Re: log: cemetery - revenant and misha
"Now there is no variation in the days," he said. "All days progress the same, with the same end. Celebrations are for the living. For you." For he did believe that Misha was alive - whatever else he might be, alive and vibrant in the cold, clear graveyard mist.
Now that he was seated, it was clear that the Revenant also had no shoes, just soles caked with black dirt from under loose black cloth. He cut the figure of a strange monk, curled up and swathed in fabric that rippled in the thin wind. He hadn't been seeking pity or apology, but the sorry did send him inside himself for a moment - to wedding plans, to lackadaisical browsing through colors and venues, nothing too serious. It had felt as if they could wait forever, if they wanted. There was no rush. "You should ask him," he said, looking up. "He surely thinks on it. Mortal beings fail to recognize their limits, even when they think they do. Surely, he thinks to marry you in time, but you should do it now. Ask him."
His gaze cut across the scene Misha was painting in the air, as if it were there for both of him. "That is a job for the just, and the living." He spread a hand, an almost absurd display of claws four inches long. "This was not made for feeding mouths. Only for ensuring they breathe another day. We all have roles to play, yours is to end things, which you reject. I made my promises. I cannot shirk them." He folded the fingers together. "Who will kill them, if I do not? Who will help the ones who have no help? Feeding their bodies matters little if they can be taken in a moment. I can stop that." A tired blink. "I can. I must." He touched the tip of a razor claw to the edge of a soft earlobe, and drew a drop of black blood. It dried, cracked, and fell away. "I hear them now, while we sit and talk. They are dying."
He stood, agitated, and stepped away. "No," he said, thickly, "But she's gone." She's gone, and she couldn't weigh in. She wouldn't want this for him, of course, "But she wouldn't want to be dead, either. She was full of life." The affect was falling away a little, bit by bit. "She wanted to help people by writing about them. She wanted to eat good food and be with her family, and maybe there would be kids, we weren't sure, but in the meantime she wanted to eat Twizzlers. She was learning to play guitar. All of that is gone. Don't tell me it lives on in the heart," he said, "Because it doesn't. It lives in the mind, and the mind is fallible, memories fade. People like her are taken out of this world ever day. My ears are open and I hear them scream."
He looked at Misha, who burned bright, and felt a burst of clarity. He spoke of flipping the world, and David listened, and stared. "If he died, would you bring him back? If you couldn't, what would you do to those responsible?"
Finally, finally, he looked up. "Tell me who's there," he said.
Misha's unexpected warmth in the midst of a graveyard, conversation about death, life, killing and morality, caught the Revenant a little off guard. He himself teetered from place to place rather than walking a straight line, so he accepted it better than most. When Misha turned the sunshine on, he smiled back, as if he hadn't hated him just weeks before. He took his hand, unthinking. He had already forgotten why.