#ruby red fox

You think you know what it's like being alone?

Being left alone?

Think again.

I can tell you what it's fucking like to be left alone. One day you're basically half of a whole. You know who you are, who you're with and what you're supposed to do.

...then your other half is fucking GONE.

One stupid fucking decision and they're GONE and you're fucking alone and you have no gods damned reason to be alive and you can't figure out what to do or what you're supposed to do. You're back where you started but it's worse now because now you KNOW what you're missing. Now you know what it felt like to BE that half.

So you go looking for a way to get to them. You finish the one thing you have to do and you go to find them. Because they'd do it for you, right? You were half of a whole. They wouldn't fucking leave you to wander around like a bloody gods damned fucking idiot.

And then?

You find out who the real idiot is.

You're the fucking idiot because you thought hey, you're half of a whole and they'd come for you no matter what, right? Guess again, moron. Turns out you're not as important as someone else.

So this other person that wasn't even really a big fucking deal in your life is suddenly EVERYTHING to the one you thought was your bloody fucking other half. And they go to THAT person.

Not you.

They leave YOU to wander around for-fucking-ever while they're so fucking happy to just be able to watch out for that other gods damned person. You're not even a thought to them until oh suddenly they realize you're gone.

...that's being left alone. Realizing you're the only one who cared as much as you thought both of you did, realizing you still fucking care like that and knowing that no matter what fucking happens, you're always going to be the second choice. 

 “...well...”

When she raked her hand through her hair, she was at once surprised to realize she even had the capability to do so. It distracted her for a moment, and when she looked around once more, she wondered just... exactly what had happened. 

“It’s confusing, I know.”

 The voice was low and rough, sounding as if the woman speaking had spent a lifetime smoking, with a strangely soothing tone. When she turned, the pirate had to blink once at the sight of the diminutive redhead standing behind her. Large amethyst eyes looked up at Valme and the oddly doll-like face twisted into a smile that looked unnaturally jaded. “Being dead tends to be one of those things that doesn’t make sense.”

 “...last I checked, I was on the shore when I ate a bullet,” Valme growled, looking around again at the oddly monochrome forest that surrounded them. 

 “And I did myself in while sitting in a tomb.” The tiny woman shrugged, flexing her small hands. “Like I said, being dead doesn’t make sense.”

 “Who the fuck ‘re you, anyway?” 

    Rather than answer, the small redhead moved closer and extended her left arm. A scar... no, a brand was visible on her pale flesh. As Valme examined it, she felt a strange pang twist her heart. It was a stylized fox’s face, small and clearly burned into the skin. Sea blue met clear violet, and the two women stared at each other for a moment. 

  “So you’re the wife.”

  “I was.” Ruby Red Fox shrugged again as she shook her blood-red hair back and put her hands on her hips, turning to look out at the forest.

  “He’s still carryin’ a torch for you.” Valme patted herself down and almost laughed when she realized she was searching for her hip flask. Her hands fell to her sides. “Said a lot ‘bout how I was like you.”

  “I know.” Ruby smirked, another expression which was at strong variance with her demure appearance.

  “What, you hauntin’ him so you hear everythin’?” 

  “No, but I... Huh, I haven’t tried explaining this to anyone. Even the crazy redhead he was with before didn’t ask questions like this.”

  “...another crazy redhead? The fuck? How many women has he got?” Valme glanced around, brow furrowing. “She going to pop up, too?”

 “No, she didn’t kill herself. She just died.” Ruby snorted. “Lucky bitch.”

 “...fuckin’ gods, does he just put the kiss of death on women?”

 The small woman rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet as she crossed her arms over her stomach. “...no idea,” Ruby said finally, shaking her hair out of her eyes. It was odd how she was the only vividly coloured spot in ...wherever they were. “Garret’s just got a thing for redheads,” she continued, reaching up to give her hair a yank. “He died on me, but I guess that didn’t change.”

  “He di- Right. Doll... thing. Whatever the fuck’s goin’ on with that.” Valme sighed heavily, 

  “Yeah.” Ruby chuckled, tilting her head back to stare overhead at the shapeless grey fog. “Gets himself killed protecting Aria, haunts her and then comes back and ends up still chasing her.”

  Valme could almost hear her own frown. “That Aria. He went off to see her, I think. Got a letter from her.”

  “She calls, he’ll come,” the small woman said, shrugging yet again. “Just... how it’s always been. Pretty sure no one’s ever going to mean to him what she does.”

  “...so he was lying when he said he cared about... any of us,” the pirate snarled. 

  Ruby paced in a small circle, shuffling through a layer of damp, brackish leaves. “Not really. Just... He didn’t love me more than he did her.” She paused, looking back up to the dim sky. “Pretty much nobody he loves more than her, even if he did marry me.”

  “Motherfuckin’ scum-suckin’ whelp! I’d break his gods damned face if I could!” Valme spun, the rage rising into a crimson haze, and slammed her fist against the nearest tree. There was no warning flare of pain when her knuckles connected, and she hit it again and again... and again, punching the rough bark repeatedly as wet leaves showered down about her. 

  Ruby made no move to stop her. With her slender arms crossed, the other redhead watched mutely, waiting out the explosion of temper. Only after Valme’s hand dropped and she stood with shoulders hanging did the smaller woman step closer and turn that incongruous grin up to her. “Yeah, I know. Felt about the same when I figured out he wasn’t coming to me but he’d decided to stay and haunt the baker.”

  “Why?” There was more pain in the outcry than Valme had intended to express, but her throat was tight and she couldn’t control the tone. 

  “...we just didn’t matter as much,” Ruby said with a wry twist to her rosebud mouth. She gave the taller woman a slight nudge with her shoulder before turning away, moving with light steps over the wet leaves. 

