Momento Mori

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      It takes her two days to heal all the visitors.

 There are times when Mother doesn't let her heal people. Her steely hands root Nyx to the spot as she silently watches them gasp and die.

She always thought it was rather cruel.

“Dying,” Mother says reprimandingly, “is something everyone will meet regardless. It's just that some people deserve to meet them earlier.”

—

And disappointingly, even though she knew that it will be so, Saval did not appear to her in days. Waiting is exhausting and she is half thinking about just escaping on her own despite knowing it is fruitless and will not give her the fated happy ending.

The falling snows are firmer now and she spends almost all her time in the room dozing off. Writer gets annoyed when she reads them too much and will float off into the ceiling, snoring loudly.

There is a thump on the door.

She blinks. “Saval?”

Instead, her visitors are curious royal blue eyes peeking through small holes as they argue. “Goodness, Arzha. I said to be subtle not bang your head against the door. But frankly, why had I expected otherwise? Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions written on the heel—”

A shriller voice peeps in. “—Val, if I wanted a loud whiner with me I would have asked the crying four-year-old in the streets—”

“I can hear you two,” grumbles Nyx as she sat up from her bed. “I want to sleep. Leave me alone.”

She hears shuffling and shoving and silent mutters of ‘Told you!’ followed by ‘This is your fault.’

The snide, posh voice—Val—clears his throat. “We humbly apologize for the inconvenience, ma'am and I—”

Nyx hears another tumble and the other voice, the shriller one—Arzha—butts in as graceful a dog doing ballet on a pole and piles questions one after another. “Are you our new mother? Father says we should not see you. Why are you always inside this room? Are you sick? You're really pretty, is it because you're a witch? If so, can you make me prettier? Father says that I have—”

“Stop, stop, stop.” Nyx raises a hand then drops it when she realizes they could not see her. “I—well, look. I'm really tired and I want to sleep so.” She sighs. “How old are you two?”

“Val's fifteen. I'm thirteen.”

“I see.” The thought of someone her age or younger in one year calling her mother makes her want to strangle someone with their own intestines. Specifically, King Franzes intestines wrapped on his own neck. “I'm not your new mom. And I will never, ever be. So, do not ever call me that.”

The small blue eyes squint. “Oh. Okay.”

Nyx rubs her eyelids tiredly. “Leave. Don't ever come back.”

She hears a silent ‘Let's go’ and a flutter of footsteps descending away through stony stairs.

She sighs again and slumps her head to the wall. “I really hate kids.”

“They're not that bad.” Writer floats above her head. “They're just kids.”

“So am I,” she snaps, voice tinged with angered hurt. “Do you think the king married me because he loves me? He wanted to own me. To be his shiny, miracle trophy that is thirty years younger than him. So, yeah.” Nyx sneers and grits her teeth. “I'm sorry for not wanting to be the stepmother of these goddamn kids. I'm sorry for wishing this kingdom would just burn and die.”

She exhales, stills and continues in a scared whisper. “Do you think—Does that make me a bad person..? Hating innocent kids just because they look like him—Wanting to murder—” She cuts off her sentence completely. “I just... I just want to leave, Writer. Please.”

The book quietly replies, “Of course. That's the reason why I'm here.” Then, it drops to her lap, voice hallowly bright. “Do you know? My favourite kind of destinies is the enemies-to-lovers ones and the found family. Wanna read?”

Nyx sniffles and nods.

Writer is nice. But the thing is, it's a book. A book that knows the future. And sometimes, Nyx wonders if it's simply nice due to obligations.

“When were you made?” Nyx asks Writer suddenly as she reads. “Or, did you write yourself into existence..? Did—Can you do that?”

“You ask so many questions. Why so curious, little Nyxie?”

Nyx deadpans, “You are a floating, talking book that can tell destinies. These totally do not raise so many questions.” Then, she fidgets, the story and pages she is supposed to read earlier lays on her arm, now forgotten. “And well, mainly because you surely must be tired.”

Writer tilts its pages in confusion. “Me?Tired?”

“Something I've quite noticed is that your stories are usually about sad people and how it slowly becomes happy,” Nyx says. “Just like me, you helped all of them, right? It must have been vexing—hearing people vent about their problems all the time.”

“I've... never been asked that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Um.” Nyx hasn't seen a book being awkward til now. It's so fucking weird. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Thanks. Nyx blinks. Now, that's something she hasn't heard for quite some time, which is rather odd considering she has healed thousands. She continues reading again.

Then, Writer clears their throat. Somehow. Don't question it. “To answer your earlier question, I was made by someone, I think? I don't really remember. At that time, I was still something else but I don't recall what.” Their voice turns misty, faded in memory. “But, I know that once upon a time, I love stories. Happy ones. Then, I wake up. And here I am.”

“How does it feel like? Being immortal?”

Writer turns quiet.

Then he says, “Close your eyes then open them up.”

Nyx follows. “Then?”

Writer speaks as if smiling wryly. “That's it, little Nyx—That's exactly how it feels like.”

—

Three days in and Saval returns. And he explains why. Nyx knows why, she's read the same interaction for days. He's sweet, he's kind and everything.

“I'm sorry I disappeared. I didn't want to take your food,” he mumbles through the door. “I saw. I won't take food from you anymore. You should eat more.”

“I guess.”

“Don't be so unconcerned about your own health,” Saval says sternly and everything about it screams ‘I am an older brother of an annoying brat’. “You're younger than I expected. How old are you when the king—”

“Fourteen.”

“Oh.”

A long silence follows afterwards.

Then, casually he tells her before he leaves, “Eat up your food, okay? You matter.”

The maiden's heart flutters ever so slightly, the book says. Nyx wonders when did decency equate to love. A red flush akin to a warm flame spreads in her cheeks and she replies—

Nyx feels nothing. But, she says the words she's supposed to say either way.

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