fic

[franavu]

Title: These People
Summary: Highlander vignette, fairly morbid actually.

They look at me, these people, in this huge sprawling community of line-kin and acquaintance, favours given and received before my grandmother was born, centuries old friendships and vendettas.

 

They look at me, these people, who took me in when I was ten and I had lost everything, policemen at the door, babysitter crying, fire and disaster on a snow covered road.

 

They look at me, these people, with their game of life and death, with sharp steel in the shadows and lightning in the sky, old enemies at every corner, violence behind every door.

 

They look at me, and I wonder, is it because I am not one of them and will grow old and die, in a mortals mayfly life, only a memory, while they remain the same and everlasting.

 

They look at me, and I wonder, is it because I will be like them one day, steel and death and wariness, old eyes in a too young face, staying the same, while all those I have known wither and die.

 

I look at them, and wonder, which is worse?