Ciroc was damaged from deep within. The blood loss to his brain had severed something. It felt like falling without landing; never a thing within grasp and never a bottom to the pit in which to end his pain. He peered deep into the blackness, hoping in vain to see a glimmer of anything. There was nothing to see, as if the light of the twin suns revealed themselves a void in the endless emptiness.

Even so, something changed, but no. Nothing changed. Something that once was . . . was again. A nothingness he'd already experienced was felt yet again. He'd no idea how he could know such a thing since all here was forever the same, but still he knew. Somehow he knew because somehow, something deep inside him told him so. It was a voice not his own, but then it couldn't be . . . it was that of a woman.

Regardless of gender, this wasn’t so utterly strange to him. In a world of telepaths it wasn’t uncommon to have voices not your own within your head, but this was different. He couldn't know that. He'd no room for comparison, but had others known they'd label him a freak. Some had already done so. He hadn't cared. This woman had always told him such things weren't important. She'd told him what was and had guided him to choices mostly wizened beyond his years. It was her that he felt now, a presence as much as a voice, guiding him backwards through the nothing.

Were not backwards and forwards one and the same? Were they not all parts of the same whole? Were they not a mystery forever unraveling? The woman told him that. It wasn’t something he'd think on his own, but then something told him she hadn't understood it any more than he. It was either so much babble for babble's sake, or these were thoughts well beyond imagining and led to a place where only vast, unfathomable knowledge existed and all things strange were commonplace.

Even so, he'd not feared it, the utter strangeness nor the voice. Why would he? Both had always been with him since memory first. They were a pair. The closest he could come to describing it, and never had he done so out loud, was that of a conscience, but it was so more than that. This woman was a guiding force from outside him. He'd thought to attribute it to Mother Sea, for who else? Though, not even that was right. She'd told him as much, but then she'd told him so many things that none could rightly know. She'd guided him past all dangers. Well, obviously not all dangers, but most. For better or worse he trusted her. He always had.

For it all he felt something he'd never been able to describe. This was something he'd rarely felt in any other form. The woman called it “love”. Not that his mother hadn't shown him this, but ever was there something impeding hers. For the briefest of moments he'd felt something equally as deep, but somehow different, whenever he now thought of Diote. Much the same, he'd felt love from the voice in a manner which never judged and always forgave, as well a mother should. If he knew nothing else he knew this was right and this was deep, far deeper than anything else he'd ever known. This was deeper than the pit in which he now fell and that seemed endless.

The woman told him going backwards wasn’t so strange, but rather good, healthy and necessary. Somehow he knew this. Well, beyond the nothingness he felt a difference between the two. The present was filled to overflowing with loss, while the past was unchained. It seemed in that past all manner of things were possible. The woman told him it could only do so much, that he must reach for the past and pull it towards him. This was something he believed, but he hadn't known how.

Incredulously he was told in order to grasp at the past he needed to let go. It made so little sense, but at the same time it made all the sense in the world. She told him all that held him back was himself and to let go of it all . . . life, death, worry, shame, blame, hatred and yes, even love. He was to utterly empty himself and then the path would become clear.

It felt so impossible and indescribably easy all at once. Things began to fall away one by one. With each, he felt more and more free and slowly all things seemed possible. More fell away and a path began to emerge from the blackness. More still and stairs became apparent beneath him. He had only to climb them and he did. Then something changed.

When finally it came time to let go of love he found something he'd not been able to free himself of. That would be doubt. The doubt was simple. If love was to fall away, would he ever be able to get it back? Even if lost only temporarily he didn't think that was something he'd ever be able to survive losing. Nothing existed here to assure him he'd ever manage to regain anything he'd lost, but none of that had mattered till now. He could forever do without all other things, but love? For that he'd rather be eternally damned. For the loss of love not even Mother Sea's embrace could comfort him.

The stairs began to fade. He was falling away, back into the nothingness. With it fear and panic returned. Worry and dread weren’t far behind. As they returned, the stairs shattered into blackness one by one. Ciroc screamed within the pit and his soul seemed to die. A single word he'd screamed; a loss he'd never survive. He screamed for Diote.

