Intermission (Pestilence) - To Grasp Eternal Health

Pestilence usually wouldn't mind people finding out her true identity. She could kill or flee them, worst-case scenario, if she ever got executed for being a witch or a monster. She needed only to wake up inside a new host again.

But every time she wanted to bring up her real identity to Elis, her tongue kept her secret, the sounds it produced incomprehensible. She read Elis's thoughts, desperately wanting her quasi-omniscience to guide her. But her mental encyclopedia could never deal with hypotheticals, only unprocessed, meaningless facts that awaited interpretation.

She delayed this difficult conversation until the day of their marriage.

“I have something to tell you, something about me.”

After that, ten minutes of silence as they stared into each other's eyes. She monitored his thoughts. He was waiting patiently for her. Not a word of complaint.

She had a full view of his face. Brown eyes with hazel hair. She couldn't believe how firm the shape of his face had developed into, as if his cheeks could block a sword strike.

Oh, I'm in love with this man.

The realization was liberating. Her mouth could finally enunciate, and the truth erupted from her. Love pushed her to speak. No matter if this decision was the correct one or not. She wanted her lover to see all of her and embrace all of her. Maybe she had fallen into a delusion called true love, poisoning her with a desire to connect.

She told him everything about herself. Nothing held back. “And also, I might not be able to get pregnant, even after we… you know… when we… consummate.” Each syllable was like a trudge through a stifling swamp. And the frustrating part was that he didn’t have a single embarrassing thought in him. Only serious attention and acceptance. Acceptance.

Should he really accept me?

“Do… do you… still want to marry me after hearing all that?” Regret exploded in her. She should have lied more. She should have kept up the deception, no matter how painful it would get.

Before more unhelpful reflections could sprout, Elis shut her mind up with a deep kiss. Their tongues brushed against each other.

“Look at what I’m thinking about, right now,” he said after their lips were finally willing to part. His thoughts contained only reassurance. The reminder that he had already known she wasn’t an ordinary human from the start, and he had always found witches charming.

There wasn’t a good reply to such sincerity. So, Pestilence chuckled. “Are you sure you want to have these thoughts before our vows in the church?”

“How else can I follow you to hell? I’m an upstanding man, you know.”

***

She never successfully carried a child for him in the end. Her body always ended up devouring the zygote. She subdued every one of her cells, but once she fell asleep. Her body snapped back to a default state. Even though she was the only horseman who had complete awareness and complete control over her body, the helplessness she felt over her body remained. In those torturous mornings, she could only be reminded of the absolute truth that her precious jewel had vanished from her fallopian tube.

No turning back anymore. They had shed their identities as travelers, bound by their home and a small field they owned. Elis's main role was to process paperwork. He was the most qualified man in the village, all thanks to the education given by Pestilence. Meanwhile, she played the role of a typical quiet wife, hiding the white tips of her hair, of course. Standing out would just bring unnecessary risks.

The mischievous years forged ahead without consideration of the people tagging along for the ride. Cycles of trying and failing to have a child compounded by the death of more of the seedlings. Until one was left, one single plant, advanced to a healthy sapling after years of struggle.

The sapling persisted, weathering storms and hordes of pests. Elis and Pestilence never got the chance to visit it anymore. But by that time, they knew it was time to let the aged acorn be its own tree.

Maturation eventually morphs into deterioration. Wrinkles sprouted on Elis’s face. The first of many gray hairs reared its tip. His joints hardened into a rigid mess. Humans age. That is common sense to people in every era so far. But she could never grow old. She was the only horseman who couldn’t. The contrast between Elis and her became more obvious by the day.

She could command her cells to age. To seize control back from those rebellious elements that had normally roamed free. But that never lasted long, only as far as her attention could be maintained. She had once thought herself the most fortunate of the horsemen. Irony came back to bite her, and she would rather lose the ability to feel pain, to forget, or to sleep, all so she could restore her ability to grow old.

She hid herself in a cloak, and no longer appeared much publicly. Rumors spread more intensely. Before it was about the fact that she was without child, then evolved into speculations of their secrets, soon that would become accusations and rejections.

Eventually, before the village’s distrust could simmer to a point of no return. Elis and Pestilence willingly left all they had behind. The nest they had built, and their land of exotic crops. They were forced to be travelers once again. But it wasn’t a romantic journey like it was before. Because when the two of them walked together, Pestilence looked more like Elis’s daughter than his lover.

“What would your daughter want?” Even an innocent question from a waitress stabbed into Pestilence, a more long-lasting wound than any weapon could inflict.

While her heart had become weary, they had arrived at the location of the tree. The only concrete proof that they were once young together. Elis raised his head to look at the top. This ‘child’ of theirs had flourished, several times their height.

“I had no idea it was so tall already…” Elis muttered. Pestilence couldn’t understand why he would say this. She had updated him frequently about the status of their oak. And every time she talked about it, she felt a strange sense of pride, like she had left something in the world. So maybe, Elis just wanted to speak about it. To exclaim. To turn a bland fact into reality.

“We should stop trying,” Elis said.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m too old to have a child.”

Pestilence didn’t give this statement any acknowledgement. Since that day, they stopped. But at the back of Pestilence’s mind, she saw this pause only as temporary.

***

Acorn production from the tree ramped up in the next decade. When Pestilence visited it again, she found an abundance of seeds lying across the grass, unmoved by the breeze. She found herself back in this place again after years of avoiding it, all because she had to gather the acorns as souvenirs for Elis.

