I sat beside her bed every day for almost three months. I slept in her room at Riverview every night, with only my thoughts and the constant beeping of the machines that were keeping her alive as company. No one but the hospital staff knew that she was there. I hadn't informed her family or her friends or her students. I hadn't even told Daniel. I always thought that she would pull out of the coma. She was an Alpha Lycanthrope, after all. I'd seen her shake off bullets and knife wounds like some people shake off paper cuts. She was the strongest, bravest woman I'd ever known. The thought that she wouldn't wake up and come back to me just never entered my mind.
But then the doctors and nurses at the clinic started asking about whether she had a living will. We'd never really talked about it. She couldn't die, after all. Why would we talk about stuff like funeral arrangements or whether she'd want to be an organ donor? It didn't seem possible. Besides, anyone who got one of her organs would also get the Lycanthropy that came with it. So I told them to give her a little more time. She'd pull through. Her body, the disease that had shaped so much of her life, was slowly healing whatever damage had been done to her in the battle with that f*cking bastard Claude. She'd come back to me eventually. She just needed time for Jaguar to heal their shared body.
Eventually, though, Daniel stopped accepting my explanations for why he hadn't seen her in weeks and showed up at the clinic. To say that he was angry with me would be an understatement. I've never been fearful of him, but what I saw in his face that night scared me. When we'd calmed down, he told me that leaving her to linger like this was inhumane. She wouldn't want to be hooked up to machines that breathed for her, that kept her blood flowing and her heart beating. She'd want me to let her go. She'd want me to give her body to those who needed it. There were people out there who couldn't contract her disease. Non-humans weren't susceptible, were they? Somewhere there was an elf who desperately needed her heart, or maybe a young dwarf who needed part of her liver. Or hell, other Lycans, like Omegas who couldn't heal like her. She was so strong, so healthy. She could give the gift of life to so many.
Daniel was right. She'd want that. She'd want her last acts in this lifetime to be born of compassion. She'd want to save lives. That was her mission--saving people. Protecting them. I called her parents and told them the news. They arrived in Rhy'Din and we made arrangements to give her a traditional Japanese Buddhist funeral in Boston. I gave the clinic permission to find matches for whatever they could take from her and on the night of 12-12-12, I turned off the machines that were keeping her alive.
I held her hand as the steady beeping of the heart monitor slowed and finally foundered, stuttered, and let out a single, long, unending sound. The doctor's voice calling her time of death was a dim murmur that I could barely hear through the rushing of blood through my ears. I saw through a fog as her father stepped forward, moistened her lips--giving her matsugo-no-mizu, the water of the last moment--and placed a dagger on her chest to drive away evil spirits. Then the doctors and nurses took her away, to harvest her organs, eyes, even her skin and her hair. She was gone.
The next few days passed in a sort of numb blur. I traveled with Daniel and her parents back to Boston where her body was cremated and her ashes interred in a small grave next to her grandfather's. I wanted to stay in Boston, safe in her childhood home, sleeping in the bed she'd slept in until she went off to college. I couldn't, though. I knew that I owed it to her friends in Rhy'Din to tell them what happened. I owed it to people like Duci and Mataya and even Mesteno to give them their own chance to grieve and mourn her passing.
Daniel, her parents, and I went back to Rhy'Din a week after her funeral and with Mr. Cheung's assistance, began arrangements for a memorial service to be held in the gardens on top of the Zen Building. I sent out notice to her friends and business associates. Then on the day of the service, I hired a mage to force the cherry trees, irises, and lilies to bloom, and Cheung set up chairs and tables with coffee, tea, and hot cocoa, and he even put a small podium for people who might want to speak in front of the biggest cherry tree on the roof. Then we closed up her shrine and covered it with a piece of white silk before putting a large photograph of her smiling and playing with Finn on an easel in front of it. It was how I'd always remember her.
Then I sat in the front row next to her parents and Daniel, and waited for people to arrive so they could say goodbye to Riley.
But then the doctors and nurses at the clinic started asking about whether she had a living will. We'd never really talked about it. She couldn't die, after all. Why would we talk about stuff like funeral arrangements or whether she'd want to be an organ donor? It didn't seem possible. Besides, anyone who got one of her organs would also get the Lycanthropy that came with it. So I told them to give her a little more time. She'd pull through. Her body, the disease that had shaped so much of her life, was slowly healing whatever damage had been done to her in the battle with that f*cking bastard Claude. She'd come back to me eventually. She just needed time for Jaguar to heal their shared body.
Eventually, though, Daniel stopped accepting my explanations for why he hadn't seen her in weeks and showed up at the clinic. To say that he was angry with me would be an understatement. I've never been fearful of him, but what I saw in his face that night scared me. When we'd calmed down, he told me that leaving her to linger like this was inhumane. She wouldn't want to be hooked up to machines that breathed for her, that kept her blood flowing and her heart beating. She'd want me to let her go. She'd want me to give her body to those who needed it. There were people out there who couldn't contract her disease. Non-humans weren't susceptible, were they? Somewhere there was an elf who desperately needed her heart, or maybe a young dwarf who needed part of her liver. Or hell, other Lycans, like Omegas who couldn't heal like her. She was so strong, so healthy. She could give the gift of life to so many.
Daniel was right. She'd want that. She'd want her last acts in this lifetime to be born of compassion. She'd want to save lives. That was her mission--saving people. Protecting them. I called her parents and told them the news. They arrived in Rhy'Din and we made arrangements to give her a traditional Japanese Buddhist funeral in Boston. I gave the clinic permission to find matches for whatever they could take from her and on the night of 12-12-12, I turned off the machines that were keeping her alive.
I held her hand as the steady beeping of the heart monitor slowed and finally foundered, stuttered, and let out a single, long, unending sound. The doctor's voice calling her time of death was a dim murmur that I could barely hear through the rushing of blood through my ears. I saw through a fog as her father stepped forward, moistened her lips--giving her matsugo-no-mizu, the water of the last moment--and placed a dagger on her chest to drive away evil spirits. Then the doctors and nurses took her away, to harvest her organs, eyes, even her skin and her hair. She was gone.
The next few days passed in a sort of numb blur. I traveled with Daniel and her parents back to Boston where her body was cremated and her ashes interred in a small grave next to her grandfather's. I wanted to stay in Boston, safe in her childhood home, sleeping in the bed she'd slept in until she went off to college. I couldn't, though. I knew that I owed it to her friends in Rhy'Din to tell them what happened. I owed it to people like Duci and Mataya and even Mesteno to give them their own chance to grieve and mourn her passing.
Daniel, her parents, and I went back to Rhy'Din a week after her funeral and with Mr. Cheung's assistance, began arrangements for a memorial service to be held in the gardens on top of the Zen Building. I sent out notice to her friends and business associates. Then on the day of the service, I hired a mage to force the cherry trees, irises, and lilies to bloom, and Cheung set up chairs and tables with coffee, tea, and hot cocoa, and he even put a small podium for people who might want to speak in front of the biggest cherry tree on the roof. Then we closed up her shrine and covered it with a piece of white silk before putting a large photograph of her smiling and playing with Finn on an easel in front of it. It was how I'd always remember her.
Then I sat in the front row next to her parents and Daniel, and waited for people to arrive so they could say goodbye to Riley.