Chapter Text
The woman walked from the desert one day without a word,
and began to set the world alight.
The woman walked from the sea one day without a word,
and began to drown the world.
She never speaks, never changes her pace,
never lowers her raised head.
She just walks, wedding dress pristine and face forever hidden behind her veil.
Everywhere she walks burns.
The flames consume the grass, the trees, the buildings,
the world.
But worse than that, she sings.
No matter how loud the flames roar,
you can still hear that merry little tune.
She never speaks, never changes her pace,
never raises her bowed head.
She just walks, funeral dress pristine and face forever hidden behind her veil.
Everywhere she walks drowns.
The water swallows the grass, the trees, the building,
the world.
But worse than that, she sings.
No matter how loud the rain beats,
you can still hear that sombre little tune.
When she sings and you listen at just the right time,
just when you think all is hopeless?
Something burns in your chest.
Something ignites all the feelings you’ve given up on, all the hopes you’ve lost,
and you know.
You know that in the flames is everything you thought you could never have,
everything you thought you lost forever.
When she sings, and when you listen at just the right time,
just when you think all is hopeless?
Something is smothered in your chest.
Something drowns all the feelings you clung to, all the hopes you told yourself weren’t futile, and you know.
You know that within the water is freedom from all the things you’ll never have,
Freedom from the memory of everything you lost forever.
And you walk into the fire.
And you walk into the water.
The women walk the world, slowly, sedately, and in their wake is left ash and water. But there are no bodies. Those who burn rise up, charred skulls grinning wide, and dance behind her in an eternal wedding party. Those who drown rise up, bloated bodies forever weeping, and follow with heads bowed in an eternal funeral march. There are thousands upon thousands within their processions now, eternally loyal, and still they sing.
They pass through the world like ghosts. Some have tried to kill them, only to find their weapons hitting nothing but smoke and fog. Some have tried to trap them, and watched as they simply moved through the walls. Some have tried to talk to them, but they have paused their songs for neither offers nor pleas. Some might think them mindless autonoma, but we know they are not.
Because sometimes they meet.
Only when their paths cross, when the flames are snuffed out and the water boiled away, do they stop the song. Only here do they raise their veils, and only here do they speak. The woman in white says that he will return for them, one day, and that her sister can step in the fire and feel hope once more. The woman in black speaks that he is gone, and he will never return, and that her sister can step in the water and be freed of false hope. They never shout. They never grow angry. They never convince the other.
Eventually, they lower their veils, and they sing again, and they walk away until the next time they meet.
The world is dying. What isn’t burnt is drowned, and more hear the song each day. The streets are empty, the earth sinking mud and the sky black with ash, and still the women walk.
The people talk about what to do. There are those who still have hope that we might be saved, that these women could be stopped, driven away, humanity victorious at last. There are those who have accepted that we are doomed, that these women are beyond our power to stop, that humanity will soon be gone forever.
They argue furiously, and pointlessly. They have picked sides, and now they just need to acknowledge it. But it is no matter. The women are patient. They have waited for a long, long time, and they will wait a little while longer.
For now, the word burns and the world drowns.
And each day, another person hears the music, and steps into their lady’s kind and waiting arms.