jacob and the stone

Art & Code © Skelle 2023

"Speech!"
Laeta knew she didn't have much time left in this world. She felt it each day her eyes fluttered open, with each heaving muster of breath that left wracking pains across her emaciated form. Her appetite was dropping. She barely drank. Each day she awoke she had to look about the things in her room; the dried flowers, the plush cushions and blankets laid about her like a nest, and the crackling fireplace Mel kept lit nearly all the time, just to remind herself she had not crossed the boundaries of this life yet. The herbs given to her by the pack's physicians did little to dull the everlasting pain in her joints, already far too painful to move anymore. She could barely stand or walk for more than a few steps before collapsing, and ultimately, anymore she needed to travel was in a little cart Mel pulled around.

Today, though, she was tired. Very, very tired. She asked Mel not to take her out of bed, to let her stay comfortably in the next of pillows arranged about her to keep her propped up, the blankets covering her boney form as she could no longer thermoregulate properly. But she was just alert enough for another visitor; she needed one, after all, following the death of another very dear friend.

She wondered who it was, then, peering through the crack in her bedroom door.