Where We End

The sand around their feet whispered, speaking of secrets they could not understand, the grains caught up by the breeze that swept over the dunes. It was a soft sound. Gentle. Ansa gazed out at the endless expanse of glowing orange, fiery in the light of the setting sun.

“We will never be here again,” Ansa said, her voice catching in her throat. “Together.”

At her side Inara remained silent, gazing out at everything and nothing.

Ansa turned abruptly to face her, refusing to so much as blink as she took in Inara’face. “Will you remember us? Will you remember all the things we did? Will you remember that we stood here?” She moved to stand in front of Inara and took hold of one of her hands, feeling the warmth of her skin and the callouses on her palms. Their gazes locked. “They say that when you wake up, you will remember nothing… but will you try to remember us?” Remember me, remember me, remember me.

A sad smile graced Inara’s mouth as she gently cupped Ansa’s face with her free hand and leant in to press a kiss to her forehead. “I swear on every star in the night sky that I will find a way to remember.” Her voice was unsteady, a touch too high. As Inara spoke, Ansa’s shoulders began to shake as she tried and failed to hold back her tears. Inara continued, “I could never forget you. You are everything to me.”

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. They had fought so hard, for so long, and they had been through so much together. They had been through war, they had traveled oceans and countries, they had fought and bled and fought some more. They had learnt to find peace in the violence, they had found the eye at the center of the storm. They had finally found a way to be together, and now they were going to lose each other forever.

Inara had always been a fighter, a brave visionary, a warrior with a dreamer’s heart. She had always wanted the world to be the very best it could be. She had always wanted to save all of the good things that existed in the darkness. It was one of the reasons Ansa had fallen for her. But it also meant that when their leaders had approached Inara with a mission that was their people’s last hope of ever defeating their enemy, Inara had said yes. Reluctantly, with a heavy heart… but she had said yes. And Ansa could not bring herself to resent Inara for that. There was so much at stake that it did not matter what the two of them wanted, or deserved.

The sun had reached the horizon, staining the sky blood red.

“It’s time, isn’t it?” Inara asked quietly. Her gaze was on Ansa now, not the sunset. She was staring at Ansa without blinking like she might physically imprint her face into her memory. Ansa looked right back, gaze moving over all of those little details she loved and knew like the pages of her favorite book; the exact shade of her green eyes in the light of the sunset, the serious set of her eyebrows, the little scar on her cheek, the faint freckles dusting her cheeks, the strands of hair drifting in the breeze.

“Yes,” Ansa said, voice hollow. “Yes, it is.”

They held hands as they turned from the sunset and walked into the cool shade of the temple. It would be Inara’s resting place until the time was right for her to return to the world and defeat the darkness plaguing their world once and for all. Their footsteps echoed along the stone walls, and Ansa tried to memorize even that. She did not want to forget anything, not a single detail.

They entered a circular chamber with a vaulted ceiling, its walls painted with scenes of battle and life. Torches were set in brackets along the walls, flickering, casting long shadows. Ten tombs sat around the edge of the room, empty and open-lidded. At the sight of them, Inara stopped in her tracks. Other Chosen walked past, heading for their own tombs.

“I could change my mind,” she whispered hoarsely. “I could stay.”

Ansa squeezed her hand. “You know you can’t. This is bigger than us.”

Inara looked like she was on the verge of turning and running far, far away, but she gave a shallow nod and walked forward. They did not let go of each other’s hand as they approached the tomb, or as Inara climbed into it.

As she began to lie down, Inara stopped suddenly and clutched at Ansa as tears began to spill from her eyes. “I can’t,” she breathed. “I can’t. I don’t want to leave you, and I’m so scared—”

Ansa lovingly wiped tears from her face. “You will fight, and you will survive, and you will live. You will not know me, but that’s okay because you will find other things to care about and cherish and love.”

“No, Ansa…”

“And one day, you will be happy. I know it. It will be without me, but that’s okay. It has to be okay. Because you have to leave, and I have to stay, and we don’t get to be together. Maybe this was written from the start, maybe the stars knew this was always going to happen." Ansa gazed deep into Inara's eyes of forest green flecked with amber. "Even if you don’t remember it when you wake, know that I love you like the oceans love the moon, like a bird flies north. Know that you will never not be loved by me.”

Inara’s grip tightened on her hand as she whispered, “Nor you by me. I love you.”

With one hand, Ansa removed the necklace from around her neck and gently set it around Inara’s. “Rest well, love.”

