Requiem of the Dead S06E08 - [Yearning for...]

Christie wasn't paying attention to where she was going until she realized that she was a ways into the forest outside the Circus. She was sopping wet and water was dripping off the leaves above her, sending shivers down her spine when they landed on her. She was gasping for breath from her sobs as she collapsed on the ground, not caring about her dress and the state it was going to be in from the mud that would get on it. She just needed to sort herself out so that she wouldn't run mid-performance the day after.

Shakily, she managed to calm down enough so that she could breathe, but she couldn't stop her tears. They kept running down her face but she didn't care, she was a mess anyway. She took a couple of deep breaths as she leaned up against a tree and closed her eyes. It wasn't going to be easy, but she had to push away her pain and sadness so that she could function, or the next few days would be impossible if she couldn't.

She could still feel the tears sliding down her cheeks, but she ignored them and turned her attention inwards. Her meditation should help, but she didn't know by how much, or for how long, but it couldn't hurt any worse than she already did.

Christie's breathing evened out and she relaxed. It took her a while, but eventually she cleared her mind enough to be able to focus on what it was that she needed to do. Only, she'd cleared her mind a little too well and as soon as she focused on how close she'd been with her wolf, she knew she wasn't in her own mind anymore.

<sub>It was dark, and lonely. There wasn't another living soul in any form or distance, and the pain was almost intolerable. It felt like her heart was being torn apart from inside her chest. She wanted to open her eyes, but she realized that they were open and the nothingness she was staring at was all she had now.

Every so often through the blackness, a memory flashed through. A face, a laugh, a touch, a smell. Never more than one sense at a time, and there were no names to put to these things anymore, or if there were, they didn't matter.

Two faces kept reappearing; one framed with a mess of purple, the other by black which faded into blues and then greens. Their names escaped her but the feeling she got from looking at the pair of them made the pain in her heart increase, an intense longing enough to push the images away, but they kept coming back, the feeling stronger each time.

"I miss you," she thought as the images flashed through again and again and again. "And I loved you." She couldn't speak; her voice had been taken from her and she wished her thoughts had as well. All the pain that was laced within these memories hurt so much. She just wanted it to end, but there was a part of her that knew it wouldn't. It would always hurt now, there was no escape.

The thoughts came back again and it felt like her breath caught in her throat, if she still had a throat. It was the guy with the pretty hair. She remembered running her hands through that hair, and he looked devastated. He was pinned by his hand and shoulder in some rundown room. She felt bad that she couldn't remember what she'd said to him, she knew she'd said something, but it all turned black again as he unpinned himself and moved over to her. She closed her eyes, though it made little difference in the inky blackness surrounding her.

There was something different now though, something that sparked her hopes up to where they shouldn't be. She recognized something that was with her that had been absent for however long she'd been sat in the blackness.

There was a pain that rivaled her own, thoughts that were just out of her reach, thoughts that would save her from the loneliness she had. She felt like crying, but it was hard to do without eyes. There was something familiar and comforting about that presence she could feel, albeit barely, she just couldn't put her finger on it. Or paw, seeing as she was both wolf and human.

"I'm glad you found me, Kay. Wolf or not, you're the best friend I've ever had." The child's voice floated around her, and once it disappeared she felt an arm around her shoulders and a cheek pressed against hers, and suddenly she remembered a name.

"Christie... Oh Christie, I'm so sorry." Her thoughts were thick with the tears that she couldn't cry and she felt the presence with her react to her thoughts, but she had no idea why.

After the presence reacted, the way the memories were shown changed. It wasn't just one sense at a time; pictures came with sound, touch came with smell, and it hurt even more when she remembered a moment with the fancy-haired guy. He was crouched in front of her, his soft gaze boring straight into her.

"Being useful is more than just fighting, Kaci. That's not what it's about. I don't know all of the things you've done before I met you, but I know that you were always there for Christie. You were her pillar of strength, someone that she could rely on. You talked to Saiph in the Healer's tent, helped her cope with what had happened. You've been there for me whenever I've been depressed or struggling with what was happening. There's more to you than fighting, Kaci. That's what I love about you.” His tone was soft as he spoke to her, reassuring her fear that she was useless to them when it didn't come to fighting.

