Falls

He is a hair's breadth from sealing away my ability to talk forever, and I can practically feel his breath against my skin, doom and desire mixing into something too potent for me to decipher. I trembled - as I had through most of this encounter - but I refused to let myself shy away from him again. The words I had uttered clanged around in my head, banging from side to side and making all other thinking impossible despite the fact that mere moments ago I'd been too paralyzed by thought to defend myself.

I did not know if they were true. I felt like they had come from somewhere inside of me that existed outside of my control, the same as if my lungs had suddenly grown the ability to speak on their own and used me like a puppet. But it was the fact that I didn't know if they were true that made me consider the terrifying prospect that they were, indeed, true, because I could not soundly deny them. When or how or where such an affection would have any time to develop was beyond my capacity to reason, but it did not feel as if it mattered. A part of me believed it, even if the rest of me hadn't yet caught on.

He was still moments away from ending my life and there was a part of me that I didn't recognize that wanted - if I was going to die - to do so having wrought some sort of change upon this world. I didn't know if this would be it, if I had the power to touch a heart so deeply encased in pain and fear and darkness. But he froze at my confession, confusion threading its way across his face while he stared at me as though I'd grown two extra heads. It is comical, but I have no amusement in me, just barely enough left over sass to think: You heard me.

He doubts me, and I don't blame him. I doubt me, too. But these words, too, bubble up on their own, accompanied by a wry chuckle that makes me gasp in pain as the broken rib stabs something vital and small pauses as I struggle to breathe. "Have I ever lied to you?"

I have time to take a breath, but it does not feel right. Flecks of blood freckle my lips and I pant softly trying to regain my senses. My death still hung over us like an ominous cloud, and though I still did not feel as though I had lived enough life to warrant its taking, I found little left in me to fight against it. I had once asked if Garmr would cage me if the Lagoon did not exist, and though he had not answered me then, it had been answer enough. I leaned forward, attempting to place my forehead against his head. Into that small space that existed between us, that small space between my life and my forever sleep, I whispered: "If I am lying, then set me free."