And with his weakening breath,
The man whispered a tale untold by anyone,
Never spoken in the ages since it passed,
“O, once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Light chafing with her shores,
Zaha said to me, ‘Dar’st thou, Mille Feuille, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood
And swim to yonder point?’ Upon the word,
Accoutered though I was, I plunged in
And bade him follow; so indeed he did.
The torrent roared, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinew, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Zaha cried, ‘Help me, Mille Feuille, or I sink.’
Ay, as Big Mamma, our great deity,
Did from the flames of Death upon her shoulders
The old Shichu’ten bear, so from the waves of Light
Did I carry tirèd Zaha. And this man
Did soon become a monster, and Mille Feuille,
A wretched creature who is all helpless
To bravely fight upon the battle feilds.”
And then he clutched at his mortal injuries,
And looked out upon the world,
Bright with sun, and deep with shadow,
And felt his lifesblood slipping from his skin.
But the faithful companion cried,
“Die not, my friend, O good hearted man,
It is not yet your time to follow the Messenger
Into Death’s hellish house! You must
Hold strong, and wait. The light
In your tow-couloured eyes shall return:
You will see, all will be well again, dear man!
Do not surrender your heart to Death’s cold grip
Yet. You must fight. I shall help you, friend!
Fight! Tell the Messenger it is not your time!”
He clutched his friend’s hand tightly,
Clutching to the metal gauntlet with the hard-put
Desperation of a man denied the hope of future life.
And yet, despite the prayers he whispered, his companion
Began to slip still beyond, and the light did not return.
“You must hold on, friend, you must stay!
We need you here, O good-hearted Knight, we need you!”
But the deep-tressed man, dying as he was,
Only smiled gently at his companion, they the only two
Left living among the scattered bodied of the others dead since
The beginning of the unholy battle of wills. He said,
“No, young mage, you must not make me stay.
For Death with her white wings is coming for me:
I can taste her breath this very moment, I can feel her beating wings.”
But the youth cried out, gripping the other’s hand
The more tightly in his anguish, saying outloud in greif,
“But, man, Death has no white wings! Her wings are black,
Like midnight, deep to match her bottomless despair. Surely
It must be the angels you see, coming to carry you off,
High into the heavens. You must surely deserve this,
You who have fought so bravely, who will die so nobl’y!”
O, but then the dying man smiled again, weak with pain,
And brought the boy’s white-skinned hand to his own
Blood-drenched lips. He kissed the boy, then, on the hand,
Leaving a smeared sign of his own life, and spoke:
“Let me tell you another story, my fine-haired boy, for this story
Is one you must hear now or later, and would that I tell you it
Instead of someone else, for it is my story, if no one else’s.
I wish I had time to tell you more, for there is so much,
But I fear that I have little time left. You, however,
You have years ahead of you, many in number. You shall be
The only one of our forces to survive, I think, and rightly so.
You are the one who has earned a good life, not I, for the Fates
Have deemed that you have a longer thread than the rest of our
Ill-fated company. The oracles of the great Church have said so,
And the Great Mother has always known it to be in your veins
That you would live beyond even her.”
“No!” cried the raven-tressed lad. “Do not tell me it is so!
Do not tell me that our deity herself, the Great Goddess,
Has passed on with the rest of these who lie dead on this feild.”
Through failing lips, the Knight in return spoke sadly:
“It is true, boy, it is true. She lies fallen in her inner sanctum,
A victim of a battle so great it has drained away her very life.”
The youth began to weep, not just for his Patroness,
But for the dead, or for this one who would soon join the other lost souls.
“Ah, but do not interrupt anymore, dear boy,” said the fallen softly,
“For I have much to tell you, and precious little time to tell it in.
Let me speak my peice before I pass on with white-winged Death.”
So the youth bit back his tears and listened to his elder speak,
And, much to his surprise, a tale of deeper, unkown beauty
Fell from the dying man’s lips, a plea for all -
What had been, what would come, and what had no chance to flower.
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