Hero at the Fall

Once there was a boy from the sea who fell in love with a girl from the desert. [...] But he wondered if a boy from the sea and a girl from the desert could ever survive together. He feared that she might burn him alive or that he might drown her. Until finally he stopped fighting it and set himself on fire for her.

But even if the desert forgot a thousand and one of our stories, it was enough that they would tell of us at all. That long after our deaths, men and women sitting around a fire would hear that once, long ago, before we were all just stories, we lived.

What do you think happens" I said instead. "When we die?" Jin didn't believe in gods. He didn't believe in heavens or hells or worlds after. Just in this world. Just in now. Jin traced my face, like he was trying to remember it. "I think they burn us and we become dust and ash." He ran a finger across the edge of my lips. "And I think that the dust that was me will spend until the end of time trying to get as close as possible the the dust that was you out in that vast desert.

We would be stories long after we were gone. Imperfect, inaccurate stories. Stories that could never even come close to reality

You and I, we’re going to get tomorrow, and the next night, and a thousand nights after that. For now, it can be enough that I am yours.” He kissed me gently. “All that I am I give to you, and all that I have is yours.

She was all fire and gunpowder, and her finger was always on a trigger

We contained our own stories. A thousand tiny parts of the story would die with us.

The Rebel Prince will rise again. He will bring a new dawn. A new desert.

You're wrong, you know. I'm not with you because of who you became. I fell in love with you when I was bleeding under a counter at the dead end of the desert and you saved my life. Back when we were both who we used to be.

The tales would be imperfect; the legends would be incomplete. And each and every one of us standing in the garden that night would take an entire universe of stories with us when we died, the accounts of every small moment that did not seem grand enough to storytellers, which would disappear in smoke when our bodies were burned.

Ahmed looked shocked, his hands digging into my arms. 'But you love him,' he said softly. 'You love him, and you should save him. That' what people do with those they love, Amani -- they save them.' No iT wasn't. Sam had taught me that. Great love stories ended in death. All stories ended in death sooner or later. Ours was ending sooner.

Her wish was simple: that you should live. - Bahadur, to Amani, about her mother.

And the storyteller began.

God above, you’re beautiful,’ he breathed. ‘You don’t believe in God,’ I reminded him, my voice low. ‘Right now, I think I just might.

He feared that she might burn him alive or that he might drown her. Until finally he stopped fighting it and set himself on fire for her.

There's no such thing as just a story.

We were sailing on a sea of sand.

But the storytellers would never know that. Even if people had known the truth, they wouldn't have been interested in telling it. Flowers pouring from Windows like falling stars made a better tale.

I’m so sorry, Noorsham,” I said. And then I punched him in the face.

They both die tragically at the end. That's what happens in all great love stories.

The stories might tell that we love each other. But the stories would never remember what that felt like. They would never know that when we lay together in his tent the night before we died, he traced the small scar along my collarbone. That when he kissed me, he smiled against my mouth. Or what it sounded like when he said my name. We contained our own stories. A thousand tiny parts of the story would die with us.

She had done it. Delila had saved us. And she'd done it without a single weapon. I'd forgotten how powerful a story could be.

That was what we did. Survive one fight to get to the next. Over and over again until you didn’t survive. And all that you could hope for when dying was that some people wouldn’t have to see another fight. That eventually, somewhere, this country would find peace.

He must've heard we were on our way. But I had the feeling iT wasn't the News of our numbers or our weapons that made him flee. It was the news that the rebel prince had returned from the dead. We didn't even have to fight with the tale of Ahmed preceding us. That was the power of a legend.

Gentlemen,' he said dramatically as he rose, kicking his chair back out of the way, 'your infidelity leaves me no choice but to fold this hand. But I Will return hen I've had Some luck rub off on me.' He winked widely, pulling me tight against him by the waist. Thumbscrews. The way I murdered him was going to include thumbscrews.

We were going to get Ahmed back. And Rahim back. And Shazad. And Delila. And all the others who had been captured. And we were going to end this.

In the stories, it was always the monster who lost. But I knew better than anyone that stories and truth weren't the same thing.

All that I am I give to you, and all that I have is yours. Because the day that we die, it’s not going to be tomorrow.

This felt like the first time all over again, when he’d pinned me up against the side of a train carriage that shook around us like it might fall apart at any second, as we clung to the only other thing in the world that seemed sturdy, both of us on that train rushing ahead into something we didn’t wholly understand. When everything in me had seemed to come alive under his hands. When he turned me from a spark into a fire, and I didn’t know how anyone could have enough power to do that to me.

But he wondered if a boy from the sea and a girl from the desert could ever survive together. He feared that she might burn him alive or that he might drown her. Until finally he stopped fighting it and set himself on fire for her.