Alone Again

It lasts a matter of seconds, but in those seconds, Muse sees the cracks in their future open into a chasm.
 
Amanita's blood is red. Just as red as any other animal's blood. It floods from her stomach the way blood flows from any other gut wound. Muse has seen this before in the remnants of prey raked open by their predators, the talons of the hawk or the teeth of the wolf. It is a terrible wound--the kind of wound that, for many long years, Muse knew of no mercy for except a quick knife to end the suffering.
 
But that was the wilderness. It wasn't this city of light. It was the cycle of birds and beasts--it wasn't for a thinking, laughing, dancing person.
 
It wasn't for Nita.
 
Muse will go back to the Meadows, and the house will be empty. There will be no light on in the sitting room. No singing from the conservatory. No muttering, no excited tales about new research, new findings, nothing to fill the silence. And Muse knows this silence well. They can feel it even now, filling their skull with a roaring pressure so painful they fear their head might burst. It is the heavy silence of the family's manor when they first set foot inside it. The consuming, oppressive nothing, when there should have been sound, and warmth, and light.
 
And Bracken? And Daphne? Muse will try to care for them, but they will not understand. They will want to see the one they love more than anyone else in the world. And Muse is not their person. Muse is not anyone's person.
 
And what will happen when Amanita's family returns from their travels? What will happen when they find their sister and daughter gone, and a strange, frightening metal monstrosity waiting in her place? Bad enough the empty house, but what will happen when there is no longer a house at all?
 
--the second passes. Quill is faster and smarter, and his potion works, and Amanita awakens, but Muse can still feel the chasm beneath them as they stagger and fall, crushing her into an embrace.
 
I don't want to be alone again.