This is how the story ends

There is a blood ritual, in the heat of summer. Goat bones and bird feathers and snake venom carefully extracted, Erik's blood over it all, Erik's life the casualty of it. The lightning crashes in a summer storm, and he is still breathing as Raoul traces the blood from his wounded arm, binds the incisions, and carries him home, lays him by the fire, but Erik does not wake.

As Raoul warms water, Christine unwraps the binding from his arm, the weakened arm, the arm he massages every morning, watches as blood dark and red oozes from the three incisions. His lips are faintly blue, and gently she kisses them, kisses the wounds, but he doesn't stir.

Deep in her bones, she knows.

She bathes his face with the warm water Raoul brings her, the face the gods saw fit to grant her son, and with the soft underside of a delicate kidskin she cleans the blood from his arm, dabbing and pressing and smoothing. The slits, splits in the fabric of him, more than any ritual she's ever seen, any she's ever done. She takes Raoul's hand, and cuts his palm with the edge of flint, cuts her own to match it, and presses their wounds together as their blood drips to land on Erik's arm.

It rolls down skin that seems too white.

It is not a wound to dress in goatskin.

When the storm came up, when she heard the cry it ripped from Erik in the distance, she was collecting fronds, soft and dry, for to nest the babies among. It is their father who needs them more now, and maybe that was why she was doing it, some deep knowledge whispering in her blood. She takes the fronds and binds them around Erik's arm, hides the incisions, hides their blood. He whimpers, and it is the only noise he makes, his eyelids never flickering.

With their blood, she traces the warm skin of his neck, the acknowledgement of what he has done for them, and with gentleness she lays their babies, asleep, on his chest. She eases herself down on one side of him, twines her fingers with his, and Raoul lies beside his wounded arm, and threads their fingers, Erik's so long, so still, and so cold.

Together they wait, and watch the firelight flickering over his still face.

The storm dies outside, the wind howls itself to silence, and Erik's breaths are faint, and weak.

She murmurings blessings in the shell of his ear.

Raoul kisses his neck, and rubs his thumb over his fingers.

Erik's breath stutters, a whisper of an exhale, and silence.

It is Raoul who feels, carefully, for a pulse beneath their blood on his throat, and it is Raoul who finds it, thready and faint, where it has faded from his wrist. He guides Christine's fingers to the place, watches the fire glow in her eyes, and closes his mouth over Erik's. He blows air warm and damp into him, the way he did before, the way he learned once upon a time, far and away from here, in another life.

Christine swallows when he pulls back, and replaces his mouth with hers, gives Erik her breath too the way Raoul taught her, and gently they take it in turns to breathe into him when he makes no effort to breathe for himself. Christine carefully takes the babies from his chest, and lays them down beside her so Raoul has room to dig his knuckles into Erik's breastbone, to massage his chest with the heel of his palm, and try to remind him of life.

They fill him with their breath fifty times, and he never gasps, his eyelids never flutter, fingers never twitch held safe in theirs.

His pulse is barely perceptible, dimmer than before, when Raoul catches her eye and gives her the slightest shake of his head, and tears prickle her eyes as she settles her babies back onto their father's chest for the last time, and presses her lips to his ear. She whispers that she releases him, that the island wishes him to rest, that she loves him, and will protect their babies, and the gods are pleased with him. And Raoul does the same, kisses the shell of Erik's ear and whispers that he relieves him of his duty, that he will protect Christine, and that he may rest now without fear, that he has done well. And finally, finally, when the pulse beneath their fingers skips, and falters, and fails, and his spirit is freed on a sigh, Christine is singing to him softly, and the sky is salmon with coming sunlight. The ringlets and teeth rustle on their hangings, and Christine kisses his lips, and Raoul kisses his closed eyes, and they lie beside his silent body, hands joined over the nestled twins, as their tears trickle in silence.

They wash him in the river, later, while the babies gurgle in their woven basket. Paint the blood of a fresh-killed goat over his scars, their own blood over the wounds on his arm that let the gods call him away, and the blue pigments of crushed flowers around his neck, on his hands. Braid his long hair with fresh flowers and feathers, lay petals beneath his navel and between his legs. They burn the violin and mix some of the ashes with a little of their blood and paint it over his heart. They take breaks only as needed to tend to the babies and settle them again, and Christine sings over his body, and Raoul holds his cold hand and whispers remembered prayers in Latin and French, and they sit a vigil over him all night, the fire burning bright, until the moon begins to sink and they kiss his still lips for the last time, and she sews him into his finest deerskin while Raoul digs.

They bury him when dawn is breaking, beneath a rock painted in his own blood, both of them weeping, then return to the shelter and lie with two smiling babies between them, innocently unaware of what has happened.

