(Note: This is a private roleplay. Thank you.)

The day hurt. The sunlight, heralding the coming spring, stung the shoulders and neck of the walker. The shadows between the shafts of light beat down upon the walker's arms. The bracken and brush crackling like flames beneath the worn sneakers tore like nails. The air cut like a serrated blade, and even the silence was a strangling hand.

The severe trees, stately and tall, rising like pikes around the walker's slim figure seemed foreboding and cruel. The clouds wafting like carded wool overhead only aided to tighten the noose of sorrow about the walker's neck and smother the heart beating stubbornly. The blue sky was an oddly-hued death shroud; it held no welcome, but no release.

Part of Welsie's very being had been discarded, left behind with the corpse of her. Nameless, she would be nameless; anything more specific would tear open floodgates of despair that could only lead to unquenchable pain and torture. She was gone. That was all. But that was also all needed, all required. A piece of Welsie, stolen, left a jagged opening in her center's center. It pulsed, bleeding, leaking out all negativity, filling her. She would drown. The bullet on her breast was too much.

The forest was granting no respite, the will of nature, the life, the lasting, was only adding to the burden that bent her ever-green, turtle-neck sweatered shoulders. The cuffs of her black jeans drug across the ground, slowing her step lest she become entangled on a branch or root. Her hands were driven deep into her pockets. Today required no jacket. She left her beret behind. Her hair fell about her inclined cheeks, curtaining her sightless alexandrite eyes.

Today was, as they say, end all and be all. She had reviewed every aspect of her existence and found too many to be lacking. Too few people called, spoke, cared. Too few times had she been happy within the past two weeks. Too few times beforehand had she been truly happy. Everything was a jigsaw puzzle, and pieces were permanently gone. Unsolvable, she was giving up.

It seemed so cliché, so painfully foreseeable, so obviously the thing to do. But she cared not for anything now, least of all what others thought of her actions. It was beyond comprehension, the pale shade world of ice and stone she resided in. It was time. It was the place. A smoothe, flat rock. Not too far from running water. Very peaceful. Fitting.

Welsie clambers her way onto the rock, the surface warm and firm. She reached down into the pocket of her jeans and withdrew an inch long pocket knife. A flick of her thumb spread the blade, not registering the glint of light from the sun. Sadly, it took only a brief pause, a second's hesitation in which a soft breath was released before the blade was put to its morbid use. The blood mixed with her green sweater like a Christmas nightmare. She almost wished she could see it, resigned to feeling the hot liquid sliding wet over her skin and soaking into the her clothing. Soundless dripping onto the stone beneath her folded thighs. She mirrored it with her other wrist before dropping the instrument and then stretching out on the rock's surface.

Ready to welcome Death.

He wasn't much of a nature person. It wasn't a great secret, really, but perhaps a bit of a surprise. His lifestyle might've been better suited to that of solitude, the winged hermit existing his way through life with only the comfort that Mother Earth had to offer.

Still, he had been raised with all the comforts of civilization, and very much without the opportunity to join the boy scouts and learn even basic survival techniques. Thus, in the inner city he typically remained, despite the difficulty it constantly caused him.

Today, Matthias had made the trek to the conservation area to do some bird watching. He'd never had much opportunity to study the flight patterns of wild birds, unless pigeons could be counted as wild. As he made his way along a mildly overgrown trail, he tried to keep his eyes to the treetops for any sign of darting feather or flicker of wing, but more often than not he would find himself staring at the path ahead of him, carpeted with the accumulation of last autumn's leaves and a few pockets of sticky brown mud.

His thoughts would not allow him to concentrate on his original task. More and more of late they had been turned to Welsie. They hadn't been in contact for a short while, and today in particular the fact was making him uneasy. He'd had a few reasons to be kept from the phone-- Shad, and work for EGO. He hadn't had time to sit and dwell like he used to, and though he checked the caller display when he came in each morning for her number, he hadn't been able to bring himself to call. Perhaps she'd been busy too, and his calling would just be a nuisance.

The angel hugged his arms a little tighter around himself, having walked with them tucked over his chest for the past half hour or so. His wings were, as always, safely tucked away beneath his long coat.

