An Enemy of My Love
Lying in a pool of their mingling blood, lovers Maria and Angel try to remember how they got there and how they can continue.
“Do you remember?”
Angel’s voice echoed out into the darkness, cutting through the silence that had surrounded them. Even after all this time, the silence was still comfortable. Their breathing was ragged, labored by the deep cut to their throat. Maria gripped the dagger in her hand tighter. She hadn’t pushed hard enough.
“Remember what?” Maria asked. Her breathing wasn’t much better. She was afraid her heart would give out from the exertion of fighting for so long. The blood loss also wasn’t helping.
“Our wedding day,” Angel said. They took a deep breath. “I remember it so well.”
“Of course I remember,” she said. There were few days she remembered better. After all this time, she still dreamed about it.
Both of their parents reluctantly showed up. Maria’s parents wanted her to marry another dwarf; Angel’s parents wanted them to marry another dragonborn. They’d already made their peace with their parents not showing up, but they managed to put their prejudices aside long enough to support their kids. Neither knew until the day of.
Maria was trying not to pace, fiddling with her robes. She hadn’t seen Angel since the day before and was eager to see them again. It was a tradition that they couldn’t look at each other until they walked to the temple altar, but that didn’t stop Maria from wanting to. She gave in to temptation and started to pace, walking from wall to wall in the room, her friend and sister, Lupe looking at her with furrowed brows.
“Have you considered that this is just one more day?”
Maria stopped in her tracks, her robes fluttering around her ankles as she turned to Lupe. “One more day? Do you think I get married every day?”
“No, but you see Angel every day.” Lupe leaned back on the couch, unconcerned that her tunic was getting wrinkled. “Today can’t be that much different.”
“When you get married, tell me it’s just one more day and I won’t smack the shit out of you.”
“Ha! I’ll never get married. Not with the losers we see every day.” Maria couldn’t argue with that. Most of the dwarves they saw on a day-to-day basis were more concerned with their tools and tinkering than actually making a romantic connection. “You just happened to get lucky.”
A smile spread across Maria’s face before she could stop it. She was lucky. There would never be another able to understand and love her like Angel. Despite her nerves still jittering through her, she felt calmer as the bell rang through the temple. Lupe stood, holding her arm out. “You ready?”
Maria took a steadying breath and hooked her arm into Lupe’s. “I’m ready.”
That day she walked down the aisle, the sun setting between them as she stared at her future, not knowing that it was only downhill from there.
Maria coughed, closing hers as she winced in pain, blood trickling down her cheek and causing more jagged coughs to rack her body. Every muscle ached and even her bones seemed to throb. When she managed to open her eyes again, she felt their eyes on her.
There was never a time when she couldn’t tell when they were looking at her. It had been a long time, though, since they’d looked at her with such concern.
“Do you…” She slowed down, another couch shaking her body. “Do you remember when this all started?”
They were quiet, a soft sigh passing between them. “Of course, my love.”
Five years after they were married, they were adventuring with Lupe and her girlfriend. Things had been… difficult. Maria refused to admit that Angel was changing. In fact, even as she lay in a growing pool of their mingling blood, she didn’t believe that they had changed. They had always been steady in their convictions and motivations. It was one of the things that had drawn her to them.
Someone was kidnapping young elves. In the woods, someone hid in wait to take them unawares. Even the elder elves, who had commissioned the druids of the forest for help, couldn’t figure out who or why. There didn’t even seem to be a reason for those who were taken versus those who were left behind.
There was a reward, but Maria would have done it regardless. Having been taken hostage by a rogue wizard as a child, this situation hit close to home.
Angel, despite wanting to support their wife, didn’t care.
“What do you mean?” Maria asked, leaning over to tie her boots. “These are children, love. They’re innocents.”
“There are no innocents,” they said, staring out the window.
“I guess, but they deserve a chance to live a life not dictated by the whims of whatever asshole took them.”
“What does it matter?” they said. “We all die someday.”
“And what if it were me, my love? What would you do then?”
They turned slightly, looking at Maria out of the corner of their eye. “There is no length I wouldn’t go to if it meant I could get you back.”
Maria smiled, though there was an unsettling feeling in her stomach that snaked down to her feet that she tried to ignore. “Good. But no matter what, I’m going to try to get those kids back. You can come with me if you want, but I’m going. Lupe and her girlfriend Tasha are coming.”
They got quiet, looking annoyed as they shook their head. “I will follow you, love, but I don’t think it matters nearly as much as you say.”
