Sunset - Fablechime’s Death

Instructions

Please watch the project before proceeding, make sure your volume is up ➸ ——————————— ☼ ——————————— What is it, to die? Fablechime finds that he’s been avoiding this question for longer than he’d care to admit. What is it, to find yourself insignificant? Fablechime /knows/ that all her life she’s been trying to put herself in a place where she’s never had to figure this out. Yet here Fablechime is. Deteriorating body, sick from the very beginning, finally betraying them. They remember exactly how it started. “Purples and crimsons, swatched against the vast canvas of the desert sky, embrace the Sun as she sets.” Fablechime limped across the sands of his home. He was returning from a meeting with Storybrook, his dearest brother. A nostalgic one, one where they’d discussed things that were long left in the past, like plots of overthrowing bedtimes and the beginnings of things they’d never forgotten. It was something Fablechime needed, a reminder of what she’d come from. Now, as she recounts the memories, she realizes she was the same at two moons old as she is at 127. Delusional. He let his mind return to the familiar embrace of his words, of his narration. After a lifetime of loneliness, love, and loss, his words (and Starry, he supposes) have remained his only constant companion. “The Sun swam down through the sea of color towards the earth, her daily descent coming to a close. Soon it would be the Moon’s turn.” Fablechime will soon realize how true those words have come to be. He continued murmuring to himself, accented voice slowly drifting across the dunes. No one would think odd of this behavior, no WindClan cat at least. They’re all used to his melodies. All of WindClan has been weaned on the weavings of his words. All he wants is for someone to notice the dead silence, flooding through the tunnels and filling up his lungs. Did they ever hear him at all? Then he trips. He falls. Tumbling down and down and down, head over heels, ricocheting in the darkness, it all comes back to him so suddenly. There are many kinds of falling. He thinks he’s done them all. Falling in love. Falling down canyons. Falling into loneliness. Falling over rocks. Has he finally gone senile in his old age? Have his words on that cliff’s edge come back to bite him? It’s ever so quiet down here. He remembers a time when it was quiet before. Him, sobbing into the stones of his cave. Then Reindeersand had come to save him. Reindeersand is gone now. /Falling over rocks./ He is suddenly aware of everything at once. The press of cold earth on his side. The dim glow of crystals far, far away. The silence echoing through the tunnels, rebounding on the stone walls and pounding through his head. The semi-large stone a few foxslengths away from him. He’s tripped and fallen down WindClan’s tunnel. The Sun Bard has tripped. He would laugh if he were not so aware of the gravity of the situation. For everything in his body hurts. His body has finally betrayed him, an inevitability, she thinks. Coupled with the limp and the arthritis. She cannot call for help. Everyone she has ever known, ever loved is dead. She is the only one left. She’s taking an eerily clinical approach to her demise. The thought strikes him like a lightning bolt. Sudden and sharp. Is that what’s happening here? Death? But she’s immortal, isn’t she? That’s what they’ve been telling themselves all this time. They can’t remember whether or not that started as a lie or a belief. Has her whole life been a lie? She doesn’t know. But the Sun Bard knows everything. Is that a lie too? The world seems to have crumbled under her. They can die. They will die. They are dying, at least, they think that’s what’s happening. They can’t quite be sure of anything anymore. But something must be happening here because the panic welling up in her chest can’t be normal. Neither can the tears cascading from her eyes. “I don’t want to die.” She says the words to no one in particular. To anyone who is listening. “I don’t want to die.” She repeats it like a hymn. But what she wants doesn’t matter. Her chest feels tight. She can see her breath, leaving the tunnel, making its way up… becoming a painting in the stars. The Sun is a Star. How does the Sun die? Does it simply turn off like a light switch? Does it go out in one burst? Supernova. She sees her breath going up. Deep amber eyes slowly make their way shut, slits of sunlight dimming. Or does the Sun never die? Does it continue its cycle? Up and down Up and down Up and down Their chest is going Up and down Up and down Up and down Up… down Up… down Up…