Intermission (Pestilence) - A Chance at Eudaimonia

She’s sorry? Why? What was she so afraid of? What was she running from? Pestilence once thought that Death would never apologize, yet it happened. Desperate. Maybe running from something. All too human. Death was all too human. Famine and Death had always seemed more like humans than immortal monsters. Maybe that was why Pestilence felt so drawn to War. They were both broken, both aliens to the world.

A roommate she had lived with for almost three years had been murdered. And she had knowingly brought about this demise, as a challenge to throw at Death, a test to see if Death was a worthy protector. Pestilence probably wouldn’t even remember Jiyunko beyond this life. She had accepted that she was a monster told in tales. That was the role that the world had granted her. She dared not think of the alternative.

There was a time when she thought differently; maybe she had a few more rebellious periods, but that single one was all she could remember.

***

England. Right before the strongest navy on earth. Back when the sun would actually set in the kingdom. Before the height of European colonization.

It was an age before communications that could reach far in seconds. Everything proceeded at a snail’s pace in the olden days. The city seemed busy, but in reality, stagnant in its monotonous routines. Old people die and new ones replace them; years could pass, and the place would still look the same. The countryside lacked the privilege of faux progress, a painting constructed of cells and minerals.

To be fair, the rural areas did house notable activities. Let’s say, bandit attacks. They had existed in every era. Pestilence treated them all as the same person. They usually covered their faces anyway. Five of them surrounded her on a deserted forest road. She was dressed as a village girl, with a bonnet to cover the white parts of her hair. Lying on the rough gravel, a perfect picture of a helpless victim.

The bandits snickered among themselves, discussing who would get to ‘enjoy’ this woman first. Pestilence hoped they would just decide through a coin flip and get this over with. She originally wanted to leave them with deadly pathogens so the laws of nature would grant them horrible deaths, but as their debate dragged on, acting scared and begging for mercy was getting boring. It would be less annoying to kill them all here.

Before Pestilence could make a move, her quasi-omniscience notified her of an approaching presence. A sack and sword, mounted on a twenty-year-old boy named Elis. Loud steps and careless rustling of leaves. A hesitant advance that failed in both stealth and speed. Even the bandits heard him amidst their bickering, drawing their swords in response.

Elis’s hands tightly gripped the handle of his chipped sword; the tremble in his body infected the sword, rendering his panic more obvious than he would have liked. “Stay… stay away from the lady!” he bit his tongue at the last word, inviting a round of laughter from the bandits.

Pestilence almost laughed with them. Maybe I should reward this bravery. She dried her tears and stood up, patting the dirt off her dress. Her full focus was needed for the next part.

“What do you think you are doing, little lady?” One bandit aimed his sword at Pestilence’s chest.

Pestilence sighed. “Is that dull blade even sharp enough to pierce me?”

“Lady, run away!” Elis yelled. Pestilence ignored him and took one step forward. The tip slid into her flesh. Normally, the entry wouldn't be this smooth, but Pestilence loosened up the muscle and fat structure around that area.

People could always act tough, but truly hurting someone was another matter. The bandit, in a panic, let go of his sword. Pestilence smiled at him. “And now there will be a special place in hell for you.” To paralyze him even more, she spat a mouthful of blood onto his face.

“But… but… but…” the bandit stammered. The weight of his sins glinted under a spotlight. He would probably get over this if left alone. The human mind was powerful like that.

Pestilence only needed a moment of reflection, no matter how short-lived or surface-level, to daze all five bandits. She pulled the weapon out of herself and slit the throat of the bandit in front of her.

Then, she turned. The other bandits scrambled to ready their swords into a defensive stance. But they were mere amateurs. It was like fighting children. Silvery metal and the red elixir danced in the air, as one neck after another opened. Pestilence cared not that her opponent's blades would lacerate her, because any and all wounds they could inflict were the same insignificant grazes that would heal in under a minute.

The bodies fell in a musical sequence of thuds. Pestilence stood over them, stained with red but unharmed. Once the slaughter ended, Elis dashed to check on her. “Are you hurt? Do you need help?” But he recoiled once he realized that the blows from the bandits had torn holes in Pestilence’s dress, exposing her snowy bare skin.

“I-I-I-I must have a spare cloth somewhere!” Elis rummaged through his bag. Pestilence thought that he was cute, that he would think that someone who brutally murdered five grown men would need his help. And also…

“You are the first person to not call me a witch after seeing me like this.”

Elis stopped his search. “Are you a witch?”

“Do you find witches charming?”

His face flushed. Pestilence was the first woman, except his mother, that he had talked to in a while. “What-what-what is your name?”

“Anne, and for my surname, maybe you could give me one.”

He interpreted it in a way that painted his cheeks pinker.

Elis offered to guard her, a blatant excuse to get closer to her. Pestilence already knew that he had developed a crush on her. How cute. And I have time to spare. It’s been a while since someone offered to protect me.

She didn’t have a destination, so she adopted Elis’s. Perhaps she would finally find somewhere worth staying.