They complained but suited up alongside her and set out. Maria tried to put their indifference out of her mind, but when they were winding down for the night or conversations lulled, it always came back to her.
Why didn’t they care, she found herself asking. Why didn’t they want to do something to prevent at least one more person from dying?
She knew now, of course, why they didn’t care. Angel simply didn’t care about anyone they couldn’t see. Angel saw Maria for all that she was, accepted her, and vowed to always stand by her. They understood Lupe and would always protect her and to a lesser extent, her girlfriend. Anyone outside of their personal sphere might as well have been background noise.
It made her wonder how many missions they’d passed up because they believed the danger outweighed the reward. Maria hated making the choice of which missions to take, so Angel always picked from the board of their guild. How much faster would they have gotten here if she didn’t have such intense decision paralysis?
She knew now, of course, why they didn’t care. Angel simply didn’t care about anyone they couldn’t see. Angel saw Maria for all that she was, accepted her, and vowed to always stand by her. They understood Lupe and would always protect her. Anyone outside of their personal sphere might as well have been background noise.
Maria had always known that, but she never knew how deeply it affected them until that day.
Another cough shook her, her ribs seizing in pain as she started to sit up. Angel didn’t move, just watched as she wobbled, her vision blurring. With more strength than she knew she possessed, she started to move.
She crawled towards them, dragging her dying body towards them. Tears she had been holding back started to fall, mixing with their blood. She was so close. Just a few more inches.
“Do you remember?” they asked, their hand twitching as they tried to move it towards Maria, grasping for hers. “What I said to you when I proposed?”
“Of course, my love.” Maria spat blood from her mouth, blinking hard to clear her vision. “We are made for each other. In every life I will find you, I will love you, and I will die by your side.” Maria reached Angel, twinning their hands together. Their claws were bathed in her blood.
“I meant it,” they said, grinning despite the pain. “Fate be damned, I will be yours.”
Maria smiled back. “And I will be yours.”
She dragged herself up, gripping their hand with her right and raising the dagger with her left.
Maria didn’t want to, but she needed to. After they’d found the people responsible, she threw herself into finding each and every person responsible and killing them.
“You don’t need to do this, love.” They were pleading, gripping her hands as she looked past them at the door. She needed to get moving and soon. “Others will clean up the mess. They’ll avenge the children. Let them do it.”
“I started this, Angel,” she said, using their name for the first time since they started dating. They reeled back, dropping her hands. “It’s my responsibility to finish it.”
“Love, you don’t have to.” They started to recover from their shock, anger starting to seep in. “You don’t owe them anything.”
“Of course I don’t owe it to them,” she snapped. “I do it because I want to. I do it because if I don’t, I can’t guarantee that someone else will.”
She started to move, moving away from Angel and out of their home. She loved their home, loved living and laughing and sleeping and cooking and simply existing there. It was theirs. A place that they’d built through each memory and experience earned.
It wasn’t until she moved around Angel that she realized it hadn’t felt like home in two years, seven years after they’d gotten married.
Angel let out a growl, a puff of smoke escaping their mouth and coating the floor. They reached out, digging their claws into Maria’s shoulders, spinning her around. They leaned down, yelling, “I will not let you go! They’re too powerful for you to take on alone.”
Maria grimaced, anger quickly replacing the pain. “I’m powerful enough to take care of myself. And if you managed to give a shit about anyone other than yourself, you’d come with me and finish this.”
“Why can’t you see I just want to protect you?”
She pried their hands out of her shoulders, glaring as she said, “I don’t need your protection, Angel. Just get out of my way.”
Flames started to spill from their mouth. “Do not call me that.”
“I’ll call you whatever I want. Angel.”
The fire spewed out in a deluge of heat and pain, wrapping around Maria. Angel realized what they had done, and tried to step back, but Maria was already swinging her sword.
They’d fought many times. They’d trained together over the years and Angel was the reason Maria could fight beings more than twice her size without much of a struggle. Maria was the reason Angel paid more attention to their surroundings, despite being as tough as they were.
Their home—the place of comfort and love and safety that they had built together—was a mess of ruined furniture, broken glass, torn pictures, and two dying people still deeply, madly, stupidly, in love.
Angel’s eyes fixed on the dagger. They’d made it together on their wedding night, using her forge skills and their fire. A promise of their love. A promise of their strength together.
“You are everything, my love.”
Tears fell faster as she struggled to keep her smile. “You are everything, my love.”
She leaned down, kissed them, and with the last of her strength, slit their throat.