by Jake Taylor
Isabella was dying; it was time to go back home.
Chapter 20: The Fallen
“I love you, Ruki.”
IXH
When Haruka stepped out of the carriage with Isabella, she saw it in their faces as she carefully helped her down. Isabella smiled to greet them, and they smiled to greet her, but Haruka saw it in their eyes; they were shocked. Bella looked so tired and worn down, and moved slowly and with little energy, capturing Suria in a hug with a soft smile, but the reactions were apparent. They hadn’t been there to watch her degrade day by day, Haruka knew, and so they hadn’t expected her to be so bad now. With sad eyes Haruka watched the reality finally hit each of them, and when Isabella turned back to meet her gaze Haruka knew that she saw it too.
Isabella didn’t mention it, though. She no longer had the energy to pretend nothing had changed, but she didn’t want it to be the focus of everything. Haruka did her best to pretend things were normal and the others tried to fall in line, but it was never anything more than a façade. Suria’s eyes watered as Isabella released her and moved to embrace Able, and even he looked depressed as he returned the embrace and cast his eyes to the ground. Dalgus looked less surprised as he set a hand on Isabella’s head in a friendly manner, and his smile was resigned; Haruka knew he had watched a lot of friends die, and she knew he was back there now, experiencing each death he had witnessed, as all who had seen so much death did. Haruka had seen the look on Isabella’s face more than once. Ophelia, as usual, showed little emotion, but she was quieter than normal.
But Freya… Haruka silently thanked the pirate as she gave a grin and a shout, pulling Isabella into a bear hug that caused the knight to laugh out loud. Freya pulled back to arm’s length and tilted her head. “Yer back ‘cause ya missed me, aren’t ya?”
Isabella gave a happy sigh and a small smile. “I could never leave you for long, Freya.”
Freya turned her around and stepped up beside her, slipping an arm over her shoulders. “Yeah, no one could. How’ve y’ been, Ruka?”
Haruka could see Suria watching Freya, and imagined that she was wondering why the pirate was so happy. At least the others seem to understand what she’s doing, Haruka thought as she shook her head, giving Freya a smile and moving forward. “Better than I ever have.”
Freya caught her extended hand and shook it. “Good trip, huh?”
“It was perfect,” Isabella said softly, giving Haruka a look that singlehandedly justified every decision the monk had ever made.
Haruka smiled and took her hand, looking back at Freya. “We’ve pretty much conquered the world. We did everything there is to do.”
“Are there pictures?” Haruka blinked at Suria, who had just popped up beside them with a beaming smile. Apparently she had judged the girl too quickly… As Isabella nodded, Suria grinned. “I wanna see!”
Isabella blinked. “Um… Well, you can see most of them, but not, um, all of them,” she said with a blush that caused Freya’s grin to nearly split her face.
“What? Why not?”
Freya smacked Suria on the head. “Ya really need t’ grow up, kid.”
“Ow!” Suria rubbed her head, glaring at Freya. “I’m not a kid, I’m nineteen!”
“Then you need t’ get more worldly.”
“Yeah, that’s why I left home.”
“Oh yeah! Ha, guess it ain’t workin’ too fast.”
Able stepped up beside Haruka, looking at her and Bella seriously. “Did you have any trouble?”
Haruka shook her head. “Nothing big. A few bandits here and there, a couple creatures. I didn’t have any trouble handling them.”
“I felt sorry for most of them,” Isabella said with a smile. “Ruki is a pretty bad person to get on the wrong side of.”
“Agreed,” he replied. “How long are you staying?”
Isabella glanced at Haruka. “Just one week,” she answered. “We want to finish our trip in… in time.”
He nodded, falling silent. Haruka didn’t trust herself to try and speak again, but fortunately Dalgus saved them by stepping up and speaking loudly. “Uh, we’ve got a lot of food ready in our tent, you know! I bet you two are starving after travelling for so long, and you don’t even have to deal with the rabble.”
Isabella turned and smiled at him. “Oh, yes, of course. Let’s move this there, then.” As they started walking she fell back behind the rest, knowing Haruka would keep pace with her. She slowed until she was beside Freya, speaking quietly so only the two of them could hear her. “I want to thank you again for your generosity… Because of you, we were able to do everything we wanted to.”
The dark-haired pirate smiled. “That’s all I care about. Did you use it well? Spend all of it like I told you?”
Isabella laughed softly. “Yes, we did. We used it on really important things, and we used it on really stupid things.”
Freya let out a laugh. “Perfect! So you ‘ad fun?”
Isabella glanced at Haruka. “You wouldn’t believe how much. If I had a bucket list, I’d have checked off everything on it. It was just so nice doing that sort of thing and nothing else, with no dangers or struggles.”
Freya nodded, growing a bit more serious as she glanced from Haruka to Isabella. “How are you feeling?” she asked in a quieter voice, deciding it was okay to ask when everyone wasn’t focusing on them.
Isabella sighed, her eyes on the others up ahead, who were further ahead now as she was slowing Haruka and Freya down. “With anyone else but Ruki, I would say I’m fine.”