The priest who would be performing the ritual to put the Chosen to sleep stepped into the center of the room, and Ansa felt the overturned hourglass crack, sand spilling out like blood from a wound, and she could not stop the bleeding, not this time. Slowly, like it was physically painful, Inara lay down. Neither let go of the other’s hand.

The priest opened an ancient, leather-bound book and began to read from it. Blue light flared from the pages, his hands, his body, and ran in arcing lines towards each of the tombs. Runes carved into the stone surfaces flared. Inara’s body was shaking with fear and anguish, her eyes wide and skin ashen.

Ansa brushed a strand of dark brown hair back from Inara’s face. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered hoarsely, though it might have been a lie. “It’s going to be okay.”

As the priest’s chanting reverberated off of the walls and domed ceiling, bouncing until the echoes harmonized into a sound that seemed to hum through Ansa’s bones, Inara’s eyes began to close.

Don’t leave me, Ansa wanted to beg. Don’t leave me. But she couldn’t, because she knew in her heart that if she asked, Inara would stay. And that couldn’t happen, because the future needed Inara. They had to doom themselves so that others might have a shot at hope.

Inara’s hand went limp in her grasp, and Ansa felt entire worlds sunder in her chest as Inara’s body stilled. Lying in the stone tomb, she was so still that she appeared dead. She might as well be.

Ansa forced herself to let go of Inara's hand and step away as the priest’s magic lifted the tomb lids into the air and set them in place, sealing the Chosen in, hiding her loved one from sight.

Part of her wanted to sit on the floor beside Inara’s tomb and never move again, to become one with the ancient stone of the temple and let time consume her so that they might never be parted. But there were things she needed to do. And besides, she had promised that she would not do that.

And so, she left the chamber with one last, lingering glance over her shoulder, and walked back through the halls and up the staircases, her hand so empty that it ached. Others walked beside her, some crying, some stoic. She hardly noticed them.

Ansa emerged out into the sand that whispered, now seemingly in mourning. The sun had set, and the sky had darkened, and the first stars of the night were just beginning to flicker awake.

Behind her, the heavy doors swung shut with a deafening thud, sealing the temple with magic that could not be broken. Ansa made it all of five steps before she fell to her knees in the sand and a sob tore from her throat. Someone lay a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she hardly felt it. It was not Inara’s. She doubled over, clutching at her chest as she felt a chasm tearing open within it, as it became impossible to breathe. The love of her life was as good as dead to her, and she had to live with that.

Hadn’t we already given enough? she thought, tears making tracks down her face.

She stared down at the ring on her finger, and couldn’t contain the scream of pain and anger that clawed its way from her throat. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. Gods, it wasn’t fair.

Inara would sleep, for decades or centuries, and when she awoke, it would be to an entirely different world. When Inara woke, Ansa would be nothing more than dust and the afterglow of something, and only the stars would remember what they had been. Inara would sleep a dreamless sleep, and awaken unable to recall the feel of Ansa’s hand in hers, or that Ansa had existed at all. She would not recall the day they had met, how they had at first hated each other until they were forced to spend days traveling and fighting together on missions and each became the thing that kept the other sane, until they each became the other’s home. She would not recall nights on watch duty, telling stories and singing by campfires. She would not recall watching a meteor shower from a cliff above the Oryn Sea. She could not recall the way they laughed until they cried over nothing, the hours spent training together, the way it felt to fall asleep to the sound of the other’s breathing.

At least Inara would be unburdened by the memories, grief, and anger. At least she had the chance to move on, find someone else to call home and find a new dream. But there would be no other for Ansa. Inara was the one she was supposed to grow old with.

They had wanted to go north, to the mountains, where the sun was not so harsh and they could fall asleep to the sound of rain on the roof. They had wanted to build a house there, a small wooden one with big windows and a hearth, with a garden where they could grow food and herbs and wildflowers. They would have a cat that slept on the windowsill in the sun, and three chickens that combed the garden for worms. They would be safe enough to finally set down their weapons. There would be no threat to them or their world, they would finally be at peace. Ansa had visions of them as old women, sitting under their porch as it rained, she was sketching and Inara was humming as she drank tea and gazed upon the forest.

A simple dream. A lovely dream. A shattered dream. They would not get their little house, their little life. They would not grow old together, they would not get to trace the laughter lines on the other’s face or talk long into the night, laughing, as they recalled the years and all the hardships and joys time had brought them.

Ansa knelt in the sand for a long, long time, watching the stars appear in the sky as the world grew dark around her. Were we doomed from the start? she asked the stars. Did you hear our wishes and know that they could not be granted?

Maybe in another life, they got everything they wanted. Maybe in another life, they were allowed their peace.

Just not this one.