Weary footsteps echoing through the hollows of the halls. Grey stone all around, heavy, stifling, scorched with the torches' flames. Slices of weightless honey gold slipping in through the windows, soothing and nostalgic.
If this world is hell, then there must be a heaven somewhere, if only for her alone…
Like shit there is. The world is an unfair bitch like that.
The old castle seems darker than usual, it looms over the forest like a tomb, and most of its inhabitants are, in the end, nothing more than living dead. Now that they are actually dead, the halls are quiet, almost like a cemetery; they are dead as well, all four of them, and there is no more occasional raucous laughter to spook the birds off the overhang, no more addicting odor of coffee lingering in the mess hall, no more light rapping of knuckles on Levi's door when he's in the middle of writing up a week's worth of reports.
Corporal!
No more unexpected treats in the form of mugs full of comfortably hot beverage Petra was so famous for making.
Corporal!
No more lively banter and jokes that made her laughter flit under the ceilings.
Corporal,
No more smiles that reduced his experience-hardened shell to mere dust until he was no more than a child who knew nothing but the happiness behind those soft, curved lips.
"Corporal, there you were!" He watches closely as she climbs out of and around a dormer window, deliberately making her way up over the slates covering the roof, and has half a mind to thank whatever god that might exist in this place for the roughness of the material. "Sitting in such a place, what if you catch a cold?"
A breeze ruffles her hair, and for a fleeting moment, it fits perfectly with the embers of the sun setting somewhere behind his back and the autumn that is coming over the land; he can hear the subtle worry in her voice, but the irony of humanity's strongest downed by a case of flu summons smirks onto their faces. She settles right next to him, close enough that he can feel the heat emanating from her body with his elbow, and her hands cover the shingles that still hold the sun's leftover warmth; it crosses his mind that she probably wouldn't mind holding hands, but he's no good with all that romantic shit, so no, he isn't going to even twitch. A momentary lapse in attention, and he finds a weight leaning on his arm: she'd somehow wiggled into resting the back of her head on his shoulder, and her feet have found support on the roofing of the dormer.
"The weather's nice for autumn, isn't it?"
It takes him a few second to proceed that she isn't one for small talk and is speaking in earnest.
"It's warm," he grunts in consent, your back is warm, your heart is warm, your smile is the warmest thing I've ever seen, but that stuff's way too cheesy to even consider vocalizing, and lost leaves dance through the air in a rapid waltz in front of his eyes. He doesn't bother to keep any track of time, but by the time he's noticed the slowing of her breathing pattern and the slackening of her hands in her lap, the sun is still burning, like a huge, dying ember, and slowly, ever carefully, he drapes over her sleeping form the cape that he'd brought along in case of lower temperatures.
Sleep now, little piece of warmth, for you'll be my guiding light tomorrow again, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after that, and on, and on, and on.
Sleep, little sun, and let your dreams be bright.