A tremble coursed down my body, a miniscule thing, but one that Sila would surely feel for how close she had pressed herself to me. Did your mother give it to you? Mother, Father – Astrid, Zaphkiel. Astraea, Vortigern, Tzadkiel. So many names, names I wish I could give her so that she could call them to me. So that maybe, just maybe, I could say goodbye to them. Or so they could bid me farewell. I hadn’t said goodbye before I had left for Diveen, I couldn’t even recall the last time our family had all been together. Or the last thing I’d said to each of them. These thoughts made my breaths increase once more, in a different type of panic. Though the beat of my heart had become sluggish, it felt as though it raced in my chest as I realized how much I had left unsaid and undone. Blinking rapidly, my heart and mind warred – to accept the peace that had begun to envelop me, or to fight against the inevitable, to keep myself from being another forgotten face and name of Moladion’s masses.

There was little to be done, though, and when Sila looked at me with such sadness in her eyes I knew the truth of that. I choked on a bit of blood caught in my throat, and the gurgling cough that followed made me wince, squeezing my eyes shut. It is then that the warmth of the girl leeches away into the earth, as she rises and parts her body from mine. A single dark blue eye, so delicately striated with the color of the sky, rolls back to watch as Sila lifts her head to the heavens and sings for me. The beautiful tones of her voice weave a sorrowful song, and it calms the anxieties that had bubbled to the surface of my consciousness once more. If they had ever wondered what had happened to me, Sila would bring my family some kind of closure. I trusted her with this, as my mind began to swim and fade.

My siblings danced behind my eyelids, racing about a clearing speckled with the last light of day as it filtered through the trees of our home. Tinkling laughter filled the air, the sound of my sister’s laugh, and as I lay on the ground I looked up at one brother as he rolled over on top of a stump and watched our antics. The other brother rests beside me, and I feel the comfort of his protection even now. They will be with me forever, in whatever unknown lies ahead for me.

A final thought occurred to me as the scene faded from my mind – death was so much warmer than I had imagined.

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Sila’s efforts had done more than she ever could have hoped. The bleeding slowed, the wounds beginning to properly clot – even the gaping wound at Asariel’s throat. But the blood loss had been too great for the young female to hold onto consciousness, and her grasp on this world was but a thin tendril. This thin tendril threatened to break, until another’s presence gave her new very soul new strength to survive. The warmth that engulfed her was not death – it was the presence of her imprint. Great paws drew him forth, his white and tan body looming over her as she teetered on the cusp of death. Severe eyes of icy blue looked down at her, taking stock of her injuries and calculating his next move. Barely a moment passed before his stocky frame lowered beside her, each movement made with surprising delicacy for one so thickly built, maneuvering her limp bodice onto his back. As the blood from her wounds slowly began to seep into the tan of his withers, he craned his head around and gently touched his nose to her fur. Hold on, he whispered softly. And then he was gone, without a second thought for Moladion and the lands he had long since left behind, Isaac took her to the only place he knew of that could help her.