Summary—Why it would never work between a human and a Wraith.

He who was living is now dead

We who were living are now dying

With a little patience.

-T. S Eliot, V. The Wasteland

.x.

Once, he attempts to give her The Gift of Life. She screams him to stop, and he does. He never attempts it again, and watches as she continues to

decay

fall

fade. She is within touching distance, yet miles away.

The helplessness is infuriating; he’s not used to being repelled. He storms away, and only comes back to her when he has killed enough to clog his nose.

.x.

This rage is new.

This fear is new.

He hates them both.

His strange mood unsettles his harem. They complain, wheedling him to dispose of the dirty, sick thing locked in his private quarters.

It’s easy to bat them away at first, but little by little, he finds himself agreeing.

He hate that more.

.x.

He takes her away, because she is human. All humans are animals, and all animals die alone. But not Wraith; they are too closely relates to insects. He carries her in her arms but hates the touch of her. She is decaying is falling is fading, a bag of bones in paper skin.

He takes her away, and no one follows.

.x.

The smell of disease drives him away but he stays close. He is unsure of how to proceed; Wraith have no burial rites, but it seems cruel even by his standards to just abandon her. She lies on the forest floor, dead already how much she moves. Her breath rattles in her throat, a bone in a clay jar. He recognizes the look in her eyes. It’s the look of the humans in the cocoons.

A face without a soul.

As he stands, tense and hesitant, he thinks of what to do.

Perhaps fate would be kind, and let her die before he decides.

.x.

He remembers once swaggering on a human funeral during a culling expedition. The humans were gone, no doubt having long since fled to save their own lives. He remembers a pillar of wood, and on it, a body. Its scent, sickly sweet, made his lips curl.

He has no wood to make a pillar.

He has no perfume to mask the woman’s yellow decay.

All he has are his hands. His claws aren’t meant for manual labor and they snap and splinter as they rent the ground.

As they do as they heal. The irony is hilarious.

His digs faster.

The hole yawns.

.x.

She makes not a sound when he picks her up, a doll rag. His hatred swells and he throws her into the crude grave. She lands in a thud of limbs. He rages above her, swearing and pleading and threatening and promising and begging.

Wraith are not gentle. There’s no room for it. She knew this, and perhaps that hurts most of all. He doesn’t want her sympathy. He doesn’t want understanding. He’s a Wraith, and Wraith aren’t kind.

When he subsides it’s like the sea, gray and quiet. He raises her into a sitting position –

but it’s done.

Both first and last, a face without a soul, long dead before himself.

A Wraith walks awaybecause Wraith are not kind, and they will last forever.

fin