Work Text:
Hannah's (the apprentice) P.O.V.
Not brought to you by amnesia
I waited for Asra to come back from the moment he left. There were nights where I stayed up, sitting at the window by the empty bed we had once shared, watching and waiting from the moment the street lanterns were lit at nightfall until they were snuffed out at dawn. Even after I had begun to stop this practice I'd still catch myself looking out the window for him, expecting him to show up one day, sweep me up in his arms while apologizing for everything and telling me how much he loved me. But as one month turned into two and time dragged on he never showed; no matter how much I hoped he would.
I wondered if he missed me as much as I missed him. If he knew how I yearned for his return the same way a widow waits for her spouse to return from a war that they'll never come back from. Because as the third month began I had nearly accepted that he wasn't coming back despite the parts of me that still clung to hope somewhere in the recesses of my mind. And it was around then that the very reason he had left caught up to me.
Getting the plague made time blend together. A day could seem as long as a week and vice versa, fever will do that to you. I lost my sense of reality, and towards the end I suppose that had been a good thing. It made the inevitably of death less painful. Though, as my fever got worse, I started seeing him out of the corner of my eye only for him to not be there when I turned. In its weakened state my mind had started fabricating the image of the person I wanted most and it broke me. But as my life began slipping away from me like water in an open hand I somehow found the strength to address him;
To my dearest Asra,
If you're reading this then it means you've come back and I've been dead a while now. Unless, that is to say, this has reached you some other way and you never came back at all. Whatever the case, I want you go know that I never stopped loving you, even if you stopped loving me. I waited everyday for you, hoping, praying, that you would come back to me and if you did then it just wasn't in time. I regret the things I said to you the day you left, and I hope you know that I didn't mean anything I said. I love you, I always will.
Forever yours,
Hannah
It was short and I wasn't quite sure how I managed to articulate myself so well when even a coherent thought was a struggle for my fever idled brain but it must've had something to do with needing to see or speak to him one last time. I wrote a letter for my family too for this reason and placed it next to his. . . he had been family once.
I don't really remember the end, though I'm sure that's a good thing, remembering the details of one's death would be far too traumatic. In those last days sleep took me all too often, the boundary between waking and dreaming hardly there. Until death did come for me and one day I simply went to sleep and didn't wake up. It was a peaceful way for my 21 years to come to an end, as far as deaths go. Though languishing through the effects of the red plague had been far from peaceful.
They say 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' and though that scorned part of me still festered, I did forgive him before the end. We were only human after all, despite the magic we wielded. He left because he felt like he needed to and it saved him from receiving a fate like mine. Though I knew it broke his heart to leave me, he had wanted to save me too and hadn't wanted to lose me when he had already lost his family so many years before. But humans are selfish creatures and all too often it seems self preservation perseveres. But there are the times where others come before yourself, which he showed in sacrificing so much to bring me back and he had done so knowing I would do the same for him.
Along with this forgiveness had sat hope; hope that had held out through the many months I had waited for his return. It had dwindled to a flicker after so long but I would be lying if I said it didn't exist. And truth be told, he did return but as my letter had predicted, it just wasn't in time. In time to save me, to apologize, to say goodbye, or to say that he loved me one last time before he lost me.
I did wonder what would have happened if he had returned before my death or if I had decided to go with him. How different would my life be if I had survived? The answers to this question only existed in another time, in another world. But if there was one thing I knew it was that if this other life did not have Asra in it then it was not a life I would want to live. And because of this I was grateful for the life I had now, even if I did go through hell and back to get here.