Chapter IV | The Dying Woman

THE FLOWER HAD WILTED OVERNIGHT.

Left on the windowsill, the cold night had made the petals brittle, faded them to grey like the wet, overcast sky outside.

The flower was the first thing Vincent saw when he walked into the room and the last thing on his mind when he left. Perhaps not so much the flower, but rather her, the woman who had appeared in his life so suddenly and without warning, squeezing her way through all the cracks in his armour as if it were effortless.

Something in her reminded him of Lucrecia. Her kindness to others, perhaps, even when she was suffering herself. But Lucrecia had turned out to be a woman he hardly knew at all. She wasn't the woman he thought he'd fallen in love with. She'd caused him more pain than she'd ever realised and Vincent didn't want to go through that again. Maybe Alya was different, maybe she wasn't like Lucrecia at all, but he'd made a promise to himself that he wouldn't get himself entangled in unnecessary attachments again. Emotions and relationships compromised things, and he could do without strings that could just as easily strangle him as they could be cut.

With a sigh, Vincent stood from the mattress, the rusted springs creaking as he did, and moved over to the window, pushing aside the thin net curtains. The movement stirred the cobwebs strung across the ledge, gossamer threads unravelling and drifting solemnly to the floor by his feet. He picked up the flower and pressed his fingers gently against the petals. Even the slightest touch was enough to tear a hole through the delicate, wilting flower, and he sighed again before pushing the window wider and throwing the flower outside. He watched it float down on the wind, being thrown side to side relentlessly, and land in a puddle on the pavement below. Someone sooner or later would trample over it and the flower would be no more. A life, so fleeting, so fragile. Humans were no different really. Which was why attachments weren't practical. And Vincent had suffered enough loss in his life to risk suffering more.

Alya was a dying woman. And that was the sad truth.

***

Vincent kept his head low as he walked past the fountain that rose out of the centre of Edge. Children were skipping on the cobblestones and chasing each other in circles, reaching a hand into the water feature to splash each other. His eyes slid over them absently, lifting his head every now and then to scan each face he passed, as if looking for someone. It was reactionary, really, a reflex he wasn't in control of.

He stopped when he saw Alya, on the other side of the road. It took him by surprise, even if he had been looking out for her, to see her so clearly, so alive, and not like the ghost he'd been seeing in his head. She was smiling down at the sick children in front of her, dark hair falling loosely over her face before she impatiently tucked it back behind her ear. Even from here he could see the glow of her eyes, like melted starlight.

Vincent wanted to know that smile. He wanted to learn it, and remember it, so that it brought him peace when he needed it. That's what he wanted, but he knew it was something he could never have.

He was a monster, and he knew it. The people of Edge knew it. He'd seen how they looked at him, how they kept their distance and avoided meeting his eye, staring instead at his metal gauntlet, the guns slung lazily through his belt. They saw him as a threat, as something to be kept away from. And after years of living with the heart of chaos beating inside him, Vincent had begun to see himself like that too. A beast in disguise.

Is that how Alya saw him?

He didn't think so. In the short time he'd known her, she'd only ever been kind to him. She gave him time and, if he was being entirely honest, she made him feel - for just a short while - like he wasn't a monster at all. Just another human. Like everyone else.

Feeling an overwhelming bitterness rise up his throat, Vincent turned and walked the other way.

People skirted the sidewalks around him, ushered their children away, but he barely even noticed.

He felt lost. Confused. Hopeless. He didn't know what to do, what to trust. Did he trust her smile, or his past? Both offered him conflicting promises. One promised pain, the other relief.

Gritting his teeth, Vincent slumped down against a tree lining the avenue beside the churchyard, wrestling his fingers through the soft lining of his cloak. He felt so helplessly lost. He couldn't keep wandering like a lost soul for the rest of his days, pushing everything and everyone away. He was tired of being alone. He was tired of being seen - of seeing himself - as someone born of chaos and nightmares, someone incompatible with human emotion.

Because he felt.

He felt everything.

But so far, the only thing life had given him to feel was pain and regret and hatred. So much hatred. For himself, for the world. And then she had come along. And he realised, for perhaps the first time, that he wasn't alone in that.

"Hello, mister. Are you okay?"

Vincent looked up suddenly, his red eyes unfocused until they landed on the girl standing in front of him, barefoot and clenching a basket. The flower girl from before.

He nodded slowly, using his hands to push aside the hair that had fallen into his eyes.

"Oh, but you look sad... where's that nice lady you were with before?" She asked, without giving him a chance to speak in between. "I can go and find her, if she'd make you happy again."

Vincent faltered, his mouth moving uselessly. Did she make him happy? He barely knew her. She barely knew him. And yet she'd given him her time. She'd smiled at him. She hadn't been scared of him. He shook his head. No attachments. No more loss.

"I'm okay," he muttered gruffly, standing up. His full height towered over the girl, but she seemed unfazed. "I... could I have one of those flowers? I have gil." He reached into the small pocket of his trousers and pulled out a few coins. The girl shook her head, passing him a white carnation this time.

"If it's for that pretty lady, just take it. I have plenty more," she said with a smile, before turning and walking away, humming quietly to herself.

Vincent stared down at the delicate flower in his hands, turning it over with his fingers as he wondered what to do with it now. The flower was fragile, perhaps, but it didn't break beneath careful hands. Everyone expected him to be rough, to hurt, to bruise. But he didn't have to. He still had a choice. And even along the line, he had choices. He was good at running. He could always run away when things got too much, if things got too dangerous.

The flower sat deft and beautiful even in his gun-calloused fingers. Perhaps it wasn't so easy to break after all.