The sky was a vivid blue as I stumbled across the palace courtyard. A bird's melody was the only sound I could hear amidst my rambling thoughts, piercing my skull like an arrow. Suddenly Buzzard was before me, and I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there, only that he could take me far away. He pressed his nose into my chest and I stumbled backward into the stable wall.
"Buzzard," I moaned. "Help… me… leave…"
The next thing I knew I was mounted on Buzzard's bare back, and he was running. He had already worked up a sweat — I could feel it through the fabric of my pants and beneath my palms. As he galloped he jostled me to and fro. I hunkered down, clutching his mane and pressing myself flat against his back. With my direction he ran straight and steady, but without my direction he swerved around trees and down dangerous inclines.
"Where are we?" I asked him. For some reason I expected an answer, but none came. I closed my eyes, trusting Buzzard to take me somewhere where everything made sense.
"I don't know who or what to believe," I murmured, feeling Buzzard was the only being I could entrust with this secret. "I don't know who to trust, but…" I choked on tears I didn't realize I'd shed. "I don't think…" I hiccuped as I sobbed uncontrollably. "I don't think I can trust myself anymore."
Buzzard swerved sharply and I almost slid off of him, which made me cling to him even tighter. "If I can't trust myself…" I sobbed harder at the pain of the admission. "…Who can I trust?"
Just as the words escaped my mouth, Buzzard leapt and I lost contact with his strong, sturdy back. I gasped as I became airborne, feeling as though I had completely transcended my body. And then pain like I'd never felt shattered that illusion.
The pain was all consuming, radiating from my middle before it suddenly ceased, leaving a feeling of emptiness that felt real and dangerous. I looked down to see what had caused the pain to see the stump of a sharp, spindly tree protruding from my abdomen.
My mouth gaped as I tried to cry for help, but I didn't know who to call for — who would be willing to save a monster like me? Tears streamed from my eyes. I could tell serious damage had been done to my spine but that my body was trying to heal itself rapidly in the way only it could. I felt zaps of pain that radiated from the tree's point of entry into my back, and then the pain would cease.
The absence of pain was more terrifying than its presence. The lack of pain felt like the beginning of death — the beginning of an all-consuming darkness. I could survive mortal wounds, but my body couldn't fully heal itself around the presence of a tree in my abdomen. I could be stuck there forever, my body fighting to survive but never being able to fully heal. Or maybe it was all too much for even my supernatural body to manage, and I'd slowly bleed out as my body produced more blood to sustain me.
The fear of being impaled by that tree for days until I finally died of dehydration or starvation was far more terrifying than everything suddenly going black. The journey to the grave was the loneliest road anyone would travel. I cried out not for someone to save me, but for someone, anyone, to hold my hand as I passed violently into non-existence.
I wanted Hetya. The person I shared my mother's womb with. The person whose face was identical to mine, but whose heart was infinitely more pure. I prayed that Baruuk would find my dead body and free Hetty, realizing holding her captive any longer was pointless. If he never found my body, he may assume I escaped and kill her.
Dying was not meant to take this long. I had far too much time to contemplate outcomes I no longer had control over.
I closed my eyes and sobbed, wishing for the agony to end. And then I heard someone call my name.
My eyes burst open to see Cisco hovering over me. "Lura." Cisco's voice broke as he said my name. He sounded like he was in pain, and that caused me pain. "This is going to hurt."
Cisco's eyes were red and brimming with tears as he bent over me. I felt Baruuk's words more than heard them echo in my mind. I did fall hard for sad brown eyes and fresh tears. Or was it something else that he had said?
Cisco was wrong. My body was numb. I couldn't feel a thing as he lifted me off the tree. The first sensation I felt as my body healed was pain, and once the pain had subsided, Cisco's arms which held me so tightly I could barely breathe. His face was buried in my neck, and his breath sent goosebumps sprawling across my skin.
"Cisco," I said, needing him to loosen his grip. When I returned fully to reality, being held so tightly felt like strangulation. "I'm okay. I'm okay," I said, though I still sobbed. I didn't blame him for still clinging to me. I still sounded like I was dying.
Cisco slowly pulled away. A single tear fell from the tip of his nose onto mine. "I thought I lost you." Somehow he found it in himself to smile. It appeared as a shooting star — it happened so fast that I thought I'd imagined it.
All at once he pressed his lips to my forehead and rocked me back and forth. Warmth spread from the point where his lips met my skin, radiating in a way that reminded me of the pain that radiated through me when I'd been impaled. The comfort it brought me was dangerously seductive. I wanted to trust it, but as I returned to reality, the truth of Baruuk's words tolled like a bell within me. I always fell for sad stories and false tears.
