Page 5 of At The End There Was You

“I found them.”

“That explains most of it.”

Her lip twitched. “Most? Why not all?” she sardonically remarked.

But he answered, not regarding the mocking nature of her question, “You don’t look like someone who’d believe there is a holier power that still cares.”

“You’re wrong.” He wasn’t, but was she that obvious?

“Highly doubt it.”

“Sure, I don’t believe any Gods watch over us anymore, try to interfere when things get bad or convince fates to change their course. I don’t think they should do that either since we’re given the force of will and power to choose over our own fate, whether bad or good. It is all life is about, the unpredictability. I’d hate to have someone choose for me, help me when I don’t want to be helped, regardless if I need the help or not. But I do believe that the holier powers are not cruel. Why would they be?”

“And Death? Is he not cruel to decide your fate?”

“I don’t wish to tell you my beliefs. You’d mock them.”

“Are they so fragile in your beliefs that me mocking them would bother you?”

“No. But it might bother him.”

He cocked that dark brow up again. “You think Death would be bothered?”

“He might be.”

“And why would you care if he is bothered or not?”

“Someone has to,” she said quietly, hoping he’d get the message that she didn’t wish to talk about it. About the one sided relationship she had with the dark God. Often, she wondered why she felt the need to defend him when he clearly did not need defending, but she didn’t question it despite never knowing the answer as to why.

“You can take a break,” he said after a while.

“Will you?”

“I have no need for one.”

She nodded to herself despite her wrists being on the brink of falling off. “Neither do I then.”

“On the basis of my needs?”

“On the basis that this is clearly important enough for you to sacrifice rest. I will, too.”

“I didn’t ask for a martyr, Winter, take a break.”

“Oh, but imagine when this is all over, they’d write books about me. The priestess who died of exhaustion whilst defending the fate of the world.”

“Theatric.”

“We have to romanticise our lives somehow.”

“Why live in a dream when you can live in reality?”

Because it was easier, and in her mind, she was the one in control. “People never question me, you know?”

“But you say such questionable things, little martyr.”

“Exactly. They fear if they get to the bottom of it, they will only find more things to question. Eventually, they all give up and let me be in my own questionable bubble. They don’t question my interests or hobbies or curiosity.” She fiddled with her pen. “Except you.”

For the next few hours, she suppressed every thought and question she had, and returned to her duties of finding the odd word that supposedly carried the fate of the realm.