She went to him straight away, sans AED this time—thank fuck.
She knocked on his door and had to bite away the butterflies when she heard the deep rasp of his morning voice calling her to enter. Obeying, she was shocked to see him up and about, smelling clothes to see what was clean. "You're up."
He found a longsleeve and smirked. "Do you want me down?"
She ignored him. Raging blush aside, Alice snapped a finger at him when he started laying back down. "No, no, no. Get some shoes on and make them boots—we're going on a walk."
"A walk?" Complained Sieg. "That sounds tedious and sweaty and I just showered!"
She dragged him out nonetheless and soon, late afternoon found them deep in the forest. They'd long passed the river by and While she heaved breath with every step, Sieg's color returned with every next. He couldn't understand it awhile, especially when they came at a mountain's bottom.
He looked back and just happened to realize that they'd been following a trail, just happened to realize that he'd just been tricked into doing exercise, tricked into hiking. Treason!
And worst still, she kept going. She was sweating enough to make a bath, breathing hard enough to call herself the west wind, but she kept going. They were nearing the top when she slipped on air and kissed the ground. It took everything in him not to be childish then, he bit his lips into a quivering line and plucked her from the ground like a napkin.
Sieg threw her over his shoulder like sack and hand on her bum, made the rest of the way up. When he got there—gosh he could've just roared! Lion-like, even. Aye, he felt taller than Mt. Everest, felt higher than an addict on red honey, felt like he wanted to run off the cliff and fly—he settled for sitting at the edge instead and watching him swing his feet like a giddy little kiddie, Alice joined.
Save for the wind and its roar, It was quiet awhile—then it calmed and with it came Alice's courage.
"I'm sorry."
"What?" He fully expected a lion king moment right there and then, but all she did was play with her hands.
"You're sick, aren't you?"
"Well," Sieg fully intended to lie, then she met his eyes and he couldn't, so he avoided it. "It's not sick, per se. It's just parts of my being are missing and my body remembers what I was born as, not what I am now. It struggles to keep up sometimes, to adapt—hence the power naps, however long they may stretch. Think of 'em as a system reload."
"Is there any way I can help?"
"Oh love, no. You can't return me my immortality, nor my-" The dimples in his cheeks deepened. "I'm fine. Besides, it ain't all bad. I can taste food now, taste more than food if you catch my drift." He wiggled his eyebrows. "Yeah, it's like living with Asthma—I have things that help me cope." The hagstone was two and-
"This is one, right?" She reached into her shirt and off the chain she pulled out, hung this gold little number with a red ruby at its head.
His heart dropped so suddenly, Sieg nearly edged off the cliff. He blinked, chest rising fast. He felt caught."What are you doing with that?"
"You gave up everything for me, so I don't think it right to hold you here with the last thing that you have." She yanked the chain free and let the ring fall into her palms—so busy staring at it all dazed, Alice didn't see how hard Sieg flinched watching her and the ring. Didn't see the tears he was fighting back at all. Then she looked up and handed it over with a sigh as dolorous as he felt.
Sieg didn't hesitate; he took it into his hands as if a sleeping baby, turning it every which way for bumps and grinds. He slid it over his fourth digit and only when he felt that familiar pulse did he release the breath that he'd been holding. "Niles." He ran a thumb over it and a kind of acceptance passed over his face. Now it all made sense, all that lion in him.
"Now you can reap again."
His chuckle shook his chest. "Reaping is in the touch, Chickadee. Scythes are just a tools to be used in emergencies when a great number dies. Think a computer's select-all option and you've got it down pat. Yeah, reaping is in the touch and mine was taken long ago."
She saw how his shoulder sunk for this, so she nudged her shoulder to his. "Can still do some killer karate with that thing though, eh?"
His dimples appeared again. "Ooh-rah."
Upon Sieg's suggestion, they started playing osselet with pebbles. Alice was fast, but Sieg cheated mercilessly. He'd cough when she was readying to throw, say something naughty while she was trying to catch, and put his fallen rocks back into his palms as she watched and argue that he'd caught them.
"Can I ask you something?" She said after a little scuffle over the winner title.
"You can ask me anything."
"Do all scythes have names?"
"No."
"Then why do you call yours Niles? You threw a tantrum when it was gone, what makes it so special?"
"Okay...okay, I take it back." And though he followed her in the laugh that she gave, he could not help the knot that appeared in his throat as the question echoed in the back of his mind...he couldn't tell her.
And how could he tell her? How could he tell her that his last act as a reaper had been to reap their unborn child from her body before it had even breathed? The child that, boy or girl, she'd so wanted to name Niles?
How could he tell her that this ring...not only held half of his own soul, but its incomplete one as well? For that was his curse, the reminder of losing a child just as him.
"Thanks again, Dad." Sieg thought all bitter, too bitter to see her scooting closer to him. He didn't see it 'til he felt her hand atop of his and her skin was burning.
"You're warm." He told her and that worried him, for every bit of humanity that showed up in Alice told of how close her demise was. Aye. Riches, women, and everything in between? you lost it all when death came a-knockin'.