 It was cold. 

 That was really all that had seeped into her mind deeply enough to garner attention. As she sat on the stone floor, small feet curled beneath her, the diminutive redhead was aware of feeling profoundly cold. 

  Perhaps it was just the emptiness. It had been temperate, or... One could presume so, considering it was early autumn. She hadn't paid the time of year any more heed than she had the people that she'd deftly avoided with the honed practice of a lifetime. Nothing had caught her eye. Nothing had caught her ear. Even the stones underfoot, so different from the soft soil and the jagged gravel she'd trudged across to come here, had been merely a surface. An obstacle to be surmounted in order to reach the only goal she knew.

  And here, with the tomb doors drawn as tightly shut as she could manage from the inside, sitting as close to the glossy black casket as possible, she felt cold. 

    Ruby Red Kendrix pressed her numb cheek against her husband's coffin and let out a small, tired sigh that was terrible in its' resignation. In her hand was the slim, flexible piece of sharpened steel that she'd plucked from the ground- the only object to catch her eye in months. One fingertip touched the point, traced the rough edge, petted the steel repeatedly. The skin around the tightly clutched object was already reddening from her grip, but just as everything else for the past seven months, it was unimportant to her. What was a little discomfort now? 

 As she had never imagined possible, she hurt. She hurt so thoroughly that the screaming of damaged living tissue was a muted whisper. Had it been physical, she could have withstood it as she'd done with worse injury in her life. A few torn muscles, strain and exhaustion? She'd had part of her body flayed while she was conscious; her current physical state was nothing by comparison. Rest would have mended all that ailed her body. 

 What it could not do was give her reason to live. 

 Drawing her knees to her chest, the tiny woman burrowed harder against the casket's side, and rubbed her cheek to the lacquered wood as if she could, by pressure alone, feel her dead husband's hand against her skin. In seven months, Ruby had made no sound, but now, she whimpered. Only the tomb heard her, and the uncaring stone paid no heed to the tiny expressions of unremitting agony. 

 The hurt was unending and the source... She couldn't attack it, couldn't destroy it as she'd done to other things which caused her pain. An absence was something that couldn't be slaughtered. It could only be endured, and Ruby had no such strength to do so. It had taken every iota of the fighting spirit which had gotten her through the years to come this far. Beyond the hurt, beyond the cold, there was only a moment to pass. 

  Then? Oh, then. Then she would have her Fox again. 

  Dull violet eyes brightened momentarily as Ruby shifted, clung to the side of the casket and pulled herself atop it with shaking limbs. The brand on the inside of her wrist, dark against her pasty white skin, caught her eye, and the small woman pressed her face against the coffin's surface. Tears hadn't welled. Not now. Not in seven months. Not on the day she had learned that her reason for living was no longer alive. 

  A phrase? Melodramatic, perhaps?

  Not for Ruby.

  It wasn't pain. It was very nearly pleasure- a sharpness that bled forth a warmth that smelled of comforting copper. The seeping wetness that spread from her forearms, made the casket's lid slick and clung to her skin made the glossy black surface nearly warm. With a soft exhalation, the tiny woman curled herself into a ball, drawing her knees tightly to her chest as she wedged herself onto the coffin. If she put her ear to the wood, Ruby could delude herself into believing that the slowing pulse of her own heartbeat was not her own. 

    She could hear her Fox's heart, beating in slow time with hers. 

  Yes... 

  She could hear her Fox's heart.

   I know why he did it... Doesn't mean it didn't hurt to realize he'd picked looking after her over being with me. 

   Guess it's irrelevant now. He's back and walking, and I'm... still dead. The thing is I don't mind being dead. I don't feel so... weird anymore. Like I know where the other half of me is; he's not lost. I saw him. I could touch him. I could tell him I loved him and that our son's alive. 

   ...hell, our son's the only proof I was ever alive. 

  Garret will be all right. He's a survivor. He always was. I tried to get to where I am now so many times before him... He can do the alive thing without me.

   I couldn't do it without him. 

  She'll be good for him, I think. Maybe just because she's crazy, too. I know she looks enough like me that he'll want to take care of her. It'll keep him from killing that guy who's with the baker, at least. That's my gift to you, Aria. I'm giving you the man you fell in love with, and giving my husband someone who'll need him the way I did. 

 No matter where she went... It was the same. 

 A diminutive figure washed of all colour save for a hint of amythest still visible in the large eyes that looked at a world toned in shades of grey, she drifted across the landscape. There were features to it- some were things she remembered vaguely, others were just shapes- but the world itself... It was lifeless.

 Cold.

 ...and utterly empty.

 She remembered in some formless way that she was here to find someone. A someone that had once been everything to her. Yellow eyes that had flashed and sparkled, glared and gazed... Yellow eyes that never left her thoughts as she continued moving without weariness. It was only the memory of those eyes and what they still meant which held her here.

  ...a voice called to her at times.

  Cool. Calm. Emotionless. It was compelling, powerful in a world where nothing held substance. She turned often to listen to it calling a name that none who had known her living would have believed was hers. It was a name that still held a hold to her, but when she heard it, she remembered. 

  And so she wandered. 

  She'd said that she would find him on the other side of the Mists. Surely he was here, seeking her as well. Surely what had given her meaning in life would be present in death. With the loss of herself had come the loss of the insanity which had twisted her in living, and all that was left was that she loved.

  Loved. Longed for. Waited. Searched. 

    What had once been Ruby Red Fox turned away from the luring voice of the Prince of Ice and continued again along her unending trek through the flat painting that was her existence. 

  Her world had been one man, once. 

  It would be again.

  She had only to be patient. To wait. To continue her slow search to find him. Surely... She had waited here for him. 

  ...surely... he would come for her.