Of All You've Left Behind | Learna's Death

It’s silent.

Quite uncanny, when I’m more accustomed to slaving souls treading forward, sloshing the dark waters to the endless void, a thousand whimpers building a symphony for my own. But not a single note rises tonight, and though the lapping continues, ad a soul waders here and there, there’s a churning inside of me. Only then with a mournful sigh did I realize and understand the same pangs souls have when they’ve just gone from their world, swarming with men. Between this corner and that, there was darkness and nothing more.

I’m lonely. Terribly lonely.

- - - -

It’s coming, it’s coming.

[/color] It fills my mind until it blends seamlessly among the voices. It’s a chant all around me, and I can’t block them out. My dress flutters, my arms shiver, and my foot do their best to fly; soles barely a second a step. A rumble comes in, low and far, but I like to think the jagged lines that lit up the sky are hands and they’re coming to get me — that way I run much, much faster.[/color] With a twist, a slam, and my back against the hardwood door, heavy breaths escape from brittle lungs that threaten to collapse. Her room’s a mess, but that it’s better — at least I know disaster has struck and won’t come back.

“Dammit, you’re louder than the storm.” The words could barely pass through her pressed lips, but they stab nevertheless. “Is your room flooded?”

“Well yours isn’t.” Despite her disapproving stare at my quite spite, I softened my rigid stance. She ought to know I only have one reason to flee my own room, my own refuge during my calamity, and that was a figure covered in a blanket, hunched in the shadows and hoping it will spare her, for in her eyes lightning was a camera’s flash and thunder the shutter click. “Her fear is enough,” I say in a low voice, halting currents as if a single tremor would stir a whirlpool and drown us all.

I crawl beside her, right under the window, with my back against the wall, and hug my knees. I’d lean against her knee, but the wall is cold enough.

I like to think that I’m safe inside these four walls, cornered between upturned pillowcases and Ursula’s frown, but she has taught me to fear the storm.



The fight — it’s a storm. A blood one, and her worst. No 'yet,' because this, well, this was her last. There had been more attacks and more cackles. I thought I would finally find peace once the souls were out and free, but I didn’t know the price to be paid was heavy — heavy and painful. My lower lip insists to tremble, and I wish it would stop but it wouldn’t, and instead I murmur the low thrumming of a lullaby my only option of peace among slaughter. “Lay down your head...”



“...and I’ll sing you a lullaby,” The sky and the seas were painted in one shade, and that was a dreary, milky grey. If not for the faint line that made the horizon, the lapping waves and the gulls that flied overhead, I wouldn’t know the difference. I laid by Ursula’s lap while she sang and I took for granted those days where she was hopefully barren of all emotions and trickery (but she wasn’t — “What are you doing here, Learna?” “There’s nothing to do.” “You want me to give you something to do?”). I had a lullaby in exchange for shopkeeping duties for a week, but in the dullness of the weather and the melancholy of her voice, I was numb.

(I wish I was numb when their blades sliced my skin.)



I hear a stirring, and among the darkness I could see the faint shade of red. It doesn’t take light for me to realize who it was. “Well, you’re early.” I hold out my paddle to her, and she took but held her other arm behind her back so tightly, like she was hiding something. “Will I need a coin?” Her voice trembles, so unlike when I’ve first met her. “No, no, he’ll understand.” We start heading toward the lands, and sit, though I’m more comfortable in steering the boat standing up. I glance behind me, and see her looking out to where nothing is. An arm is hanging over, and the other over her lap — with no hand. How much did it hurt, little girl?

Her remaining hand lay on the air, fingers a mere inch or two from touching the surface of the river. “Look, Charon, it’s like I have a pair.”

Haunting, daunting — it was ghost white yet still, even more. They bore the same marks, dried blood fading but staying, it wasn’t quite the same. It was flesh on bone, like born anew, though blood stains: no wounds. Lethe could offer the most wondrous things, like in Learna's case, forgetting her death.

I could hear her thoughts -

Their faces. Echoing last words. Make them go away...

- and they echoed endlessly like (a finally) empty stadium, a box cleaned out of the dusty trinkets and torn letters. Her moss-like green eyes replayed her death and if they could speak, they screamed.[/color]

Everything would be gone.

Everything would be gone.

Everything would be gone.[/b]

(I never knew thoughts could be powerful, when mine lay muddled and lost among souls.)[/color]

It was tempting, to tip the boat over to get her agony over with. The corners of my mouth pulled itself downward and dug, but a glance at her wounds and imagined her pain when struck.

“Lethe won’t mind.”

Silence. But silence, you are a beautiful beast. You devour what comes between solitude and person, and if you love, take the person too, won't you?[/color]

“You’ll forget all of them.”

Make them go away. Please? The stony arms that hold her. If they could just move...

“Penelope too?”

“Right through the eye...”

“Now fall off to sleep...”

“And Ursula.”

“Make her scream —”

And I do scream. I scream Ursula’s name.

“Find a way, to say goodbye, Libertine... This is goodnight!”

“Goodnight...”

A long time passed — or so I thought, it’s absolutely difficult to keep track of Time when everything’s so dark — and we journeyed on in silence, until I felt the boat shift slightly and I felt her head leaning against my back. If I hadn’t heard her sobs I would’ve mistaken it as blood coming right out of her wounds. O Little — I can’t even whisper it, they’ve been mangled and tainted with her own blood and filthy palms.

“Then they stay.”

That was the end of the broken jar that held souls until she shook, but Learna? She was only starting, breathing.

Chapter One —

She begun it crying.
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OOC -- [ Finally her Death!post, in all it's unpolished glory. Thank you so much to Lulu and Aya, to the Gamemakers, and of course Lalia for the whole Libertine idea and even allowing me a chance to write this wonderful character <333 Chelsey, kalsjdlaskda words cannot describe my love for Ursula and Learna okay ILY TWIN. Stars of Orion - Claudia, Nofo <33 Also, Clover, thank you for tribsitting while my Internet spazzed out. You are wonderful <3 Last but not the least, to those who sponsored and betted on Learna, you're getting no refunds thank you for your help <333 ]
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