Elis’s health had gotten worse over those decades. Pestilence was forced to take a gamble. She chose a doctor in a small town in the Lavenham area to take care of Elis. From her quasi-omniscience, she guessed that the doctor would probably accept the deal, a trade of her medical knowledge for a lifetime of care for Elis.

“I’m always watching,” Pestilence warned.

She went on a journey alone right after, like many humans before her, to seek immortality. Although her quasi-omniscience would only spit out facts, not provide guidance, it still laid out for her all the puzzle pieces. She only had to solve it.

The gamble with the doctor paid off. He upheld his end of the deal, caring for Elis like his own father and keeping the medical knowledge he had learned to himself. On the other front, Pestilence’s quest for immortality yielded little. No matter how much she experimented, how many distant ingredients she procured, the technology in this era just wasn’t there yet.

There might be magic items that could extend his life, but they were hidden from her, out of her reach. She searched by following rumors and studying intensively the records of magic items that could grant eternity. All she found were frauds and exaggerations.

***

Many cycles of seasons later, the dreaded moment came. Pestilence knew through her quasi-omniscience that Elis’s condition was declining rapidly. She rushed back. Her legs wouldn’t stop marching; if they sprouted any drop of fatigue, she could simply command them to their default state again. Thirst and sleep haunted her. She battled them with her strained will, holding back her sweat and stimulating her brain.

She knew she wouldn’t make it; her time was wasted on this pointless and unnatural quest. This must be her punishment for daring to defy eternity and the natural law.

I know you can hear me, Anne/Pestilence. I love you. This might be a selfish request, but please remember me. This is a lot to ask of someone who lives forever. But I’m asking you to do it regardless.

Those weren’t Elis’s words. No embedded emotions. Not a trace of his voice. No image of his gentle face. Pure, unbiased information. A message conveyed through her quasi-omniscience. Solely to update her knowledge. To let her know that, Elis had died.

She kept going, wishing those facts to be wrong. Or she could interpret this information in a better light. Other possibilities. But there weren’t. The knowledge picked apart her delusions again.

Drowsiness and dehydration dragged her down, and she collapsed while trekking through a mountain. Tumbling down the slope, she didn’t have the energy to suppress her pain nerves. But it didn’t hurt that much. With several of her bones broken, her healing took longer than expected to kick in. And the strangest thing was again, it didn’t hurt much at all.

As sleep snatched her away, she found tears flowing out of her eyes. Her body still found the water to expel even in the internal drought. This might be the first time she couldn’t control her tears.

The next day, she woke up to discover that a lumberjack had demolished her oak tree, leaving not even its stump.

***

“Here you are, Pestilence.”

She lay sideways in a random back alley in London, looking more like a lake monster than a human. Stone walls boxed her in, waste water pooled up in the area; she served as a float for rats, the white ends of her hair stained by the filth. She didn’t have to hide them anymore. It wasn't like anyone would get close enough to accuse her of being a witch. The stench was more repulsive than that at a manure processing plant.

Someone did come to visit her. The source of the voice.

Pestilence noticed the man’s approach, which meant this wasn't War's real body. A disposable pawn, in case she retaliated with disease. His hair was blond across the board, without any red at the top. That crimson, when present, would have marked the real vessel of War. And his eyes pierced through the darkness with a bright red glow.

“Help. I’m stuck.” Habitual words escaped her mouth as if pre-recorded. No effort was needed. No thought was needed.

“I'm not falling for this.”

“Help me, War.” Her voice sounded desperate, but it had always been this way.

“A pawn of mine was killed by your plague.” A quarter of London died. Not a single person died directly at her hands; the natural law would judge them for her. She wanted nature to wipe them all out slowly, painfully. And hopefully, leave that lumberjack as one of the last persons to die. That was just her wish. It all depended on either the will of nature or the whims of War; her desires were irrelevant.

“Just help me up. I'm drowning.” She turned her head so that it would submerge under the darkened water. Bubbles rushed forth.

“Stand up by yourself. And then clean yourself. You can’t help me in this state.” There it was. A sweet promise of purpose that he could not fulfill. But she would gladly lean on it.

Uncertain as it was, a god might be punishing her. That would explain why Elis’s and the tree’s deaths were in such proximity. The natural order must be exerting its influence.

Using the last of her strength from her previous meal months ago, she barely got herself up. She smiled at War’s human puppet. An expression that was expected from a damsel in distress. “My hero.”

War didn’t command his puppet to show any reaction. “Did you settle on a name in this life yet?”

“Why would I dare to name myself, Master?”

She wanted to tell him her name was Anne, but the words took on slime and dirt in her throat, too soiled to come out. War gave a brisk nod of comprehension. “Joan. Your name is Joan now.” Immediately after, he turned to leave, certain that Pestilence could trail behind him.

“I love you,” Pestilence reassured him with a declaration of absolute loyalty.

“I won’t kiss you when you are like this.”

“Awww… but I need a kiss to turn back into a princess.” She spoke with a pout, but internally, she was glad that War had rejected her offer for a kiss. And she wondered why. Kisses with War had always meant nothing anyway. The pondering stung her, and a tear leaked out again. War didn’t comment on it; he must have thought it was all part of her act.

***

Pestilence scoffed at the recollection of her naivety. And glanced up at the acorn she had kept in a flask. Maybe Death could show the way to this unfeeling, callous monster that only pretended to love.

I never truly loved Elis. And losing him didn’t hurt me at all. She reassured herself. Her lips curved into a smile. The memory of that plaything of hers repeated in her mind. And she let herself feel an artificially created warmth.

It was only part of her pretense. And she reminded herself of this every time she thought of him.