O1 - death

A smile concealed the emotions hidden deep within. No longer resisting nor struggling. She had given up.

Gazing at the empty space before her, she felt glad. The feeling of happiness rose upon her as she recalled those events. With the lives lived before, she learnt. With that, she repented and finally let go.

Her relentlessness, persistence and patience had all eventually led to her insanity though she had not bothered. After living for so long, she ended up with a conclusion. The universe is one cruel place. She bitterly smiled. Everyone creates their zones of dreams and fantasies, protecting them to no extent. The moment these dreams collapse, they fall to their insanity. While she had long since shattered piece by piece, she attempted to fix them back only to no avail.

Her hands, bleeding.

Her heart, yearning.

Her soul, tiring.

Her mind, hazing.

Footsteps sounded right outside her courtyard. Sitting down with a host, she welcomed her guests. The coming audience had hearts stirred. The scene reminded them of whom they first met. The little girl, wielding a sword, drenched in blood, reverberating screams sounding as background. Her heart beat scaringly calm, her mind saving thoughts of the sources of those screams. She really dreaded the next silence that would enter the room. She hoped it would not happen.

Dreading the upcoming silence, she hoped it would not happen. Though the opposite. Closing her eyes, her mind drowned in the lake of sadness, her heart did not. The pain her mind is in, her heart ignores.

Her eyes trailing the domineering figure. Gently smiling as she welcomed him. Truly opposite of what she had imagined.

She drowned in her dreams, unable to see the changes in him. There it shone the glaring differences she sees deep within. Unlike before, a deathly aura surrounds him now. Gone was the one in her memories.

One sat while the other stood.

Breaking the standing showdown they shared, she opened her lips and faintly spoke. What she spoke, only they both knew.

His eyes carried gloom. Her eyes carried mirth. She thanked him with a laugh for the gift he sent.

"Such a coincidence. Since you're here, why not exchange toasts?"

Waving her hand, two cups appeared along with a bottle of wine on the table next to her. Pausing for a bit, she poured the wine in the cups with a grin. That pause was enough for her. With a smile, she stood up and passed him his cup.

Her eyes trailed the domineering figure entering the hall. She thought she would no longer smile but her lips easily curled to one as opposed to what she thought. She imagined herself smiling gently, like how she did in the past. She truly was smiling.

Back then, she drowned in her dreams thus she was unable to see the changes within him. From here, she could clearly notice the vast difference from the one in her memories. Unlike before, he now had a deathly air surrounding him. Both figures, one sitting, one standing, stared at each other's eyes. She was the first to look away from the staring showdown they shared. She opened her lips and faintly spoke. She looked at him and saw a difference of emotion in his eyes. What she spoke of, only they both knew.

His deathly air around him thickened and the tension in the room raised but not a single person budget. His eyes carried gloom as she laughed merrily and thanked him for the gift he sent over yesterday.

"However, I've yet to try it out. Since you're here, why not try them together?" She grinned. With a wave of her hand, a bottle of wine appeared along with two cups on the table next to her. She paused for a bit before pouring the wine into the cups. That pause was enough for her. Standing up, she smiled and walked over to him, giving him a cup. Oh, how cunning she was. He looked at her even while receiving his share, his stare was uncomfortable but she heeded no mind at it. She started out first by downing her cup of wine then looked at him with mirth in her eyes.

They stood within a distance. They must have stood there for quite a while. If she estimates, roughly she stood for the time to eat a while.(30-45mins) This time, they had locked eye contact without breaking for a second. He looked away and drank his cup at one go. She felt relief, the suffocating feeling in her chest disappeared seeing him drink his share.

Not long after, he walked out of the hall with his entourage following behind him. She turned around and unclenched her fists. Her brows furrowed deeply as a knot tangled deep in her chest. She walked slowly to her chambers only to fall down after reaching the doors. She bit her lips and dragged her body to lean against the closest wall. This happened by no coincidence. She had planned this. That bottle of wine was poisonous but not a potent one. It was a slow-acting poison. They wanted to poison her but this poison was not enough to do just that. It was fortunate that despite the close bond him and her shared, he still did not know of this. She knew herself well as a person who studied the fields of medicine and poison. He wanted to poison her? Then, she'll act oblivious and play along. She'll even help him poison herself.

