Still Here

Some bonds outlive death

Laoch had stopped counting. Blake had not.

"Three hundred and twelve."

His Ghost rotated toward him.

"You're still keeping track?"

Blake leaned against the broken wall and looked out over the valley below.

"Somebody should."

Laoch hovered beside him.

"You know that number doesn't include the ones before you started counting."

"Then I'm doing better than I thought."

Laoch did not laugh. Blake noticed.

"What?"

For a moment, the Ghost said nothing. Then:

"I'm tired."

Blake looked at him. Laoch drifted lower.

"I find you. I bring you back. You stand up. You run toward whatever killed you."

"That's usually the job."

"I know."

The little Ghost's shell shifted.

"I just wonder sometimes how many more times I can watch it happen."

Blake's expression softened.

"Laoch—"

"What happens when one day I can't?"

The valley stretched silently beneath them.

Blake had no answer.

Laoch continued.

"I chose you once. I would choose you again. But every time you die, there is a moment before the Light answers."

He paused.

"And in that moment, I do not know if you are coming back."

Blake looked down at his hands. Three hundred and twelve. Maybe more. Deaths he remembered. Deaths Laoch had watched.

"I never thought about what that moment was like for you."

"I know."

That hurt more than Blake expected. He reached out. Laoch floated into his palm.

"I can't promise I won't die again and I can't promise we win."

"I know."

Blake smiled faintly.

"But you found me. And you keep finding me."

Laoch's eye brightened.

Wind moved through the ruins.

"So what does that make us?" Laoch asked.

Blake looked toward the horizon.

"Still here."

There would always be another road. Another enemy. Another impossible thing waiting beyond the horizon. Maybe fate had already decided how their story ended. Maybe it hadn't. Blake rested a hand against his weapon.

"Ready?"

Laoch rose beside him.

"Always."

Previous: The Tenets · Ghost Stories · Next: What Comes Next