• “Are you any good?” He asked the fortuneteller.
    I could tell she was sensing too. He was always oblivious to it but he and death walked hand in hand.
    And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
    “Your death is imminent, within the month. I’m sorry.” She repeated it again to Rhyns’ blank face. Slowly he shook his head ‘no’.
    I laid my hand on his hair, gently stroking.
    “… Is it…?” He tried to start several times but he couldn’t get past ‘it’.
    “Yes.”
    “How long…. Have you known?” He asked me.
    “Ever since we met.”

    Rhyns sat on the balcony bench; his head leant against the stone railing and tilted up towards the heavens. His mauve eyes were glazed and unresponsive.
    I moved out and sat beside him. Slowly he slid against me, snuggling close to me to bury his head to my chest.
    “…Ray told me something once. He has always given me the best advise.”
    Even as I uttered the words my mind rewound to the night he gave me this advice.

    We were seated in his empty apartment just after Tsuem’s death and the whole matter was laid to rest. I was still on my first gin and tonic and Ray was down 3 sake bottles.
    He smiled at me for a second then turned away. He gained a bitter frown as he swirled the clear liquid in his glass.
    “Each day is a gift, not a given right. Leave no stone unturned and leave your fears behind.” He fixed me with the hardest stare his drunken state could muster. “Always take the path less traveled and ‘member that the first step you take is the longest stride.” He shook his glass at me.
    I fixed him with an appreciating glare before scoffing at him. “Gods you’re drunk.” We shared a laugh at that.

    “A gift, hmm?” Rhyns repeated softly as he straitened a little to look me in the eyes. He softly kissed my cheek before attempting to sit in my lap.
    “Rhyns….”
    “Yes?” He looked up through his eyelashes at me.
    “If today was your last day, could you say goodbye to yester day?”
    It took him a while to figure out how he wanted to respond. But I heard him softly mutter ‘goodbye yesterday’.

    Despite how busy he tried to keep himself he still would find some gaps just too long to star unthinkingly ahead. He would slowly fold his arm across his waist to support his elbow as he slumped against his hand, biting on his finger.
    “Do you have any more words of wisdom?”
    I slowly walked over to him, picking him up so I may sit down, and set him on my lap. He curled up into me, playing with my long strands of black hair.
    “Yes.” I inhaled deeply as I remembered a time when I thought Ray truly despised me.

    We sat in a bar of his choosing, Ray slowly sipping at a Rivinian malted ale and I at a persnickety drink that Rhyns got me hooked on. I frowned at the mutilated beverage as Ray pushed aside his disliked drink.
    “You know, against the grain should be a way of life.” He pushed the drink even further and ordered something else, something that came from a dusty bottle.
    He drank and gave a pleased nod and tapped his finger on the glass. “What’s worth the prize is always worth the fight. Don’t take the free ride in your won life.” He turned to me, nudging me in the arm to be sure he had my attention. “Every seconds counts. There is no second try. So live like you’ll never live twice.”
    I stared at him, no trace of emotion on my face.
    “You positive you weren’t drinking before this?” I asked and he erupted into a soft laugh and smiled genuinely at me.
    “We’re gonna be friends for life. I just know it.”

    “No second try… There goes reincarnation then, huh?” Rhyns laughed a phantom laugh, completely dead and insubstantial.
    “Rhyns…”
    “Yeah?”
    “Will you live each moment like it’s your last?”
    He stared at his desk for the answers. Finally he reached out and plucked a photo off the desk and slowly took off the back to pop out the real treasure. It was one of the only photos taken at our Promise Ceremony. Ray and I are the only others with one.
    “I’m certainly trying.” He stated as he pressed the photo to his chest and laid it back into the frame.