She had long detoxified the poison in the bottle of wine he gave her to drink. So what was poured originally to the cups was normal wine but she had placed a mix of medicine rather than poison in her cup. The thing was that the mixture she inserted into her cup was strong potent medicine. Each medicine had to be used carefully because of the strong potency. Used carefully, it was a healing saviour. Used wrongly, it would be deadly lethal making it no different than poison. To make it worse, she had mixed five medicines of different types but of the same potency in the cup. Luckily, her body constitution was able to withstand the effects for almost an hour before it finally reacted.

She was rather silly too, or that she was too cautious. She was not clear on which. She added a drop of harmless elixir to his cup which would confine him to his bed for a month. The elixir would cause him to fall into a coma for weeks before waking up completely fine. And if he was lucky, he might have a breakthrough in his cultivation. It was really a harmless elixir that she concocted during her free time out of boredom. His coma would equal him sleeping, hibernating for a while. This long slumber would be a peaceful one for him. She smiled, imagining his face thanking her profusely for going so lightly on him. She began to laugh but instead started coughing miserably. Between coughing and laughing that sounded neither, she felt really happy despite nearing death's doors. Discovering that she was tired, she closed her eyes to rest only for her soul to leave her body so silently.

*

Shifting the view to the man from before. He took long strides clearly rushing out of the courtyard yet he paused his footsteps all of a sudden. This also had his entourage following him halting right behind him, waiting for his next move. His gloomy aura drops a few more degrees lower and quickly turns back to the hall to look for her. Taking only the time range of breathing to do this, he quickly disappeared into the building and out of the servants' sights causing distress amongst them. His personal manservant noticed this and calmed the group before giving instructions to another trusted aide to stay here and wait for His Lordship along with the rest while he would go after him.

Not seeing her in sight of the hall, a rip broke within the calm ocean of his deep eyes. He overturned the little place to search for her to no avail. Furious and anxious, he ran into deadends as he tried to find her chambers with thoughts that chances are that she had gone and rested. This place she lived in may be small but the interior architecture was complicated to those new to the place. Like a maze. A maze.. his thoughts were unclear as he recalled a memory. He quickly made a few turns before finding her lying right outside a room as if asleep, likely her chambers. He breathes deeply and approaches her slowly in fear of waking her up. Seeing the dark bags surrounding her eyes and pale complexity of her face, he was taken back a bit. He didn't notice how she looked just before despite his attention focused on her fully. He had a feeling something was off and only when he stepped closer to her did he got to know what was the issue.

She wasn't breathing.

In the midst of panicking, he hurriedly bent down and took her pulse. His heart immediately dropped to his stomach after reading her pulse. He was lost, not knowing what to do like ages ago.. when she collapsed right in front of his eyes with blood all over her unclear whether it was her own blood or the blood of the people she had her hands on. He remembered a book mentioning that a dead person's body can still be saved, or rather preserved despite the soul's absence from the body. Only that a constant amount of internal energy needed to be supplied to the empty body in order to preserve it unless another method was found. For now, he blindly did so and transferred his own internal energy to her body. He kept doing so only stopping he felt drained. He reached out and hugged her tightly in his embrace, burrowing his head in the crook of her neck. He closed his eyes as tears stinged his eyes.

What she did, how was he not aware. When he saw her drink that poison wine, he was scared shitless but seeing her fine after a long period.. he calmed down and drank his own cup without fear. He wasn't aware of her abilities of medication and poison as well as her special body constitution but he was aware of his own. Over the years after going to battle, he began to grow immune to most poison and medicine. What an affinity. Both people have such similar constitutions yet each was unaware of such fact. The poisoned wine was sent over to her with a note but she had received only the bottle of wine with a convert of words from the servant who had delivered it.

He.. hadn't expected her to drink it. Why was it that he drank with her yet she was the only one who died.. Why? Why did you have to stick by your words? Why did you believe that.. Why.. Him who was immersed in his thoughts, unaware of his tears streaming down silently. Her whom was long gone, unaware of his confliction over her death.