-A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last. (Charlie Daniels)-Death before all else is fair. Cruel and kind are words ( Read more... )

It has been some space of time since he found his Tower, and breached it, and fell into her arms ( Read more... )

Death, it turns out, has a small apartment that seems to be somewhere in Southern California, judging by the view from the linen-curtained windows ( Read more... )

Death is out by the lakeshore, perched in the rocks overlooking the water.

She's skipping stones and watching the moonlight gleam on the water, at the peaceful spread of the ripples. The night continues with its soft and subtle song around her.

The pain fades, and the feeling in his body, as he lies on the rocks of Jericho Hill, Roland on one side of him and Cuthbert on the other. The light fades, too; the rising sun, blazing in his eyes even as a thin sliver above the hilltop, fades into black cloud. Too dark to see, and his life's blood pouring on the ground ( Read more... )

Her place, then.

It's not much changed, because this is the way she likes it, by and large. There's sunlight slanting through the windows, deep gold and warm, because she likes that, too.

It's almost shy, the way she leads him toward her bedroom. The bed's a little messy, red and pink and purple, with a stuffed turtle laying near the pillows.

She has taken him by the hand, and led him out towards the lakeshore, quiet and unobtrusively slipping away from the festivities.

She lets go of his hand when they get a few hundred yards away from the door. She didn't have to hold on quite that long...

It's not Milliways ( Read more... )

And there they are.

The place looks a bit cleaner than the last time he saw it.

She had time to clean.

It's a quiet sort of day.

She putters around her place, makes things tidy, feeds her fish, flips idly through an old issue of Cosmopolitan...

There's a picture of pidgeons in there.

It's enough.

She curls up on her couch and sobs into a pillow for her lost brother.