Still, as Cisco held me, I realized I was clinging as strongly to him as he was to me. It took every morsel of emotional fortitude I had to uncurl my fingers from clutching his jacket. That was all I could force myself to do. I couldn't bring myself to untangle myself from his grasp — I was equally unwilling to untangle him from my heart.
"You're not allowed to die," Cisco breathed, an echo of my words to him months ago. When I'd said those words, panic controlled me. I didn't think about the cost of healing him -- I just did it. "I — I need you — here."
I tensed at his words. Why did Cisco need me? Did he need to use me as a tool to achieve his vision of the future? Had he feared losing me because I would be useless to him if I was dead?
"You saved me," I said, my tears slowing at last. "I didn't think anyone would save me."
"I'm lucky I caught sight of you out my window stumbling toward the stables. When I saw you —" His words caught in his throat momentarily and he looked like he might start crying again. "I knew something was wrong."
He had missed the meaning entirely. I was not as afraid to die as I was to realize that there were few people who would save me. I had caused so much pain, and had alienated almost everyone I knew. One thing was clear to me: if Baruuk found me impaled by a tree, he wouldn't warn me that it would hurt when he pulled it out of me. His voice wouldn't crack with emotion. He would shed no tears, nor would he hold me until I stopped crying.
If this was all an act, Cisco was far more dangerous than anyone else I had ever met. Who could make their voice break at the exact moment that would send a pang of longing ricocheting through my body? For my entire life I had sworn off yearning and longing, but I'd done it anyway. But the yearning I felt for him then was like nothing I'd ever felt. Could those feelings be born from falsehoods and lies?
"What happened?" he asked, his brow bent in anger.
That was a question I didn't want to answer. I pushed myself off of Cisco's lap and found that Buzzard had been hovering over us the entire time. I didn't hesitate to jump onto his back and lope away. Cisco called my name, but I didn't slow Buzzard's pace or look back.
Minutes later I found my way to the lake. I quickly unlaced my corset and scrubbed the fabric in the water. Crimson ribbons of blood surrounded my hands as they worked tirelessly to scrub the blood stain from my corset.
A minute later Cisco fell to his knees at my side. "How are you just calmly washing your corset?" he asked.
"What else is there to do?" I shrugged. "There's blood all over it." I hoped he would not see my panic through my casual facade.
After a weighted silence Cisco said, "You don't want Baruuk to know what happened."
My hands ceased their labor for a moment, but once I'd regained my composure I continued. "No. He can't know he… flustered me."
"Flustered? That's how you would describe the state you were in? I've seen you clear hurdles higher than the tree Buzzard cleared riding bareback with no issue. You weren't just flustered." His tone darkened. "Did he hurt you?"
I scowled. "As if he could."
"Right. Stupid question." He finally sat down beside me on the shore, sitting cross-legged. "But not all wounds are physical."
"He can't know I — we — you — he suspects —" I dropped my hands still clutching my corset onto the sandy bottom of the lake. "He suspects that we are —"
Cisco waited, his mouth agape, for me to find the right words. I had never been one to stumble over my words.
Cisco removed his jacket and draped it over my shoulders. All I wore beneath my corset was a thin muslin shirt. The early spring breeze had caused me to shiver — or maybe being impaled had shaken me up.
"We are whatever you need us to be," he said, letting his arm settle gently on my shoulders. When all I did was stare down at my blood soaked hands, he gave me a gentle squeeze. "We're just two best friends who have each others' back, literally and figuratively."
"Too soon!" I cried. "And it's presumptuous of you to assume you're my best friend."
Cisco gave me a doubtful look. "I'm your only friend, aren't I? That makes me your best friend."
"You're not my only friend!" I protested. When he pulled me to his chest I mournfully admittedly, "Actually, you are."
Cisco's hand cradled my head, his fingers tangled in my hair. "I know," he said as laughter bubbled up from within us. As our laughter faded, though, I confessed, "When I was dying, I thought no one would willingly save me. I'm a blight to this world, and it is better off without me. The wise thing to do would be to let me die."
"I wouldn't be better off without you. I'd be absolutely miserable if you left me to live out the rest of my existence without anyone to send me pages-long letters about their horse."
His words brought color back into my cheeks. I pulled away from him to meet his gaze. "Thank you for saving me."
Cisco's roguish grin almost undid me. "Any time."
As we rode back to the palace I didn't agonize over what Baruuk would think when we returned. Fortunately I didn't see him at all before we left the palace for Quantum Fortress.