dreams of broken glass - {x day 7}

[august vance d7b [Bella]]

x o v | t h a o

The unforgiving wind dried Maggie’s blood on Xov’s hands before the cannon fired.

It had happened like a puzzle falling into place: a slight change in footing, the spacing of her hands on the weapon, the twist of her hips as she hurled the pike forward, the follow-through of the blade. More a burst of luck than any ability she knew of. It was a miracle that Xov was still alive.

She didn’t feel lucky, though. Watching the metal cleave Maggie’s skull, a heaviness gripped her stomach like a fist, blood erupting from the place where she’d struck. A hole in Maggie’s head where the soul came out, as she had crumpled to the ground with a leaden thud. The air left Xov’s lungs in a horrified gasp.

Xov hadn’t known what to expect when killing someone, but it had been faster than she had imagined. Maggie was there, arguing with her, then gone, lights out, leaving her feeling shaken, suddenly more alone than she had ever felt.

Guilty. Because Maggie had told her, "The sooner you realize you're the only one that can save you, the better,” and the surge of stubborn resolve that followed may have saved her life.

How to go on when she owed her life to the dead?

For now, she stood staring at the weapon still buried in Maggie’s skull. The end of her story. The point that had ended the argument, but then not really. Xov couldn’t bring herself to take comfort in the cycle of death and rebirth she had defended so easily, when Maggie had insisted that she had only wanted to go back to being eighteen. And she felt too far from nature now. There was no comfort in this.

She didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to speak. Moving now was like turning the page. And the pike. How could she pull it out, and watch the blood pour from the wound again?

A tremor shook her limbs; she was vibrating with apprehension. There was no escaping that she would need to do this again, and even this had taken all her strength. Blood caked on her skin, pulling at the thin white hairs of her arms. She knelt and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of Maggie’s glaive, pulling it from her hands before the grip set in.

”Thank you,” she croaked, coughed, her throat letting go of another unnameable sound. Sobbing and laughing were both so similar anyway.

”I meant what I said about lighting the incense for you,” she said, but the words felt empty. There was no Maggie anymore in the direction she was speaking.

She had to get out of there, a voice in her head began to remind her. Four names left between her and home, and time was wearing thin. A curtain of death had fallen over the room, cold and hungry.

With one last look, Xov turned and ran before it could touch her.

{actions in maint}