Cas' Memories

She can't breathe.

Her parents’ frowns tug at their faces until they're one grim countenance scowling down at her. Cephi won't even meet her eyes.

When your brother travelled to Oxheim...

Months and months ago. Things had been different then. Things were getting better. She'd even made a friend, a little viper girl nearly as small as her. With Cephi being sick, she hadn't seen her in so long.

So long ago.

The lake...

Hope's Deep, at the intersection of three streams. She'd been jealous that he got to see it.

He always was a better swimmer. She so small against the battering waves, about all that kept her afloat was determination. They loved water, both of them, and he could hold his breath for so long it scared her. Of course he'd dive down into it.

There was something in the water.

Something terrible.

He wasn't just sick.

Her brother. Her brother who had always protected her. Her brother who had all but raised her himself. Her brother who now sat there like there was a wall between them, a patch of grey, of Grey, creeping up his scales…

Her brother was dying.

Two years...

She can't breathe.

Maybe more...

She can't breathe.

Maybe less.

She can't breathe.

Cas!

For the first time, she runs, breaking away from the claws that grab at her. She runs, but there's nowhere left to go. Her legs carry her until they nearly collapse. Sand skids beneath her feet, waves grab at her ankles and numb her paws.

She's not thinking. She doesn't stop. The wintery ocean hits her chest, shocks the breath out of her lungs. But she doesn't stop.

There is no life without him.

She screams over the crashing, the rushing in her ears. She sinks to their depths, to the quiet.

There is nothing after him.

She falls.

For a moment, the inky darkness opens up to her and she finds herself staring into the void she'd only seen in reflections. The chill has already numbed her body, but her lungs are burning, a final flame. Force hits her chest and the ocean puts it out. Steals her breath. Spots of void prick her vision, widening, consuming, opening to take her.

Her last thought. Please.

Her last knowledge. That there is after. She just doesn't want to know what it may be.

The void devours her. And the freezing cold enveloping her changes. Cold too, but stiller, eternal. A child's grave beneath the sea.

Then something reaches into the void, wrapping around her chest and jolting her back into reality. She realizes then that she was sleeping. She struggles – she can't let him take her place – but the water is too heavy to fight. And then she crashes to the surface and she's breathing again.

"Please..." She chokes on bitter water, coughs. Her blind eyes open to black, the void lingering. "Please."

No one hears her over the screaming waves. When Cephi drags her body to the cold shore and collapses next to her, she curls up in the sand and cries with him.