"You never have been useless, Kay. You've always been there when I needed you, and I need you now."

The words were new. She knew she'd never heard that voice say those words, and it was now painfully clear who the presence was that she could feel, yet shouldn't be able to.

"Christie?! But...how?" She felt so much relief from hearing that voice, she didn't actually care. Hearing Christie speak to her after being so alone, she felt like she would explode if she could. She could feel the same energy radiating from Christie's direction, as well as a flicker of doubt.

"I don't know Kay... Is... Is that really you?"

Something about that name stirred something in her, but she didn't know what or why. "I don't know. Everything's scattered. I only just remembered who you are." There was a wave of disappointment from Christie and she winced, like that disappointment was her fault.

Another memory popped up; this one was accompanied with the almost overwhelming feeling of safety and longing. He was looking at her with a soft gaze again and she could feel Christie fighting tears.

"He misses you, you know. More than I do. He's taken your loss harder than the rest of us."

Hearing that made her hurt all over again, but she didn't know why. "I keep seeing him, and you. You both haunt me and I don't know why. Why won't you two leave me alone?"

Christie knew that she would be a sobbing mess. Hearing Kaci was one thing, hearing her have no clear recollection of who they were hurt more than losing her itself. "You see him because you love him. You loved him more than you loved me." It hurt to admit, but it was true. "You loved your kiina brae enough that you died to protect him." She choked on the tears she was holding back, but the name had the desired effect.

"Kiina brae...kiina brae... Why do I recognize that name..." She trailed off as another memory flashed before them. It was dark but she was warm, held in the arms of this person who Christie claimed she loved. They were looking at the stars and she could feel the vibrations of his laugh at whatever it was she just said. "Kiina…kiina... Oh god, Rovelaen." In the memory she looked up to his face as she remembered, and she wanted out of here. She wanted back with her family.

All of a sudden, she remembered everything. Who she was, who they were, everything that had ever happened in the few thousand years she was on that planet. She focused on herself and Christie's presence and managed to create an illusion around the pair of them, though it cost her dearly. She couldn't manifest her human form, but she could at least see Christie again. "Chrissy, please, you have to take me back. I don't want to be stuck here."

Even as an illusion, Christie was a mess. She was drenched head to toe, her dress was covered in mud, and she was still crying. "I don't know how to, Kay. I don't know how I even got here in the first place, or even where we are for that matter." She sounded desperate; she really wanted to take Kaci back with her, but she knew she couldn't.

"We're in what you would call limbo. Spirits can't truly die, we just get shoved here until we can get put back in the world, forced to remember everything we've ever done but not how we know it.” Christie looked at her quizzically, but the wolf just shook her head. "Don't ask. Chris, please. You have to find me a way out of here. I can't leave him, not like that."

Christie winced, wanting to reach out and touch something she knew she wouldn't be able to. "It's nice to know I'm valued after the ten years we spent together."

An exasperated noise came out of Kaci's muzzle and the illusion around them faltered. "Christie, I can't keep this up much longer. Please, just find a way to get me home." She was pleading as she faded, and Christie knew that without knowing how she got there in the first place, she couldn't stay.

"I promise, Kay. I'll do everything I can."</sub>

Christie jolted awake, tears mixing with the rain running down her face. She was a compete mess, and without waiting to clean herself up even a little bit, she pushed herself up and ran back to the Circus. The one person that might be able to help her was Rovelaen, but she had no idea where he was. She just hoped that he would be easy enough to find.


_{»‹›«»‹›«»‹›«»‹›«»‹›«}


The weather had returned to its abysmal gloominess as it had last week. The thick clouds laced with streaks of occasional lightning seemed to enhance the dreary blackness of the sky. The rain was torrential and never-ending, and the droplets were almost as big as pennies. It wasn’t weather to be caught in, but Rovelaen found himself in it anyways.

