Page 12 of At The End There Was You

Five days until the end

She found him unusual today. At first, she noticed his hair was not all dry after his morning bath that Clara had told just about everyone that she’d drawn it for him. Winter then noticed that he did not wear a jacket, only a black shirt that wrapped tightly to his hard muscled body, a few buttons undone near his neck that revealed a patch of black tattoos which most Mages wore—often as protection.

Forcing her feet forward, she reached his side and put the daisy she’d picked on the way there right on the page he was reading, breaking his concentration even though it terrified her to do so—to disturb him, not because she was afraid of him. Strangely, she was not.

Azriel lowered the pen he held and picked the flower up, staring at it as if he was staring at an ancient artefact. The flower was so small in his hand, it looked ridiculous.

In one breath, she said, “There are not as many of them as they were before when I was younger. The soil around the Sanctum is also mostly barren, and even if there were to sprout somewhat near, I’m sure the High Priestess would have ordered them plucked off. They are not that precious, you see.”

“Why not?” came his gruff voice, and a small shiver travelled down her spine.

“They are too small, too plain, they sprout in between grass and sometimes even near weeds.”

His thick dark brows bunched. “How does that make them ordinary?”

She sighed heavily, wanting to know the exact thing. How and why were so many things that brought small joy deemed ordinary. “Human perception is my guess.”

“You are also human.”

“Very astute. Though the High Priestess would like to argue on that. She thinks I am a ghost set to haunt her.”

He looked at her then, his eyes raking slowly over her face. “She might not be wrong. I think you’re haunting me, too.”

Her fingers curled under the long sleeves of her robes. “I’d apologise, but you’re not very keen on those.”

Azriel went back to his books and pushed his glasses back. “Why would you apologise? Perhaps I like being haunted.”

“You are a strange Mage, Azriel,” she said faintly, reeling from his words and repeating the same thing he’d told her the day before. “And an even stranger person.”

“To be deemed strange by you is strange itself.”

“Let's agree that there is a magnitude of strangeness in this whole situation itself with everyone involved in it.”

“But why?” he said, bringing the flower to his nose. “If we agree and seize to question all the strangeness involved, we might have nothing to say.”

“Isn’t that what you want so you can get back to perhaps the most important duty one can have? The lives of many lay in your hands.”

“They do,” he repeated in a trance, his eyes travelling into far away worlds like Winter’s did when she sat in the balcony staring at the skies and imagined herself wanting something.

“It is quite the responsibility to put on just one pair of shoulders.”

He set the daisy down. “Feeling sorry for me, Winter, or for the world?”

“Can’t it be both?”

“Why not neither? What does feeling sorry really do for either of us?”

“Nothing. But it makes me feel human. To care is what makes us all human.”

“Being human is what caused this.”

“Did Death tell you that?”

“Death doesn’t tell. Only show.”

“Well, he should learn to communicate better then.”

“Why should he learn to communicate when humanity can simply learn to be humane better?”