# # #

Diote's mind seemed to explode, or was it implode? She didn't know, but then she couldn't. She had no mind left with which to ponder the question. Not that recent events had put her in any state worthy of sanity. As such, she fell away. She'd not fallen down. She remained where she kneeled, hovering ever above her love. Yet it was a trance that had overtaken every ounce of her fragile, ungifted mind.

She knew from whence the cry had come. Where else possible? Something told her so; a voice, a woman's voice. She told her the voice she'd heard hadn’t come from the witch, as some sort of devious ploy. Neither had it originated from the depths of Mother Sea or any of the remaining Council members. This was Ciroc. He was reaching out to her, for he was falling too.

The woman, for which she'd never before known, but somehow trusted implicitly, told her that she'd need to be his tether. No one else would suffice. It was as before. A chance had presented itself, but she'd tossed it away in frustration and anger. Now she had another and should she fail this time, all would be forever lost.

Here and now, she vowed, she'd save her love or perish in the attempt. What was life without love? What was love if not with Ciroc? It was a crucial need. It was a binding need. It was all she had, but that was alright because nothing other than love had any chance of success.

Suddenly something within her fragile mind awoke and she'd never felt more free. She'd reached within every mind that gave a damn about Ciroc, every mind that felt an ounce of love for him, and there firmly set an anchor designed to hold past death. From there she'd launched herself into a dark place.

# # #

Every last stair vanished and once again Ciroc resumed his fall, but this time all hope fell away with them. Now he fell faster. All light was dispelled as he too began to fade. What was he within the nothingness? If nothing could exist in the blackness how was he not the last of the light? How could the nothingness remain so without utterly extinguishing him as well?

So it had tried. It had tried before, he was now well aware, but the love within him wouldn’t allow it. Now he couldn't do anything to stop it. Neither could the voice within him, though she'd not gone. He knew now she never would, or rather she’d fade alongside him into blackness. There he felt a sorrow for the first time. She could do no more and so cast her hope elsewhere.

Something new emerged. Not the stairs, but equally benevolent. It was faint at first, but it became clearer as it fell, and it fell faster than him, as if it were more urgent than he to meet utter damnation. Yet, for its speed it managed to catch up to him. It became apparent as all became so clear. A rope had fallen.

Immediately he grasped at it. It was so near to him, but he was fading fast now and fingers that should've been present were now gone. A war was being fought for his soul. Ever was death so greedy. Ironically his body had been made whole, the voice made known to him, but now he was losing more than he'd lost before. Frantically he thrust forth hands that were no more than phantoms, nearer to wisps of smoke than actual limbs. No pain crippled him, but a certain breed of hopelessness made up for it.

He bit at the rope. On the third attempt he succeeded, but tore free. This fight was losing him and literally so. Yet he still had a head and a mouth with which to scream and he did. Once again Diote's name echoed forth, shattering the nothingness with a sound that reached all corners of a place that had none.

Then from nowhere he heard his own name reverberating in what remained of his mind. She was here. She was the rope. She was hope . . . the last of it. Not that there was anything for it. He'd exhausted all he could do. Yet something changed within him. With the hope of Diote, fear fell away and with it all its cohorts. Parts of him began to reemerge. His fingers regained a cohesion of which only ghosts could dream.

The moment they reappeared was the moment he knew to strive once again. He did and his grasp landed well upon the rope. For the first time in what seemed a millennium of falling he knew hope . . . real hope. Yet a weakness took him. His grasp held, but was slipping. He'd expended far too much, though the voice told him it was far more than any anticipated. He wasn’t to be undone by the weakness of a boy, but the weakness of a man. This was of little comfort, but love remained.

As he grew weaker Diote's love grew stronger. They were as one upon a scale. As the one fell the other would rise. So it was that the rope upon which Ciroc could not hold, held him. It extended to wrap about his waist and firmly tie there. At that Ciroc let go of all but a scrap of life. Upon the rope he lay limp now with only strength enough to smile weakly, but smile nonetheless.