Ever since he had apologized to Saiph the previous night, he had wearily wandered aimlessly around the Circus until he found himself at the Bestia stables. He had looked up at it with dead eyes and a heavy heart, his thoughts swirling and encompassing fleeting memories of racing with Kaci and seeing her break her jaw here. Rovelaen didn’t know why, but he found himself jumping onto the roof and collapsing there, sprawled out as if he had been knocked out with a punch to the gut. That’s what it felt like, at least. He hadn’t moved for hours, not even when the rain had started to pour down.

He was sopping wet now, which was unlike him. Usually he would have made himself transparent so he wouldn’t have gotten wet, and he would have shut off his ability to feel the temperature so he wouldn’t shiver. But now, he did none of that. He couldn’t feel anything, both literally and figuratively, but he was desperately craving a feeling for something. The touch of warm flesh after sprinting through a forest…the touch of hair that was as soft as wolf’s fur…the touch of a woman who had loved him as much as he had loved her…

Rovelaen couldn’t feel her anymore, so he had allowed himself to at least feel the chill of the rain as it smothered him. It would erase all of the marks she had made, both on his body and his heart. He imagined his body consumed in streaks of white light, every trail a spot where Kaci had dragged her fingers across his skin. It had felt like fire when she had touched him, but now the fire was being doused by the rain. He imagined the water disrupting the streams of light, letting them dissolve and evaporate as the memory of her touch faded away with the frigidity of her death, until he was no longer covered in her white light. He didn’t want to feel her anymore, because the hole she had ripped in his soul was too fragile and delicate to ever put back together again.

He didn’t know how long it had been since the rain had washed away her touch, but he found himself sitting up and staring blankly at the roof he had decided to make his grave. His hair stuck to his face and his back like cloying strands of mud. He felt dirty. At that moment, he hated his hair.

"If you're able to move one of your arms, would you like to brush my hair? Sometimes it takes forever, even when I do it."

A fleeting echo of a thought brushed his mind, and it made him pause. What was he remembering?

"You're gonna have to sit on the floor though, otherwise I won't be able to reach."

Her voice. Responding back to his words with a slightly playful tone.

“No…stop it,” he muttered under his breath, closing his eyes and shaking his head vigorously. He had finally allowed himself to forget her touch, he didn’t want to remember her voice.

"As long as you don't pull out all of my hair, you can brush it for as long as you want."

"Thank you."

“No!” Rovelaen shouted, pounding his fists on the roof. The loud noise it would have made was lost to the thunder in the sky, matching the brief flash of lightning that accompanied it.

He hated his hair. He didn’t need it anymore. She had been the only one who had ever touched it… He could almost feel phantom fingers running through it now, as if he was back in that bedroom sitting against her bed, allowing her to brush it for him.

He couldn’t handle it anymore.

He raised his right hand, summoning one of his daggers until it manifested completely. He pulled all of his hair around, grabbing at the strands glued to his face and the ones stuck to his back until all of it was resting across his left shoulder. He stared at his hair for only a second before he brought the dagger close to his head and quickly jerked his wrist, slicing away the hair that had once been attached to his head.

He watched disdainfully as his hair fell to the roof in a heaping clump, looking like a drowned rat in the inches of rainwater that had accumulated on the roof. Rovelaen’s head suddenly felt lighter, but it was certainly not any clearer. In fact, the moment his blade had severed his hair, he could feel his mind beginning to swirl and churn with negativity, as if black ink had been spilled into purified water and was now tainting it.

“So how's the new look?" he murmured to himself, repeating the words he had spoken to her when he had once been self-conscious about his precious locks.

He let the dagger dissolve away and he sat back to stare at the pile of hair that the woman he loved had once cherished.

Rovelaen wondered what it truly felt like to die. He had come close to it during their vacation, but he had barely managed to scrape his way out of it. But what was a true death for a Spirit? Did they suddenly cease to be, returning to the nothingness that had probably created them? Was it an empty and lonely void, with nothing to keep you company as you suffered in misery? Was Kaci either of those things? He couldn’t stand to think of her in either scenario, but maybe there was one way he could find out.