Freya kept her eyes on Bella. “And with me?”
Bella looked at her and smiled softly. “I’m dying, Freya. And I feel like I’m dying. I’m not in denial, though I won’t blame anyone who is.”
Freya’s eyes softened, looking at the quiet Haruka and back to Bella. “Is it…?”
Isabella shook her head. “It’s not always painful. Sometimes my chest hurts, usually my lungs or heart. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe. Mostly I’m just tired and weak.” She looked down at the hand that Haruka wasn’t holding, opening and closing her fingers. “I feel… strangely disconnected. Sometimes I forget my condition. I want my body to do something, and it simply… isn’t able to. I try to pick something up and it just slips out of my hand because I forgot my fingers aren’t strong enough to hold it anymore. It feels like every day I can do one less thing that I used to be able to do.” She laughed softly. “Sometimes it’s more annoying or frustrating than anything.”
“You seem to be… handling it well.”
“That’s all Haruka. I get frustrated at being unable to pick something up, but then she lifts it for me. I get too tired to climb a set of stairs and she carries me up them. And I find that, each time it happens, a part of me is glad for my limitations. They’re like a gift because they allow me to be constantly reminded that she’s here.” Haruka looked away but squeezed her hand, and Bella smiled at her. Freya sped up to catch up to the others, leaving them alone as Bella leaned up to Haruka. “There’s not a single thing I’ve ever experienced that wouldn’t be improved by your presence, you know that.”
Haruka closed her eyes, remaining silent for a long moment before finally looking at her. “I’m trying.”
“I know.” Isabella stopped walking, slowly pulling her into a kiss and wiping the tears from her cheeks.
IXH
Isabella lay in her spot beside the fire, looking out of the open tent flap at the stars visible beyond it. With her were Suria and Able, who were speaking with her at the moment. Haruka was outside somewhere, taking a moment for herself. Bella was worried about her, but she knew that, sometimes, everyone needed a moment of solitary silence to think about things. Nothing about her situation scared her more than leaving Haruka alone. She had thought about everything she could do to make it easier for her, everything she could do to comfort Haruka after she was gone, but she knew none of it would be enough. More than anything she was relying on the friends they had made to support
Haruka when she no longer could.
Isabella wasn’t scared for herself, not anymore. It was true that she didn’t know what would happen to her when she finally passed, where she would go – if anywhere – or if she would ever meet Haruka again. She hoped, prayed, and fervently wished that her time with Haruka would not end, and that they would meet somewhere. But there was nothing she could do about that if it wasn’t the case. She would be okay, she knew, when the time came. But when she died, she would be leaving Haruka behind. The first hours after that moment would be the hardest Haruka had ever been through, and Bella wouldn’t be able to do anything to comfort her during them. That thought alone made her cry if she focused on it too long, and so she closed her eyes as Able and Suria spoke.
After a few minutes of focusing on her emotions, she ignored the silence that had descended on her two younger companions, likely due to them noticing her tears. That didn’t matter to her and they could watch all they wanted, because Isabella was far beyond worrying about what others saw. There was only one person she was thinking about as she pulled out the journal she had been writing in since the wedding. She ignored the fire and the low voices of the other two as they tried to restart their conversation, and she continued to focus on her emotions and encourage them as she put pen to paper and started to write.
IXH
Haruka was looking at a specific constellation in the sky, and for the life of her she couldn’t remember its name. She had been taught it on many occasions and even used it to guide herself, but at this moment, as she stood leaning against a stack of crates some distance away from the tent her wife was in, she had no idea what it was. Her mind refused to focus on anything else and refused all of her attempts to distract herself or change the course of her thoughts. It seemed she had reached her limit of denying or ignoring things, and now she had no choice but to think about them.
Had anyone walked by her at that moment, they wouldn’t have noticed anything was wrong – Haruka had long ago made it a habit not to show what she was feeling or thinking about. She looked to be casually stargazing and thinking of nothing in particular, but in truth it was the opposite. Most relationships in life had an unknown quality – you met someone, you got to know them, and things just sort of went along with no real guide or destination. With Isabella it was more like a book – Haruka had picked up the book and known from the start exactly how long it was. No matter what point she was at in the book, she was always able to see what page the ending was on. Every page she read was one page closer to the ending, and no matter how much she wished otherwise, that ending was solid and permanent – as soon as she reached it there would never again be another page to the book, never again would she see a single new word of the story.
That limitation nearly drove her insane. The mere fact that she would be able to catalogue all of her experiences with Bella in one thin book, definitively, with nothing else beyond it… It made her want to rage against something, but there was no target for her anger. They had won. Despite all the odds they had broken through an impossible wall and achieved victory, and Isabella was still going to die. Haruka couldn’t bring herself to go inside, even though she felt strongly that any moment not spent in her presence was a wasted one. She couldn’t bring herself to move from her spot – she was frozen, and clueless.
“Now you look intense.”