***

“You can eat those after you process them,” Pestilence glanced at the acorns in Elis’s hand. They went to the city of London for a restock of items, a routine of Elis whenever he was about to run out of supplies. And because Pestilence was tagging along, they needed twice the gear. During their shopping trip, one store owner gave Elis a bag of spare acorns in place of the change.

Pestilence thought it was a huge rip-off, but Elis didn’t mind, and it wasn’t because of the wealth of coins they had confiscated from the dead bandits. Pestilence found his kindness intriguing, wondering how long he could keep this up.

Elis found a quiet clearing in the forest that was an hour’s walk out of London. He meticulously scanned through patches of dirt until he deemed a spot suitable for the acorn. Rinse and repeat. Pestilence stood by, arms crossed, observing. This man would make an amusing subject to pass her humdrum life. A temporary excitement that neither War nor the laws of nature could give her.

***

Elis was a traveler, a self-proclaimed one. His village felt too cramped for him; he wanted to see the world, to go around helping people with their problems. “Like those heroes in minstrel songs!”

Pestilence felt a warmth inside herself when she heard him gushing over his dreams. She could adjust her body temperature, and her quasi-omniscience could tell her any hopes and fantasies in Elis’s mind, but hearing him talk, it was just simply different. It was the voice of someone who believed in dreams and true love.

They passed by the forest clearing again after a year of traveling as ‘adventurers’ for lack of a better word. A few of the acorns had sprouted into seedlings. Pestilence had forgotten about this; it was Elis who suggested they check on their…

“Our children?” Pestilence said with a grin. It was satisfying to watch Elis’s helpless fidgeting, not because of any condescension, but, even though Pestilence was reluctant to admit it, a sense of endearment.

***

Half of the seedlings died throughout the next year. Pestilence had watched over them through her quasi-omniscience. When they passed by London again, she couldn’t wait to drag Elis to that familiar clearing, to show him that some of the seedlings were still alive and well. Elis gave Pestilence a sly smile. “You sound like a proud mother.”

“M-Mother?” Pestilence stuttered. She had never remembered ever stuttering in any of her lifetimes, always having absolute control over her vocal cords. Her cheeks felt warmer than she commanded them to be.

“Come on. We have to get to York in five days.” Elis took the lead. Pestilence watched his back, just realizing that his figure had grown so much compared to when she met him. These muscles were all built for her. Part of his vow to get stronger to protect her. The sword hanging on his belt was no mere decoration anymore. Something she had never experienced in the time she had spent with War. It was a sense of true safety.

Her heart skipped a beat. Another error. Another rare slip-up in her control over her body, which should have been flawless.

***

More seedlings fell victim to various forces of the forest: deer, rain, shade from the trees above, and soil problems. These demises were part of the laws of nature, but for the first time, these laws didn’t give Pestilence any solace at all. She wanted to save them, but was always too far away to do so. At least these deaths came to her in the form of dispassionate pieces of knowledge, not images of the mangled remains of stems and leaves. Still, any information regarding the deaths of those you cared about was soul-crushing.

She never told Elis. He had enough things to worry about. They were settling down in a village not far away from Newcastle. He had to get acquainted with their fellow villagers, process the legal documents, order furniture from the carpenter, and buy other house necessities.

Pestilence offered to help time and time again, but Elis refused. “I want to do this for you,” he would say.

A growing fear, unfamiliar, had infested her. What if something has changed? What if he doesn’t want to be with me anymore? She could have dispersed her doubts by reading Elis’s mind, but she just couldn’t bring herself to. His inner world became an unknown wild mushroom, always shrouded with the possibility of poison. A bite was just too dangerous.

After their new home was set up, Elis brought Pestilence on a trip to London. But they didn’t stop at the city. Elis held Pestilence by her hand, guiding her through the forest. She thought he had forgotten about the past, but the route they were taking proved otherwise. He was like a homing pigeon, navigating by instinct, towards the place where their children were growing. The random, unassuming space in the boundless forest.

“Sorry to disappoint you. But a lot of them died.” Pestilence lowered her head. She couldn’t face either Elis or the surviving seedlings.

“Anne, please look at me.”

Pestilence wanted to reject her alias more than ever. Still, she gave in and did as Elis said. He was holding something. A ring. Embedded with a moonstone. The same white as the ends of her hair, with hints of blue that resonated with her blue eyes.

“Anne, will you be my wife?” The proclamation brought relief and joy that threatened to burst out. Pestilence didn’t mind these new, untamed experiences. They were common occurrences with Elis. The excitement overwrote any chance of concerns anyway.

“Yes! Yes!” Pestilence leaped in for an embrace, a sudden movement that led Elis to drop the ring. She could always pick it up later. She grabbed Elis’s head and dove in for a kiss. Elis was floundering in the first few seconds, a rare sight these days, but then, he took hold of his footing again, and held her shoulders.

Their kiss lasted for an eternity.

Pestilence had only kissed people in the past to give them diseases. She also kissed War a few times, or maybe she didn’t, so forgettable. But this. This kiss would be carved into her memory for centuries and lifetimes to come.