The Ballad of Never After

His eyes were wet with blood. Red tears fell down his cheeks and onto hers. But the girl didn’t stir.

Why do you even care how I feel? she thought back tartly. It’s not as if I’ll remember any of this anyway.

“There is nothing of equal value to me.”

The story curse was familiar with pain, but this was agony, the sort of raw grief that was only seen once in a century. The Fate was every tear that anyone had ever shed for lost love. He was pain given form.

The girl was dead. If her lifeless body had not confirmed it, then it would have been made clear by the horrible scream of the Fate who held her in his arms.

A tormented scream pierced the night like a blade. The sky bled, and darkness fell instead of stars, erasing lights across the Magnificent North.

“Since then, every girl I’ve kissed has died, except for one. And you are not that girl.”

“I want to erase every moment you and I have spent together, every word you’ve said to me, and every time I’ve touched you, because if I don’t, I’ll kill you, just like I killed the Fox.”

She meant to say, For tonight, I’m yours, but all that came out was “I’m yours.”

Because she’d never actually stopped falling.