FEAR NOT, WHEN YOU GO
Novel excerpt; 1127 words
“It’s getting worse.”
DaXia met RuShi’s eye in the looking glass, watching as she pulled a comb through her silvering hair. “I know.”
The understanding of inevitability sat heavy between them, a familiar presence that lodged itself in DaXia’s throat as if tar. What could she say?
RuShi’s lips tightened into a thin line. She parted DaXia’s long hair into three sections and began weaving them into a tight plait with a focus she reserved for when she was actively avoiding thinking about an unpleasant thought.
DaXia never knew what to say.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do.” The outburst was sudden, yet quiet. Just a whisper into the air. “My wife is dying, and all she says is, I know.” She tied off the braid with trembling fingers. DaXia found she couldn’t move her gaze away from a loose thread on her trousers. “What am I supposed to say? Every day I find more of your hair losing color. Do you think I don’t notice the blood in the water basin? On your clothes? The way you lose your step?” She paused, and a resigned breath escaped her. “I love you, and I’m scared.”
DaXia did not fear death. She had long ago accepted the unpredictable and sudden nature of it. She did, however, fear the stubborn way her wife denied it, and how that would destroy her when it finally came to pass.
She stood and stepped towards the looking glass, running the tip of her finger along the ornate ridge of the frame. Her reflection stared back at her, scarred and weathered and nothing like the face she used to know. Her younger self would have never expected to die like this, withering away in a small home on a river, cared for by a loving wife, her skin stained with paints instead of blood. It was not a warrior’s death. The girl she once was, long ago, would have accused her of being a coward. The only honorable death is by the blade of a worthy opponent, she would have said. Living a civilian’s life has taught her that perhaps peace is worth more than honor.
“You are my heart, RuShi,” DaXia finally said, turning away from the looking glass to face the woman she loved. “You bring me a peace I have never known. That you are with me now is enough.”
RuShi didn’t respond, eyes trained on the floor in a determined gaze. “My love cannot save you from death.” Her voice strained, trembling with ill-contained emotion. “How can I be expected to carry the weight of inaction while you suffer?”
A deep breath rattled through DaXia’s rib cage, carrying with it a coughing fit on the exhale. RuShi was immediately by her side, pressing a handkerchief into her palm and rubbing her back in soft, soothing circles. It didn’t stop the coughing, nor did it erase the blood that caught on the handkerchief, but DaXia leaned into the motion nonetheless.
After the coughing had finally ceased, DaXia wiped at the corners of her mouth, and fought to regain her breath. “I do not expect anything of you. You know that.” She fell back into her chair, the aging wood groaning beneath her weight. “There is no point in chasing after something that does not exist. No doctor or priest will have what we seek. I want to spend what time I have left in the comfort of our home, in the company of my wife.”
RuShi took a deep breath, and wrapped her arms around herself.
“I am not the warrior I once was. I do not have the strength to bear this alone.” DaXia reached out and touched her fingertips to RuShi’s hip. “I need you to be strong. For me. Please?”
A beat of silence passed between them, RuShi pressing her lips into a thin line, her eyes pleading for something that DaXia wasn’t sure she could give. “I don’t want to lose you,” she said, finally, voice small and shivering, a delicate flower petal hit with heavy rain.
DaXia closed her eyes, willing away the sting of unshed tears. “And I don’t want to leave you, you know I don’t. I love you, RuShi. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“Then please, my love. Fight this.” She fell to her knees, pressed her forehead to DaXia’s knee. “For me. I can’t do this – any of this – without you. I’m not strong, not like you.”
“RuShi. Look at me.”
RuShi shook her head, forehead still firmly pressed to DaXia’s knee, eyes tightly shut.
“Please,” DaXia whispered, running her fingers through her wife’s hair. “Please look at me.”
RuShi sniffed, but eventually lifted her head, meeting DaXia’s gaze.
“You are strong. The strongest person I’ve ever met.” DaXia brushed her thumb along RuShi’s cheekbone, wiping away a stray tear that had escaped. “You’re not a warrior – but you don’t have to be, in order to be strong.”
A frown creased RuShi’s brow, her lips parting to speak, but DaXia continued before she could say anything.
“You brought me back from the brink of death the first time we met – not just anyone could do that. You’re not even a trained healer, and still you stitched my wounds and cared for me.” DaXia wrapped her fingers around RuShi’s, turning their palms up to face the ceiling. “These hands which had no calluses, no scars – were skilled in painting, and embroidery, and music – saved a life.”
“Well, I couldn’t just let such a beautiful and fearsome woman die so young!”
“No one would have blamed you if you had, though. I was no one. A lone mercenary, with no family, and no loyalty. No one would have missed me, and still, you worked so hard to keep me alive. And then, you asked your father if you could marry me. Me! I had nothing, nothing at all to my name, and the only daughter of the wealthiest family in the region was asking her father if she could marry me. That is the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. You didn’t even tell me you were going to ask!”
RuShi sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I was never going to marry a man – he knew that.”
DaXia smiled, leaning forward and pressing her lips to her wife’s brow. “You’ve always done what you need to. You’re stubborn, and I love that about you.”
“I love you, too.” RuShi brushed a soft kiss against DaXia’s lips before pulling herself to her feet again. “Can you really call me selfish, though, for wanting more than a few short years with the love of my life?”
“I would never.”
“And yet?”
“And yet, it may not be our decision to make.”