He stopped. He didn't know why. Of their own accord his feet ceased to walk, and his gaze went from the trail to scan the surrounding trees. A prickling of unease crawled up his spine with the many hooked legs of a centipede, causing his wings to tense and his brow to furrow. He stepped off of the path and onto wild ground, the idea that he was liable to get utterly lost washed away with the strong urge to follow his intuition.

He made his way between the trees as best as he was able for around five minutes before a crippling wave of loss, sorrow, and overall tearing pain fell upon him, causing him to drop to his knees with a voiceless cry. Trembling, he got up again, and forced onward, knowing he was needed, that some poor soul was out here alone with such an aching heart.

He followed the trail of broken life to a rock; a large, flat rock, where the river could be heard through the trees. He hesitated then, seeing the back of the woman on the stone, wondering and worrying how to intrude. She hadn't purposely called him to her, and how was he to explain why he was there when she likely wanted to have privacy.

Matthias started forward, eyes stinging with tears for her. As he moved, he unbuttoned his coat, and shook it to the ground, freeing his wings. Why, he didn't know. A feeling that it might help.

The world slowed to a crawl. Blood dribbled over the smooth rock platform. She lay quietly, as if with anticipation. Why. Why Welsie. Why. This is a dream...this....

"Why...Welsie..."

Matthias knelt, hard, by the rock, across from her. Broken. Numb. Slumping, wings hanging limply. Cold and barren on the inside, wet on the out as tears ran from his pastel eyes to coat his cheeks and sprinkle upon the grey stone. His voice was a shaken whisper.

He should help her. Bind up her wrists before more of her precious life leaked away.

But he wouldn't. Not unless she wanted him to.

Hazy, dreaming, quiet, faded, muted, silent.

It was numb, it had stopped hurting. Some portions. Other portions were still open and festering. Still aching. She did not know which part. Maybe it was the rock driving into her shoulder and bicep.

A voice, a whisper, somewhere above and outside the ring of despair. Something familiar. Something that stirred in her breast and made her want to draw up the curtain of her eyelashes to pray that maybe this once she could see who was beside her.

A brief ripple of her shoulders. She was there, worn at the edges, soft, light. She knew that voice.

".. Matthias.."

She could still talk though her entire body throbbed. This was terrible, wrong. He could not see her like this. Her stomach twisted. Her brain fluttered confusedly, leaping like an agitated butterfly.

"Mattias... Matti."

Eyes opened, no change, she waited with hesitant breath for the reply she needed, hovering now on the brink of complete ruin.

He leaned forward, reaching with shaking fingers to touch her cheek, then to cup it in his palm.

He sniffled softly, looking upon her for a moment longer, and then closing his eyes.

"It's me... Welsie... Why..."

Again, the question why, a stupid question, because it required explanation, and explanation required time, which looked to be running out. Yet it was asked anyway. All else was falling in his mind, dripping with the tears and draining with the blood until only the 'why' remained.

Why hadn't she called him.

Why hadn't he called her.

Why hadn't he done something to prevent this.

Why hadn't he told her before now, what he knew, what was rash but what he knew with all his heart, mind, and soul.

Touch. She could react to touch, and did, tilting her face into the warm hand. A tiny whimper. She was making him sad.

"Matthias..."

She wanted to move closer to the voice she most wanted to hear. She whimpered again, finding her body heavy and unresponsive.

"Matthias.. I..."

She had to finish or he might leave her alone again. She couldn't be alone, never. It would be her final death.

"I felt so alone... s-so terrible.. Nothing makes sense to me any more.. I can't eat or sleep.. my friends ignore me... and Mina... she's gone again for good now.. oh Matthias.. I only wanted the pain to stop... but I couldn't escape it..."

That was enough of the slow, drawn-out speeches. Thsoe parts of the movies always seemed to bother her for some reason. She tried to move closer to Matti, whimpering for a third time, the smell of blood filling her brain and sending shockwaves of fear through her.

Opening his eyes at her whimpering and thus seeing her unfulfilled efforts to move closer to him, Matthias instead shifted himself onto the rock and next to her. Facing her, a wing settling over her, painfully looking upon her with his hand still to her cheek.

"Welsie...I... I love you, I should have told you before.. Maybe...you wouldn't have felt so alone... God...I'm sorry..."

God, don't let her die. Don't let her light go out.

I won't let her go.
"I won't let you go."