Raoul fasts, and Christine bleeds, her arms raw.

Neither feel pain, all swallowed in emptiness.

And perhaps it would have happened anyway, or perhaps the island, witness to Erik's sacrifice, saw fit to spare those he left behind, but the waters come to life and the wind blows, and a ship lands safely barely a week later.

The first man to step ashore is Raoul's brother.

The second spent twenty-four years searching for Erik, and signed on in vain hope of finding him, only to miss him by days.

Raoul holds the twins close and faces his brother, and Christine takes Nadir by the hand.

She leads him inland along the river, through the trees and the wildflower meadows, over the rocks, past the rise where she lay with Erik the day the twins were conceived, to the shelter, and the grave where he lies. The clay is still soft and dark with freshness, the heaviness of it rising to their noses. And Nadir looks from the blood-painted stones, to the leather stretched thin over woven branches, to the tanned and defiant young woman before him, breasts bare and a goatskin wrapped around her waist, red gashes on her arms healing and fresh, her long blonde hair bleached almost white with the sun, and understands.

"I can see how Erik would have loved you," he murmurs. She kisses his forehead, and squeezes his hand.

The moon sets full, and day breaks calm and blue. Christine and Raoul look down upon the island, upon the sunlight glistening gold on the water, and think of a sacrifice made, a pair of golden eyes closed forever. They whisper to each other, and kiss, and understand. They sprinkle their blood over the earth that holds Erik safe, and together leave the island, with their two babies and a collection of relics: a necklace of teeth, a braid of black-grey hair, the ashes of a violin, a tattered mask, and a flat stone painted with blood. And the goatskin where they slept and loved and held each other, where the twins first breathed life, and upon which Erik breathed his last.

They are the only ones who listen, and hear the music drifting soft through the trees.

This is the story she will tell her sons

The story of how she was cast off a ship because of the foolishness of men. How the tide saved her and carried her to the island, brought her to their father. And he taught her to live, to hunt, to sew with needles of bone and make clothes of goatskin. He played the violin of her father and they sang through the winter storms, and did all they could to appease the gods, and held each other through the darkness, and knew their love as blessed. And when the tide brought Raoul to join them, he became one of them, and blessed their love with his.

And when the time came, and her tiny precious boys were born, their father loved them just as well as he could, and died to save them.

And little Christopher must not be ashamed because he wears his father's face. And little Erik has his father's eyes and skilful hands, and in a forest at the foot of a mountain, away from the prying eyes of men who would not understand, they will both learn to listen to the gods.

This is what will happen after

The two boys will invent stories of wild panthers for their younger half-siblings. Someday they will grow into men, will stand tall and proud, long dark hair hanging down their backs in braids, and with the connections of their living father's brother, and their dead father's once-lover, they will charter their own ship, and bring the chains of teeth and braids of hair they wore as babies, and seek out the island on which they were born.

The will walk inland along the trail their mother and living father have described, have told them of since they were the smallest of babies so that they will know it as well as if they remember it, and Christopher will be playing a violin, and Erik will sing in a voice high and clear, and they will weave flowers together and lengths of their cut hair, and stop at the place where their dead father lies. Beneath the glow of a summer's full moon, they will cut their palms and offer their blood to the gods, his blood that flows in them, so that his bones may be protected safe forever, and his rest never disturbed.

They will observe the rituals their mother taught them, will hunt with the skills from their living father, will give voice to the music in their blood from their dead father and send it out for the island to hear and understand. By crackling firelight they will braid each other's hair, and paint each other in blood, and they will sing to the stars, the way they learned amongst the trees as boys.

They will remain three moon cycles, the ship kept safely offshore for them under a spell of their mother's weaving, and their fathers' blessings (both fathers, living and dead).

And someday, after they depart, they will return. Older, wiser. They will sense in their bones the tightening of time, and upon that day their mother will set foot on the island once more, their living father alongside her (as dear to them as their dead father, still cradled safe by the island.) And with their half-siblings the boys, now men, hair sprinkled lightly silver, will wait for the end of what went before, with violin and goatskins and braided hair, all reduced to ash.

The island will know its returning children. The island will wait.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed. Thank you also to everyone who has faved and followed this fic. It's an unusual one, I know, and I am grateful for every bit of support I've gotten during it, and every bit of feedback. A special thank you to hopsjollyhigh, for her boundless enthusiasm for all things Island.

To those of you also following Soft Place to Fall, there will not be an update this week. I am working on resolving some issues with the remaining chapters, and don't want to post until I know it all works. To those of you not following Soft Place to Fall, I would love it very much if you checked it out. I intend for it to be the last fic I post.