(note: kind of insane to see these side by side and only about a month apart. not even.)
ST. DEATH & PSYCHOPOMP
Rosa Whitfrost was once a well known academic. But for the last 40 years, her mind decaying away, she's been a walking ghost. A golden ghost.
Forty years ago, Rosa Whitfrost lost her mind. Stuck in a cave during a research outing, she finds herself losing a battle of timing.
In the cave she is surrounded by dully glowing veins of gold that streak the walls. A few sparse plants cling to the veins where they shine the brightest. Across the cave walls, her quarry: tiny golden beetles make paths around the golden vein -streaks of pure magic running in the stone flesh of the earth.
As time rolls ever forward, her rescuers know her odds of surviving are low - but not zero. When they pull Rosa from the cave, she is unconscious but alive. The damage to her brain after so much exposure to wild magic isn't yet known. All they know at the time is that it is likely to be substantial.
A fortnight after emerging from the cave, Rosa can not remember her husband's name. She wanders from home, often not returning for days at a time. She can't tell where she'd been. A month later, she does not remember that she was ever married. Only that the man who looks after her four year old son is his father - the connection she has with him rotted away as her mind fractures and frays.
In the years following, her memories are too shattered to piece together. She only rarely remembers she had a child - a man she forever recalls as a toddler - but little else. Often, not even her own name.
When Rosa's life is set to end, it does so with the help of her grandson, Tychon. Decades of wandering, not knowing where she is or what she's done. Decades of her own magic wreaking havoc on her mind and body. In a rare moment of lucidity, she asks the one person she trusts - even if she doesn't truly know him - to do something most people could not. She asks him to help her die.
Draining a healthy person of their magic - the very substance of their life force - is normally not possible. The magic in any living person is too intrinsically bound to them, and they will naturally not let go easily. But Rosa is weak. Her magic is free flowing within her and is not bound so tightly. He can, at no small cost to himself, draw it away from her.
So he does. The process is painful for him, and very difficult. The magic burns where he pulls it from her hands, sapping her of all energy. The magic ricochets around his body, causing pain and nausea. His nose bleeds. His eyes bleed.
Rosa dies calm, at peace. She may or may not have even realized who Tychon was to her, even many years after first "meeting" her. But something about him comforts her even when she can't remember.
After her death, Tychon must with the magical aftereffects, as well as the knowledge that in the cultural lens of the Golden Verse, what he did may be considered murder.
