Closed starter: Isolde Stuart and Javier Wagner (@dxncingxnmyown)
The note had come early in the day, scrawled in Javier's own handwriting. Though it was an invitation, there was no joy to be held in its words. Isolde knew, though the message did not plainly display it, what this invitation held. The faint wobble of the letters and the hesitation between each word pointed to one fact: Javier was getting married and he was going to tell Isolde that night. Isolde stared at the note in her hand; inside her head, she screamed, she raged, she cried until her face was raw from her tears, but still, she sat on her bed, her eyes unblinking.
The day seemed to pass slowly; every moment seemed to take hours. She could not seem to move, there was no will to propel her forward. Instead, she neither ate nor drank, just sat and stared, a living statue carved from marble. Her stillness broke only when the cough compelled, when it ripped through her body and bent her over, a reed in the wind. She had noticed the cough getting worse (she told herself that the red that splashed on her handkerchief was only a result of the soreness of her throat), but she had never felt anything like the way it ripped through her that day, bringing forth the tears she'd held back and, with it, the heat.
She was made of lead. As she rose from her bed, beckoned by the moonlight and her love, there was no part of her body that did not scream out in protest. She told herself that she was just a coward, that she was afraid of what Javier would tell her, but that a queen never shrank from the truth. Still, she wrapped herself in a shawl, guarding against the cold that had seeped into her bones (this despite the fact that she was sweating and her cheeks held the shade of fresh-cut strawberry). Step. Step. Step. Step. She counted her steps, one by one, willing herself forward. Step. Step. Step. The fit overtook her when she was two turns away, the cough burning up her chest, cracking her, and contorting her slender frame. She staggered to the wall, using it to bolster her as she hacked, wheezed, and gasped. She hung on it for a moment after the coughing passed and looked blearily forward. She was so very close and he was expecting her. Step. Step. She held onto the wall as she continued on, but her legs seemed to slide from under her. She was so cold, so tired. Step. A window interrupted the flow of the wall and Isolde lost balance, tumbling to the floor. Lead-weighted limbs were too heavy to move. One more corner. I'm only one corner away. Isolde's mind screamed, even as her vision darkened, creeping from the corners of her eyes inward. Javi. And all was blackness.