The voice shook her free just enough for her to lower her eyes to Freya, who was looking at her with that unique expression of concern without pity. Freya was a hard person who had led a hard life, and though she was as friendly as anyone, that friendliness wasn’t why Haruka was glad she was the one who had appeared now – she was glad because Freya was the only one here who had suffered as much as she and Isabella had, and she was the only one who could not just sympathize, but understand. “I’m trying…” Haruka started before her voice cut off, drawing a flicker of surprise from her that Freya only noticed because she was so observant. For the first time in months Haruka’s voice had reverted to its old ways. She had made it a permanent habit to use her energy to strengthen her vocal chords to the point where it wasn’t even a conscious thing anymore, but it appeared that, at the moment, her mind was so distracted that it hadn’t even remembered to do that.
She did it actively, allowing her to speak once more, only now it was difficult for other reasons. “I’m trying to think,” she continued, looking off in an empty direction. “A way to stall, a way to avoid what I know is coming… I know there isn’t one. I know there’s no answer. Not everything has a happy ending.”
Freya nodded, moving to join her and leaning against the crates. She tossed off her captain’s hat and let her dark hair out of its usual ponytail before folding her arms. “I’ve seen a lotta bad endings. Hell, I’ll prob’ly ‘ave one myself.” She glanced sideways at Haruka. “But yer story ain’t over. This ain’t yer ending. It’s Bella’s ending, but if you think it ain’t ‘appy for ‘er, yer blind.”
Haruka looked down. “I know I make her happy… She’s not even afraid, you know. All she’s worrying about is me.” She sniffed, adjusting her folded arms. “I just… I already miss her, even though I know I can, right now, go find and talk to her, hold her, all of that. How much harder is it going to be when that isn’t an option anymore? How much more will I miss her when she’s not there?”
Freya sighed, looking up at the stars. “It’s going to be bad. I can’t lie to you. But we’re gonna be here. You aren’t gonna be alone.” Freya leaned her head back against the crate. “I’m gonna miss ‘er, too; we all are. An’ no one’s ever gonna replace ‘er – we all know you aren’t even gonna try t’ be with someone else.”
“No…” Haruka shook her head, looking up with Freya. “No, I’m not. I’ll still be with her even when she’s gone. But I… So many little things are coming to mind now, things I never would have worried about before.” She stared at the distant stars, examining them in the silence that flooded in between every word. “You know what I realized when I woke up yesterday?” She glanced at Freya to see her shaking her head, then looked away to continue. “She isn’t going to make it to our first anniversary.” She gave a dry laugh. “Such a… stupid thing to notice, isn’t it…?”
Freya noticed her voice fade away with the last few words, and she moved to pull her into a hug that Haruka didn’t try to resist. As she felt Haruka begin to cry she let out a sad sigh, gripping the back of her clothing. “It’s not stupid. It’s not fair, either. Neither of you deserve this,” she said with conviction. After a minute she released her and sat her down. “Wait here, huh?” Haruka nodded and Freya left, rubbing her eyes tiredly as she walked. She wasn’t good at this sort of thing, and her main emotion for now was anger at the situation, which just meant she would say things that wouldn’t help. That was what she did – curse, fight, and struggle. She was having a hard enough time dealing with something that she couldn’t fight herself.
She stepped into the tent and looked over the three inside. “Bella.” The knight lowered the journal and sat up, noticing Freya’s expression. “You’re needed.” Isabella stood immediately and moved past her, and Freya gave a look to Able and Suria that told them to stay there. She leaned back outside the tent and pointed Isabella in the right direction before going inside herself to keep Able and Suria company.
Isabella came around the corner and sighed. “Oh, Ruki…” She knelt in front of Haruka, laying a hand on her cheek and brushing away tears with her thumb, even though they kept coming. “What’s wrong?” she asked despite knowing the answer; Haruka needed to talk about this, not listen.
Haruka met her gaze and held it, not bothering to try and control her emotions. “I don’t… I’m trying,” she said, taking Bella’s hand and squeezing it but not looking away from her eyes. “I’m trying to stay strong and just be happy, but I can’t. I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want you to leave.”
Isabella smiled, sitting beside her and pulling Haruka’s head down onto her shoulder. �
��I don’t want to leave you, either. If I could stay I would, but it’s not my choice, and it’s not your choice. There are some things that we can’t change.”
“But it’s just… so soon. We barely got any time at all.” Haruka closed her eyes. “Less than a year… You won’t even… I won’t even be able to get you an anniversary gift.”
“I’m going to try to make it to the anniversary of our meeting,” Isabella said softly, looking at her. “That’s the day that my entire life changed, so that’s the most important. The day I met you will always be the most important day of my life. Besides… I already have your gift, though it isn’t finished yet.”
Haruka opened her eyes. “What…?”
“You can’t read it yet,” Bella said as she set the journal in her lap. “And I’m still writing it. It’s a book, almost completely full of things I’ve written – when I’m done, it will be full.” She looked at her. “It’s not our story, Haruka – I know you’ll always know every detail of our story by heart. No, this book… Every page, every line is something I’ve written for you – every thought I’ve had about you, every emotion I’ve felt throughout this whole journey, every dream. Basically, this journal is me, for you to have so that I can be there for you in spirit when I can no longer be there for you in body.”