maybe then i'll [burn] away and not have to face the facts
is a one-shot Keeper of the Lost Cities Death Fic by twigwigs_swansong, available to read on Archive of Our Own.
After Linh is killed in a battle with the Neverseen, Marella copes with her grief in the worst way possible.
All spoilers for Keeper of the Lost Cities will be left unmarked in the trope examples below. You Have Been Warned!
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Linh's dead body is described in detail, with all the wounds, bruises, blood, and exposed bone that would brutally being killed on a battlefield would entail.
- Dies Wide Open: Implied with Linh. Marella notes that it looks like her eyes were "forced closed", which would have been done after they recovered the body. She probably was killed with her eyes wide open because she died on a battlefield.
- Peaceful in Death: It is said that Linh's corpse was "contorted into a 'peaceful' resting position", probably to achieve this effect with Linh's loved ones. It doesn't work with Marella, once she sees the gigantic stomach wound and the exposed bones.
- Playing with Fire: As in canon, Marella can use and manipulate fire, though she can get burnt like anyone else.
- Required Secondary Powers: Averted. It's implied that Marella burnt herself after Linh's death, so that means that she doesn't have immunity to her own pyrokinesis.
- Self-Harm: Marella is implied to burn herself after Linh's death.
- You Are Not Alone: Deconstructed. The other elves try to comfort Marella after Linh's death, but it doesn't help much because Marella knows that Linh is gone forever and nothing is going to change that.