    Rhyns and were walking down the road and he was stopping a lot today. He was finally coming to terms with everything. However he still had a heart the size of a solar system and was out to spread good will to every body in sight.
    It made me smile until he cast a forlorn look my way. My smile disappeared into last week.
    I crossed over to where he was working, elbows deep in somebody’s laundry as she ran out to get groceries. He wiped a sopping wet hand across his forehead, smearing soapy water all over himself.
    He laughed genuinely at himself and made to splash me but I was too far away and an odd angle.
    “C’mon. You can get a little wet!” He teased and winked at me. “It’s private, no body will know I’m promised to my body guard here!”
    I could help but smirk at him.
    “Remember what happened the last time you and I tried to share a bath tub?” I had to ask and wagged my finger at him.
    “Fun burner.” He stated and stuck his tongue out me. He flicked water at me that sizzled and evaporated before it could reach me. “… You’re not nice.”
    “And you’re freezing that poor woman’s laundry.”
    Sometimes I never can tell what will trigger him but I was already biting tongue when he started to cry. It wasn’t loud, just soft sobbing that caused crystallized tears to tumble down his cheeks and shatter against the ground.
    “You’re making your mark. You’re mending her broken heart.” I repeated Ray’s words to him as I slowly drifted into the world of memories.

    This time it was after the first time he’s seen Rhyns’ true face. The one that isn’t smiling and constantly happy. He asked Jaymie to keep and eye on him as we headed out. I was babysitting him.
    He was silent most the night so I had to gauge his inebriation based on the bottles of draft he was drinking.
    Just before I was about to suggest leaving he swirled his beer around and fixed me with a truly cold gaze.
    “Tell him as often as you must. If not to mend his heart but to give him something.” He stated evenly, no longer oblivious to our relationship. “Tell him: it’s never too late to shoot for the stars, not matter who you are. To do whatever takes. Because you can’t rewind a moment in this life. To never let anything stand in his way, cuz the hands of time aren’t on any ones side.” His words slurred slightly towards the end but he stared on hard just long enough to scoff slightly.
    He smiled and it infected me and smiled back. Then he laughed.
    “Gods, you must be drunk.” He laughed at me and ordered a final round.
    “Tell me about it, you’re starting to become funny.” I joked back. “But I won’t be laughing in the morning.”
    “Let’s toast. To the shared unpleasantness of tomorrow!”

    “Thanks.” Rhyns murmured as he slowly unclenched his hands and wiped at his eyes. “I guess I’m not as prepared as I thought.”
    “No one is.” I stated and pulled him into a tight embrace once more before finished up the laundry.

    I couldn’t help but wonder at the justice of the universe. Rhyns’ body was slowly getting heavier and starting to burn and deteriorate into ashes in my arms but I couldn’t bring myself to let go.
    Sure I avenged him but now there was nothing left. Ray and his wife are gone, light-years away. Rhyns was the only person keeping me here, in the galaxy, in this universe.
    I felt his body collapse along the rumble of the building as floor above me collapsed because of the fire. The fire retardant spells were nothing compared to my Super Novea burn. If I didn’t get help soon I’ll surely die too.
    I can feel Rhyns’ spirit prod me in the back.
    “Go you fool!” He’d be shouting now if he could voice it.
    “I can’t let go… Not yet.” I squeezed my eyes shut as felt his weight reduce to blackened ash that slipped between fingers and melted to my skin all over my body.
    The only thing of his that wasn’t melting was his sword that ran through the core of my body, fending off the Super Novea from liquefying my innards to molten flesh and blood.
    I groaned as I felt Rhyns pull to me feet and shove me out a window. I wasn’t up high enough to really hurt. At least not as much as the Super Novea did.
    As I lay there, my gaze fixed to the sky. I can’t help but let Ray’s final words to me wander through my mind. Just before he left a few days ago.

    He stood at the base of the tether, his eyes following the thick cord up to the space dock. His ship was there, ready to take him home. Jaymi was already aboard it and Rhyns was off wreaking havoc in the souvenir shop.
    “Rhyns told me. That he was going to die son.” Ray said solemnly. “He told me a while ago, I just could think of what to say. I lost my fiancé, you know that, so it’s not going to be easy.” He knew I knew this but he felt he had to go on.
    “I just need you to think about this.” He ran his hand across his long black hair, patting the back of his head softly. “Can you say goodbye to yesterday? Would you live each moment like your last? Leave old pictures in the past? Would call old friends you never see? Reminisce of memories? Would you forgive your enemies? Would you find the stuff you’re dreaming off? If today was you last day with him?”
    We stared at each other for a long moment and just as I was about to say something he help up his hand, stopping me.
    “Think about it.”
    He turned and left, climbing into the elevator that whisked him up to the spaceport orbiting Rivina.

    “No. I don’t I can ever let go.”

    Too late, was my response and too little was my actions.