As he sat in the rain, his dark mind began to play out his own scenarios. He thought about which way would be the most poetic to end his life. Maybe he would strategically place his dagger on the ground, right underneath the awning of the Bestia stables, and he would replicate the jump that Kaci had taken, the one that had broken her jaw. Instead of hitting his face on the roof, he would merely fall to the ground and land on top of his weapon. Or maybe he would get Christie to do it. He could use his power of fear over her, make her think that he was Elijah. He would give her one of his own blades and he would just stand there and watch as Christie skewered him with it. It seemed fitting. Christie could avenge Kaci’s death, because Rovealen felt like everything had been his fault. And he would no longer have to live in this world anymore… He could search for Kaci in the next life, if Spirits had one.

He knew that he should’ve cared or thought more about what his death would’ve meant to Heilyn. He was supposed to be his Guardian after all; Heilyn was supposed to have been his number one concern. So when was it that Heilyn and Kaci had switched places in his heart?

Rovelaen looked at his right hand again as the rain continued to pour down on him. He felt numb from the cold, as it should have been. Maybe he was already on the brink of death; maybe this was what Kaci had felt as she shimmered away into nothing, like she had only ever been a mirage. He continued to stare at his hand, and when he blinked, he wasn’t surprised to find his dagger again. The blade was pointed away from him, so he positioned it until it was facing him. He raised it slightly, so that it was hovering over his heart.

Maybe he would just do the deed himself.

"I did more than just hurt you. She made me k… She made me kill you.”

Rovelaen paused at the memory, his hand faltering slightly. His own laugh echoed in his mind at her words, which made him frown.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have laughed. Just hearing you say that you killed me just struck my funny bone."

“And why, pray tell, did you find that so funny?”

“Just picturing you killing me... Now that you're making me talk about it, I guess it's not so funny. But really, you shouldn't be scared of that. I wouldn't let you kill me even if I deserved it. Although I love you, I still have to look out for Heilyn, and I obviously can't do that if I'm dead. So, yeah, me dying is a little laughable."

Rovelaen actually smirked at the memory. “Ironic, isn’t it…Kaci?” he whispered to himself, the sound of his voice lost in the pounding roar of the rain on the roof. “In the end, you killed me after all.”

He positioned the dagger over his heart again.

"Bring it, kiina brae. I'll be ready for you.”

He had taken that memory out of context, but it seemed to be quite the fitting response for his words.

Rovelaen wanted to do it. He wanted to end his suffering, to finally have a sliver of a chance at being with Kaci again. But for some reason…the logical, rational side of him came back to life, if only for a moment. The dagger hovered dangerously close to his chest, but his arm felt locked in place, as if he couldn’t move the few inches forward to send the steel piercing through his heart.

This wouldn’t be what Kaci would have wanted. If she still existed somewhere in some other realm or dimension, and if she was watching him, she would tell him to stop. But how could he? She had died for him, given him her entire existence worth centuries, and all to save him. She had given up her life to ensure that he would live out his own. If he decided to end it now, her death would have meant nothing.

If his heart hadn’t already been shredded and torn to pieces by that woman, it certainly was now.

“How could you…?” Rovelaen snarled, narrowing his eyes and glaring up at the sky. “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!” His scream wasn’t at potent as he would’ve liked, considering another clap of thunder rolled in the sky, as if it was shouting back down at him to be quiet and to stop acting like a child.

Rovelaen wanted to be with Kaci, but she had given up her life to save his, and she wouldn’t want his death, so where did that leave him? Either die and risk never seeing her again, or live and never see her again anyways? Kaci had left him no choice that would’ve sated the heartache in his chest.

”I love you, Kaci.”

”I love you too, Rovelaen.”

Rovelaen closed his eyes and sobbed, and he finally had the ability to move his arm again. He lowered his hand by his side as his dagger disappeared, and he screamed at the sky. “Give her back! Give her back to me!” He wept unashamedly as he collapsed onto the roof again, nearly curling into the fetal position because the pain in his body nearly crippled him. He was reduced to a mumbling, weeping mess, and his words were lost amongst the raindrops as he cried, “Give her back… Kaci…my onai einja… Give her back…”