Parting Words
by Kinto Mythostian


What do you say to your best friend when she is about to die? 

I risk a glance, letting my regal expression of self-seriousness waver. For a flicker of a second my eye meets hers, looking sideways at each other as we wait standing side by side, and I can see her struggle with the same question. It has been 12 days since we last saw each other, when we both cloistered ourselves in preparation for today's ceremony. Brought straight here from our cells and swiftly caught up in the ritual formality we have had no opportunity to exchange anything more than the perfunctory greetings and to affirm our threefold acquiescence. Now she will soon be dead.

I yearn to feel the touch of my vixen friend's hand in mine just one more time. My hand starts to drift towards hers.

"Anise," the priestess, Danielle, speaks my friend's name. 

She gives me the faintest hint of a smile and that is the last I will ever see of her. My fingertips brush nothing but air. Anise's attention now fully fixed ahead, her face is locked forever into a grim mien that befits the momentousness of the occasion. Her back to me, Anise somberly crosses the stage to where Danielle waits with patience beside the block. They formally acknowledge each other with a curtsey and a nod. 

With no further prompting and not a word spoken my friend kneels before the stained and notched block, a rug spread on the stage to cushion her, her Yellow dress gracefully fanned around her, her vulpine tail cloaked in its velvet snood demurely buttoned in place. Her posture is perfect, the stillness displaying the total control she has over her body. Whatever she is feeling is kept locked away inside, with no outward signs to betray her. She approaches her own execution stoically; death has only as much power as we choose to give it. 

An assistant gently sets a basket before the block opposite my friend, the basket I wove with my own hands for her, lined with Yellow velvet and twined with ribbon. Crafted as I meditated in the solitude of my cell, my contemplations of life and death, of nobility and consequences, are integral to its very structure.  For a moment, Anise's head inclines downward to look. I wish I could see my friend's face.

Around her everyone moves slowly, carefully, this beautiful pageantry all performed with a singular purpose. Nothing is rushed, no energy wasted, progressing unstoppably towards the promised and necessary conclusion: my friend's death.

Danielle ceremonially closes Anise's eyes to the world, tying in place a black blindfold.

My friend dutifully bends forward at the waist until the fur of her throat is just barely brushing the stained wood of the block. Her sharp vixen nose hovers over the mouth of her basket. Her hands are lightly clasped in her lap, unbound. She presents the nape of her neck to her sacrificer, graciously inviting the blade.

Danielle hefts the ceremonial axe from its cradle and takes her mark beside the block.

Blindfolded, Anise never sees the priestess lining up her target. 

Our life together flashes before my eyes. My life began the day we met, and Anise has confided the same to me. Identical in height and weight, our eyes the same shade of brown, even our fur a similar reddish color, we could have been twins were it not for our species, she a fox and I a wolf. Since that day we have been inseparable. Every joy we have had has been shared, every sacrifice we have made we have made together. We have been each other's strength and each other's conscience. Neither of us would be where we are today if not for one another. A lifetime of shared experiences and yet still nowhere near enough. There is too so much we yet could have done together, if not for the commitment we have both made to the gods and to each other. Her past and mine are inextricable; I desire no future that does not contain her at my side.

The axe is raised.

Together we made a Choice to lay that past, and that future, across the block alongside our lives.

The axe glints in the sunlight. My friend does not move, does not make a sound, Noble to the end.

I remain standing perfectly still, my posture rigid. I will not look away. I must be hard and impassive, and honor with the dignity she deserves my friend's death.

My palm tingles, a sensation of a touch scarcely as heavy as a feather.

The axe swings.

An instant is all it takes. A single flash of the axe and my friend and I are parted. 

The head drops straight into the basket simply and without fuss. The body flinches and slumps ponderously to the side; Danielle takes a single dainty step back and out of the way, leaving the axe embedded solidly in the wood. Blood spurts twice, spattering the stage, and then nothing. It lies completely still, no trembling toes, no twitching tail, no rising and falling of breath.

The act was so quick, and so simple, the extinguishing of my friend's life; completely out of proportion to the monumental magnitude of everything she has sacrificed.

A single dry sob catches in my throat; I forcefully hold it there and never let it reach my lips, maintaining the emotionless demeanor our traditions demand.

Two assistant priestesses promptly set to work, reverently maneuvering the body onto a litter and posing it in an attitude of funereal repose, legs straightened and arms folded across the breast. Together they lift it off the ground and carry it across the stage to display it in place of honor on the altar.

Their path across the stage takes them directly past me and my eyes are drawn to it unbidden. The neck is severed neat and clean, less than an inch above the snug collar of the dress. The bloody flesh, raw and crude, is sharp contrast to the refined Yellow velvet. Aside from a small stain on the lace the dress is immaculate. 

A third assistant follows close behind carrying the basket. I can see right down inside, the yellow velvet lining I labored over stained with blood. The object nestled cozily within the basket is not my friend. I recognize her features, the color of her fur, the shape of her ears, the clever vulpine face that I adored every day for more than one whole life period; the mouth is slightly agape, as though caught in a moment of mild wonder marveling at some secret. But the intangible part that made that face Anise, that part is gone and will never return.

I tear my gaze away and back to the front of the stage. Danielle and her assistants are hastening to make ready for the next sacrifice. To make it ready for me. For my death. The axe is wrenched free from the block, cleaned, and set back in its cradle. The spilled blood is soaked up with sawdust and swept away. A fresh rug is laid out and carefully smoothed.

