Not mine to save
From Lavosbyssals
it was years ago god knows
when you strained to tell me your whole truth
that you were not mine to save'
~Vienna Teng, "Enough To Go By"
Lianna wanted to cry, every time that she saw her brother. Sarien had always been very slender, too slender for his own good, but his grief had left him even paler and even thinner, impossibly slim and breakable and utterly fragile, just fading away in front of her. She'd had his favorite foods prepared, little tasty delicacies to try to tempt his appetite, to coax him into eating-something, anything-but he just sat there, with the plate untouched in front of him, staring at it like he didn't know what to do with it.
"Eat something, please, Sarien." she begged him, after another series of long moments watching him stare into empty space. His wineglass was half-empty again, she had lost track of how many times it had been half-empty, but not even a bite of food was gone from the plate.
Absently, pale fingers toyed with a strawberry, before setting it down again-the first time the entire meal that Sarien had even touched a piece of food. Lianna's own plate sat in front of her, but she was ignoring it for the moment.
"I'm not hungry, sister~" Sarien said in his dreamlike, drifting voice, setting down the strawberry.
"You haven't eaten anything." Lianna said gently, trying to keep her voice even.
"Oh~" Sarien tilted his head to look at the strawberry, then back at her, dreamily. "I'm still not hungry~"
Lianna blinked back the tears. She remembered Sarien, last year...she remembered how happy he had been, before Gan Ning had died. Now he was fading, too, she could tell that he had lost the will to live, that he wanted to die, too.
But she didn't want him to die. She didn't.
(maybe he wasn't hers to save, but she couldn't let him go without trying)
"Please, Sarien." she pleaded with him. "Just eat something. For me."
Silently, obediently, Sarien picked up the strawberry, and delicately, slowly nibbled on it.
It wasn't much. But it was something.
Wasn't it?
