if you and I can make it through the night

WAKER

You struggle to stay awake—or, perhaps, you think, stay conscious is a better choice of words. The darkness lurking on the edges of your awareness doesn't feel like sleep. It seems much too thick and empty for that, a place of no dreams, just infinite blackness. You doubt it is death, but you cannot be sure, so you struggle to keep your distance. It is difficult, much harder than you had thought; every time your focus slips, you find yourself halfway into it, like a heavy thing on a cliff's edge, slowly being pulled over by gravity.

You busy yourself by listening to the sound of your heart. It is fast and fleeting, but it sounds so slow, like something is pulling the seconds apart, stretching them to their limits—the sound booms in your skull, counting out time, but it doesn't seem real. Through half-lidded eyes you watch the girl move about. She's not slow. She's moving at a pace that you think seems normal, though you admit you're not a good judge of anything right now. It's kind of uncomfortable. You feel that your heart is fast, but it sounds slow, and she looks normal-paced.

Internally, you grimace. Best stop listening to your heart. It only serves to make you unnerved. Watching the girl seems a better idea, for not only does she move enough to keep your attention, but it also serves to calm you. You have no idea what she's up to, but that doesn't matter. You're content just to watch, oblivious to the smoke ghosting across your body. In the back of your mind, you register the shift in your soul, but even if you had turned the full force of your attention to it, it's doubtful you'd have been able to just figure out what had changed.

You'll notice, though. Soon enough. Likely not tonight, probably not tomorrow, but at some point.

When she starts throwing a rock at the other rocks she's gathered, you force yourself to blink a few times. Your dry eyes sting. Nothing changes. She's still throwing a rock. Again, you've been raised to be respectful, so who are you to judge what she's doing..? But as you lay on what could've been your deathbed, you have the urge to laugh. Not at her, precisely, but at how bizarre the whole situation is. There you are, who knows where, with a girl who is .. throwing rocks.

You're just in the moment. You can't think ahead. You can't fathom what she's trying to achieve, so you just watch, glassy-eyed and death-still, though your spirit shakes within. Your detached mind just can't stop laughing, but your body doesn't even ripple.

Then she disappears, and you wonder if maybe she had sensed your delirious bemusement, and instantly, you regret it—as much as you are capable of regretting anything when you're more dead than alive. Your skin itches. You wish she hadn't gone. It's so much darker and colder without her.

It scares you.

Come back!

The pebble comes hurtling back in, striking the gathered rocks with a sharp sound and a sharp smell, like something igniting. It wafts across your memories. Your eyes hone in on the flash of light, the tendril of smoke, and the shadow of the girl as she comes back inside. She coaxes the flame into life, feeds it debris, her face bright in the unholy light, her eyes intense.

You know what she'll smell like if she burns. You think of their wailing cries in the night as they poured from the slopes, carrying the flaming death with them. Your folk hadn't had much contact with fire before that. Wildfires had raged on occasion, and there had been a bonfire in the Circle of Ancients—still burning the last time you visited the central war camp it had become—but your tribe had never used it for harm. Only the oldest had remembered other wars, other raids, when it had been used to kill.

When the flame is no longer a baby, but flickering brightly, spitting waves of warmth across your slowly-steaming body, she turns to you. Slowly, you drag your gaze from the bright fire to her face. Spirits and fire, but she smiles again, that small little thing, and her eyes reflect some of the amazement of her hushed tones. It is charming. Endearing. You feel your lips tug into the slightest, briefest of smiles, and like an older brother, you want to pat her on the head with the tip of a wing and tell her you did with pride, but nothing makes it past your lips.

You decide that frustration will not help you, so you remain motionless and sort of afloat. She moves over, closer to you, and folds down on the ground. It was far more graceful than your own flopping-down, but in your defense, you shouldn't have had the strength to stand in the first place.

It is amazing how cold sapped your strength. It is amazing how long, arduous service in a war you have no desire to fight wears on your spirit. It is amazing how fire is both a life-taker and a life-giver. The annoying itchiness is spreading across your skin, the frost and water turned to vapors, but you know it'll be a long, long time before you skin dries. This is just the beginning.

You roll a honey-colored eye in her direction, searching for something to say, but everything collides and you find the urge to talk about burning bodies and death upon your tongue, so you save your breath, and just watch her in the flickering orange light.

I guess I just like throwing them into difficult situations... x)