Satisfied with their work, the assistants retreat once more. All eyes are on me.

"Elu," Danielle speaks my name.

It is not spoken as a command. She does not beckon to me. There is no one behind to prod me forward. The obligation of my promise should be the only impetus I require.

Of my own volition I cross the stage, drawing myself near to the block where my friend died only moments ago, where death awaits myself. Every step closer shortens my life. I do not even look at the block, my eyes fixed straight ahead. I strain to keep all emotion from my visage. Anise faced death fearlessly and so shall I. 

I nod and curtsey stiffly and Danielle returns the gesture with a smile. My expression never changes.

With no further prompting and not a word spoken I kneel before the block, a rug spread on the stage to cushion me, my Light Green dress gracefully fanned around me, my lupine tail cloaked in its velvet snood demurely buttoned in place. My posture is perfect, the stillness displaying the total control I have over my body. My feelings are kept locked away inside, and I refuse to let them show and betray me. I approach my own execution with a carefully cultivated air of detachment, the final fruit bore by years of practice. In Choosing the time and manner of my death I have robbed death of its power.

Robbed, and yet not bankrupted. Anise is gone, and I must face this trial alone, knelt at the block newly stained crimson with my friend's spilled blood. A few scarlet strands of fox fur are embedded within the fresh notch gouged in the wood. The dewy aroma of her still lingers here, mingling with the copper miasma.

I avert my gaze and strain to keep my eyes straight ahead as is proper, the center of my vision fixed on a point of sky somewhere above the heads of the watching congregation that fills the Amphitheatre, though in truth I do not see any of it.

An assistant gently sets a basket before the block opposite me, the basket Anise wove with her own hands for me, lined with Light Green velvet and twined with ribbon. Crafted as she meditated in the solitude of her cell, made with her own gentle hands to cradle my lifeless head as eternity passes in our noiseless tombs. I wish I could see my friend's face.

I wish I could mourn, her and I together. I wish I could weep, and hold each other as she weeps too. These things can never be, not now. My own eyes threaten treachery; I feel the forbidden tears welling within.

Not a moment too soon blessed blackness eclipses my unfocused vision as Danielle ties the traditional blindfold over my eyes.

Blindfolded, but far from sightless. The images of my final moments cycle past my vision, one after another like a disordered slide show, over and over, blurring, jumbling together: Anise's head nestled in a crèche of bloody velvet. Anise kneeling delicate and willing. The gleaming axe cutting clean through Anise's neck in a single stroke. Anise bestowing the shy hint of a smile on me. The naked bone and flesh of Anise's severed neck. The shimmer of Yellow velvet fanned around Anise's genuflection. Anise's blood, pumping, flowing, draining. Anise's decapitated body flopping, falling, limp, dead, dead. I have just watched my friend die, without even a moment to say goodbye, and now I am condemned by my own choice to share her fate.

It is an awful thing, this ceremony we perform. We torture ourselves with years of harsh self-discipline and austerity to rise above the tyranny of our animal instincts. We commit ourselves to chastisement of our flesh to free ourselves from our bodies that are our prisons, our lives that are our shackles. We endure the consequences of our choices because to break a commitment is to acknowledge the defeat of our will. We expose our deepest most primal fears - death and pain and loss - and force ourselves to mercilessly confront them in the pursuit of making our will stronger. Finally, in the cruelest act of self-denial, we willingly reject this world and consign ourselves entirely to the gods. 

There is no honor in a life free from suffering, and only through adversity can we truly achieve our Noble potential. It is a heavy burden, and not everyone is brave enough to bear it. I know I would never have had the courage to face these hardships alone. I am blessed to have had a friend like Anise in my life. I always knew that if she could be strong enough, then so could I. Now, she has done her Noble duty and there is nothing left but for me to follow.

I bend forward at the waist until the tips of the hairs of my throat just brush against the wood; the tacky blood clings to them. I stretch my neck as far as I can, presenting a clear target. I do not beg, nor even ask. I have simply placed myself in death's way and invite its coming.

My senses on high alert, I can hear Danielle hefting her axe.

The fur raises along the back of my neck. Danger, my deepest instincts scream at me from where I have entombed them deep within, fight or flight; I will do neither. 

I control my body; it does not control me. My hands lie still in my lap, unbound; my tail does not so much as twitch, restrained by a lifetime of discipline; my breath is steady and calm, even as it must soon be stopped.

I die to honor the gods, and to honor Anise. My friend cannot witness my sacrifice as I witnessed hers, but I may yet still offer her the fortitude she has earned.

I kneel where my friend knelt, a posture of surrender as she surrendered, submitting myself to die as she submitted to die. For an instant I see myself as I saw her. I can feel her watching me. In a blink, the vision is gone. I see nothing but the blackness behind my blindfold, but I can still feel her presence: an echo of her, here in the spot where she died. Not watching from without, but holding me close from within, her hand in mine, her paws in mine, her tail in mine, her heart in mine; her body and mine perfectly congruent, her soul and mine wholly entwined. An overwhelming calmness pervades me. My fur relaxes, my heart slows. Here in the space between life and death there is nothing to fear.

"I love you. Forever," the whisper comes from my lips, meant for her, but it is her voice that reverberates in my ears, the final words when I am about to die.

There is a swishing, the sound of an axe at the beginning of its stroke.

An instant is all it will take and we will be joined again.











First draft began April 7, 2018. First draft completed April 19, 2018. Editing completed May 2, 2018.