm in a form of pain, they know my wounds are incurable, and they accept the hurting person that I am, offering their very real love, without ever knowing that my appreciation for them is only as complete as I am.

That's "reality" number four.

That's just a small part of my "reality".  Everyone else who is depressed has their own "reality".  There'll be a few common threads through it, which is why you see a lot of well-meaning and thoroughly irritating platitudes all over the internet that say things like "depression is the lie that you're not worth it" on a background of birds and rainbows with a flower.  They want me to feel better, get better, be better, remember?  It's fine.  I'm fine.