fic: etherworld, in a name (WIP)

I've actually been writing, um, a lot these past few months. But I haven't actually been finishing anything. Yes, I fail.

Below is something I might finish up for the lit-mag. |:

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in a name

--are her last words. Then the world spins wildly; Mire spends the last two dozen seconds of her life as a decapitated head. She dies with her eyes still open.

There is a brief moment of disconnect. When Mire stands up again, she is a spirit. The crowd is a roaring, screaming creature, thrown into blissfully wild glee because of her death. The sun is low enough that the shadows spread themselves long and thin over the arena stage. Mire's body is lying on its side, arms loosely folded against the chest, the knees bent and the ankles crossed.

Mire-the-spirit steps over it dispassionately and watches as her opponent hoists her former head high above him. He stands as still and quiet as Mire's recently vacated body, the furor of the crowd washing thick and viscous over him. He wears the victory like a cloak as he strides out of the arena, the head of Mire's body still swinging from one hand. Later it will be displayed in front of one of the arena's main entrances. Her body will be used as bait for starved animals, and the crowd will cheer as loud as they do now.

There is a place where all spirits go, located at the center of all the worlds. It has a thousand-thousand names in as many tongues. Mire opens her mouth, tries to form the shape of it in her own language. When she cannot, she realizes it is because she has forgotten.

Because it has no name, it does not exist to her. Therefore she cannot go. But there is a name she remembers, burned fresh into her mind like a firebrand. Mire turns and walks. She passes through the iron grill that separates the arena from its underworld, into the tunnels that hold starving beasts and desperate gladiators and broken slaves.

And, as well, the man who killed her.

Labels: _fiction, c: methis, verse: etherworld