God save me from idealists.

I stared up at the Erlking, and with my typical pithy brilliance said, "Uh-oh.

Alone. It's one of those small words that means entirely too much. Like fear. Or trust.

I mean, we're all going to die. We know that on an intellectual level. We figure it out when we're still fairly young, and it scares us so badly that we convince ourselves we're immortal for more than a decade afterwards.

Isana felt her throat tighten. "We failed." Serai lifted her chin and patted Isana's arm firmly. "We have not yet succeeded. There is a difference.

Wait. You don't understand. I just wanted it to stop. Wanted the hurting to stop." I smoothed a bloodied lock of hair from her eyes and felt very tired as I said, "The only people who never hurt are dead." The light died out of her eyes, her breath slowing. She whispered, barely audible, "I don't understand." I answered, "I don't either." A tear slid from her eye and mixed with the blood. Then she died.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.