A Love Story

A Love Story

By
Sloane Gulay

This is a story of a man and a woman.
A love story, if you will.

The woman, you see, was a recluse -
only leaving the sanctuary of her
dwelling when duty sought to it. Fate
would have it, however, that duty often
befell where he was nearby. She never
spoke to him - never avowed to the
knowledge of his existence, but she had
noticed him. And not long would it be
before he began to encroach upon her
thoughts. With thoughts of him came
curiosity, and with curiosity came desire.
A form of desire, that is - not quite in the
way that one desires the affections of
another. Not yet. No, this was a desire for
answers.

What had brought him close to those

that required her service? Had he taken
note of her presence, as she had his?
What was he like beneath his charming
visage? That charming visage that
seemed to shadow amidst her proximity.

Before long, she began to emerge
more frequently - during times that
didn't necessitate that she ought. She
would follow him, covertly watching him
in his daily routine for so many turns that
her heart began to grow fond. He, to her,
was an elegant bird preening his feathers
for her to see. For many cycles, she was
content with merely admiring him from
afar - but that fondness in her heart
eventually grew into an ache, and she
would soon crave more than mere
observation.

She would woo him, she had decided,
and she would start simple. Gifts would
be left at his threshold; sweet little
things that reminded her of him. Turn
after turn she would leave a reminder for
him to find, and turn after turn...

He would deny it.

With each new gift, her hope would
rekindle and ignite. This would be the gift
he would cherish; this would be the one
to win his heart. And when it did, she
would be able to reveal herself to him -
to greet him with an embrace. But still,
the results were the same. At first he
would make a spectacle of disposing
each gift, but over time he began to
merely pass them over without a glance -
ignoring her offerings as they began to

pile upon his stoop.

But that's the way of it, isn't it? People
don't tend to take kindly to dead things
showing up on their doorstep - and he
was no exception. The canary had been
heart-wrenching; to see a beautiful
songbird in such a state of a lifelessness.
The swan had been fear-inducing; great
effort would be required to slay such a
large bird. The dove, the cockatoo, the
kingfisher - each romanticized in their
significance, and each strengthening his
fear to a new level.

Death, it would seem, had been
following him. He couldn't count the
number of them he'd witnessed in his
past twelve cycles alone. They weren't
limited to the deaths of a close friend, an

elderly family member - no. He'd even
seen the deaths of strangers; the man
who had seized in the market, the
woman whose throat had bled out at the
hand of a bandit, the child who had
fallen too terribly ill to sustain an outing
to the local cleric.

Bearing witness to all of these
occurrences had been taxing enough as
they were - but now, with the fragile and
feathered corpses piling at his stoop, he
couldn't help but to wonder if he'd been
cursed. Was it an omen? A threat? Could
someone have been taunting him?

Over time, his fear would grow so
potent that it was all he knew. It began
to consume him, so much to the point
that it became almost an addiction.

Without his fear, he would have nothing -
he would be nothing.

...And that's when the 'gifts' ceased.
Death, you see, is a manipulative and
selfish mistress. She had grown vexed at
the refusal of her gifts and their careless
disposal. The dead, she thought, ought
to be revered. Still, she would have him.
The thread of his fate was in her hands,
and always had been - but he would be
the one to bring her the shears.

Turns passed whilst he suffered the
lack of her ubiquity. It's difficult to
overlook the presence of Death. He
hadn't quite overlooked, but his
awareness of her had been more subtle -
and he felt her absence like a void in his
chest. It wasn't a void that could be

filled, try as he may. Be it by drink, or an
instigation of conflict - sometimes both,
or more. Always to no avail. And when
the idea to take more drastic measures
struck him, there she was - within the
periphery of his vision, where his
property met the woods.

She beckoned him forth with the
crook of a spindly finger, and he obeyed.
She, to him, was a dangerous entity -
both sinister and beautiful. She enticed
him, coaxed and lured him forward
without a single word, despite the fact
that every fiber of his being begged that
he run.

The fear that he had so sorely craved
filled the emptiness in his chest to the
brim and beyond - until it gushed forth,

acting as a sweet intoxicant. That's the
funny thing about fear; it can be so easily
misguided. The flutter of his heartbeat,
the drop of his stomach, the shortness of
his breath. They were mistaken for
devotion, infatuation, lust.

The proverbial shears were already in
his hand - and he held them out in offer
by way of a deep, and fatal, kiss.