His hand slid to hers, and held it firmly. "But only if...only if you don't want to go," he finished softly.

Welsie felt a lance from above pierce into her stomach, tear open the flesh, the tissue, releasing forth a wave of putrid regret and shame such as she had never known. Her mind was cleaved in two, the side given up and the side fighting desperately to find the proper conveyance for how she now felt.

"Oh God.."

She groaned. Her hand was cold, but she could still feel the warm press of his fingers.

"Matthias... please don't leave me... I must be with you. I'm scared.. such.. I've never been so.. I don't know what.. but please don't go.. and don't let go."

She breathed in shakily, roughly, her voice coming through a seive, a net, something smothering her lungs. She tried to grasp his hand, managing only a soft pressure against his skin.

New hope, new strength. Strength to share. She didn't want to go. He wouldn't let her.

He sat up, and released her hand, though kept his wing over her to maintain contact.

"I'll wrap up your wrists, and then take you back to my apartment," he explained quickly, the sound of shredding fabric underneath the words as he tore two strips of it from his shirt, starting from one side of the slit made in the back to accomodate his wings and ripping it clear to the other.

Gingerly, Matthias picked up the hand closest to him, and bound the slit wrist with one long strip of dark evergreen cloth. While he worked, he tried to think positive thoughts for her, to calm her and reassure her that he would do his best to make things better.

Her body shook and she tried to concetrate her entire being on stopping the blood from leaking any further. She nodded weakly to indicate she understood what would happen, extending her fingers and making no noise though it burned white-hot to have the cloth around the open wounds.

"Matthias..."

She did not want to talk. She had to.

"Matthias.. I want to love you too.. I think I can.. but I'm scared."


More frightened than she was of losing another sense, and that was quite a hefty worry.

"Shh...don't talk right now. Save your strength," Matthias said softly as he bound the other wrist, attempting to do so gently but also securely, both wishes made difficult by his shaking hands. As much as he wanted to hear her speak those words, or something akin to them, he knew they could be held onto until she had enough health to express them properly and with a clear mind.

He lay her arms carefully on the rock again, and then slid off the slab in order to move in behind her. One arm below her shoulders, the other under her thighs, tilting her into his arms carefully and then stepping back to take on her full weight.

He surveyed the area for a take-off point, doubting that he would be able to achieve a vertical lift-off without jarring Welsie painfully.

Soft hands, familiar smell, movement. Her skin was back on the warm rock. The smell again. She wanted to weep for being found. Soft pressure and bone around her. She leaned inward and breathing deeply into Matthias' torn shirt. One set of fingers quiveringly grasped the fabric, afraid even now she might be dropped and left. Alone again. To die.

She tried to edge even closer, wanting the warmth and security. She held her tongue although she was inclined to speak, say something, anything rather than let this moment pass by with her just lying quiet like some ungrateful wretch.

"Thank you..."

A whisper, barely, not wanting to go against his wishes but in need for the expression.

"Thank you so much, Matthias.."

Warm, soft lips met Welsie's temple as Matthias bent to kiss her gently.

"I'm only thankful that I got here in time," he murmured before straightening and struggling back onto the rock. It was the most altitude he'd be able to gain without walking some distance, it seemed.

Mindful of the blood that was likely slippery, he unfurled his wings and jogged the perhaps two or three paces the rock provided. A strong and improbable blast of wind hit the span of feathers and bone stretched out behind him, giving him some unexpected lift.

Working his wings fiercely, Matthias was able to become airborne, and clutching Welsie to him preciously, soon rose above the trees and found an air current to take them back to the city.

Back on the ground, his forgotten coat became gradually littered with dead leaves.

Warm, soft, a caress of her skin and the contented feeling in her stomach together made Welsie sigh happily albiet shakily.

More movement. It didn't quite hurt. Nothing seemed exactly defined now, though... not quite warm, not quite soft, or hard, or firm, or cool. Everything was pressing against a veil, a shroud, draped over her. Wanting to reach her, but she wouldn't let it.

She sucked in air as they took off, not for pain but for the initial shock. It had occured to her how much this could be likened to an angel carrying her to heaven. Maybe she had died...

But no... had not that raspy woman told them in the seventh grade that all suicides went to hell? She couldn't, like so much, quite remember.

If this was hell, she desired no heaven.