#we fall

His kisses spread like wild fire and push back the storm that rages around the ship back to Stormwind. Her hands hold to his back, he is an anchor-- and she breaths in the scent of salt and storm.  It is late into the evening when they arrive, giggles erupting as they pass by their ignorant fellow travelers-- all the way back up the mountain. To their perch. The storm follows and they arrive soaked to the bone. But tonight they are soaring. Tonight they have joy.  Sleep finds her easily.  And so do the dreams. 

A cold fog seeps under his front door and spreads across the floor. The arctic presence of Her freezes the air and grips Eilithe’s whole body. Not the thickest blanket, nor the loveliest moment could shake it.  Not tonight. She does not want this, but the Harbinger’s voice does not quiet for the wants of her charges. Eilithe is ridge in the bed beside him, staring wide-eyed at the open, yawning abyssal maw that shrieks so loudly that it shatters her world entirely.  The room is black. Her eyes fail to adjust. But she can hear that melodic, sweet voice. The voice of a fool, a fool who is dead.  “You ever stayed around to watch a storm end? That exact second when you can see the dark clouds parting?“ Eilithe’s eyes well up, she can feel her heart kicking against her chest. “Ulir?” “Hoy! I’m waxing poetic. About fire. The Storm. Or the sea.”  Conversations fold in on themselves, voices lay over one another. She hears her own voice. “I hate the sea.” She loves the sea. “Because it is vast, because it is unending. Because it is calm. Because it is volatile. Because it is dangerous. Because it cannot love me back.”  “Hardest place to look is the sea,” Ulir adds and light breaks dim in the hull of a stagnant ship. Ulir is laid on the floor-- he is laughing. But something is behind him, something in the shadows with two white eyes that pierce into Eilithe’s skin. “Because you can’t stand on it.” The laughing stops and he smacks a hand against the wood so hard that Eilithe fears the ship will break. He drags across the floor. The sound is wet. “I sang about the bodies crawling through dirt,” he drags closer, and that is when she sees it. The trail of maroon that stains the deck he slides across. “...About those who tore their bellies against rock and gravel and soil until their blood mixed with mud and they were pulling the weight of their own guts with them.”

Eilithe is frozen again. She cannot force her body any further away from him. He is dying. No, he is dead and she knows this. He crawls to her until she can feels the slick of those dragged guts, until she can feel the heat of his breathing beside her ear. “Because I want them to fly, damnit!” He laughs loud in her ear. “..If I can sing their life into the air, then they'll grow wings.”  They’ll fly.  It all breaks then. They are wingless as they fall from the stars. Eilithe is heavy, she is plummeting so much faster than he is. Her hand reaches for him and Ulir merely smiles. “He thought fate devoured his rainbow. But there's still sky above the clouds... Just gotta reach it.” He bursts. Thousands of beautiful blue butterflies abandon her to freefall. There is lightening. There is thunder. The wind cuts through her on all sides. She wants to fly. She wants to grow wings.  But she falls... and falls... and falls... And CRUNCH.