[Teaser]
Burkett thrusts his hands into his trouser-pockets and reconciles himself. "Looks like I have a new partner," he observes drily. "But... there is something I should, perhaps, explain, lest it cause a problem at a crucial moment: Although I work the same neighborhood, as it were..." He hesitates. Where once it was a source of some pride, it is something he has difficulty admitting now, since he met Mannon. "...I am bound to Samael." He drops his gaze to the square of ground between his feet.
Essuncius shrugs. "Chin up, Mister Burkett," he replies. "There are worse jobs a person could have. Much worse. Trust me. You could work for McDonalds..."
[Part 1]
As the last of the war rages overhead and on the ground far away, Daffydd places the last stone in place. Then he assembles the branches and logs he has gathered. As the sun dips below the hills, he lovingly places Annwyl's body on the pyre. He kisses her one last time....
A lone snowy-owl, shimmering red-on-white with the fading sun, glides silently into the clearing. It lands at the foot of the unlit funeral pyre and cocks its head this way and that. Wide eyes unblinking, it scans the area and sees nothing. Nothing except Redren staunchly following Daffydd's final command, all unknowing that he has moved on.
Feathers and flesh become liquid, swirling up into the shape of a man with ivory-feathered wings at his back. The mustachioed face is that of Essuncius. But this time, the bowler is gone, revealing a head of black hair marred by graying-white streaks shooting across one side.
One look at the body atop the cold pyre and he knows what has happened. Annwyl was no more, and Daffydd has left to be alone with his grief. Essuncius walks closer to the pyre and promptly trips on a log that has fallen away from the gathered wood. He hits the ground with a dull thump. Shaking his head, he climbs slowly to his feet.
"Here," he says softly to the dead woman, "here was I, so worried about losing my friend that I didn't even think of my friend losing his friend..." He lays a hand on one of the cold cheeks.
"He really loved you, you know. Couldn't even bring himself to light this thing up. I guess there could be worse things than death. I mean, I've been there and all. But, you know, I was kind of used to..."
Essuncius pauses, an idea burning in his mind. Absently, he stretches and flexes the wings at his back. He stands.
"There's pain, Annwyl. And sorrow. There are things you don't feel now. Things you'll never have to feel again. Things I'd long since forgotten." He runs his fingers through her hair. He sighs.
"But there's pleasure. And joy. And happiness. Things I never thought I'd feel again. Things..."
He closes his eyes and swallows hard.
"Ah nuts!" He exclaims, his eyes popping open.
The wings begin to beat and he flies above her prone form.
"This is for you, Annwyl, and Daffydd. Find him. Be happy together. Be... alive ...together."
An orb of shimmering white appears around him as his body begins to dissolve. Incandescent sparkles in every color of the rainbow drift onto Annwyl's corpse as Essuncius' voice rises into a wordless song. A deep, basso aria that hums through the ages. It drifts into nothingness as the shimmering dust settles about Annwyl.
"I couldn't get used to a body, anyway." A quiet whisper that fades in the breeze.
The sparkles flare to spotlight intensity. Millions of glowing, varicolored orbs that swirl and shift. They wink out as one and Annwyl is left alone atop the unlit pyre, her hair marked with streaks of gray-white down one side.
Her chest rises and falls as she breathes.
A white owl's feather the size of a man's forearm drifts to her breast.
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