Cobweb Bride

Since the dawn of existence, you mortals have feared dying, feared the unknown and the pain of it, and yet, pain is a part of life, not death. And I—I am the first moment after pain ceases,” he [Death] pronounced. “It is life that fights and struggles and rages; life, that tears at you in its last agonizing throes to hold on, even if but for one futile instant longer... Whereas I, I come softly when it is all done. Pain and death are an ordered sequence, not a parallel pair. So easy to confuse the correlations, not realizing that one does not bring the other.

It is life that fights and struggles and rages; life, that tears at you in its last agonizing throes to hold on, even if but for one futile instant longer. . . . Whereas I, I come softly when it is all done. Pain and death are an ordered sequence, not a parallel pair. So easy to confuse the correlations, not realizing that one does not bring the other.

What is blood but the wine of life?

Thing is," Grial said in a conspiratorial voice, "let me tell you a little secret, girlie. That road- those roads, all roads and paths in fact- they never end. You might think they do. You might think they just narrow and fade and disappear in the hoary depths of the forest? Not so, not at all! They merely go into hiding, and you just have to search a bit harder to see them.

In the absence of Death, In the presence of Death, Only one thing remains, It is Love.

Fear is a cold bastard. The only way to overcome it is to act—to take the first step and just move forward.

But you have abandoned us, and we don’t know what to do with ourselves after we are broken.

While you were never properly welcomed, you were a dependable relief for us all, in the end, at the proper time for each one of us .

He was her death—and yet, her blade of life, of clarity, to cut through the thick roiling swamp of personal darkness.

the Empress said, her own breath coming in gasps, lips against her daughter’s cold forehead and soft hair—her hair at least was still the same, soft, delicate, sweet cobwebs. . . .

Tears came from what remaining fluids their poor broken bodies still held in reserve. Tears flowed and froze against cold dead skin—for some, their last tears, for when their internal water was depleted the dead body would process no more. And they did not know it yet; if they did, would they save their tears?

Sometimes,” Father Dibue said, “though everything is in the Lord’s Hands, undoubtedly, there’s the urgent need to administer the Holy Sacrament of the Last Rites. Otherwise, the humble servant of the Lord lingers, such as now, waiting for grace, for absolution.