The Fall
I finished getting dressed and dragged Walburga out of her room and away from her books. “Come on it will be fun we can watch the sun set together before we have to endure dinner with the family.” She giggled linking her arm with mine, “I’ll go along with you if you tell me about your engagement to Regulus, oh he’s so dreamy, I wish I was the one who got to marry him, or Orion.” I laughed at her childish love-stricken monologue. “You are far to young to be in love with someone who his older then me, but now that im thinking about it, knowing our parents you might actually get to marry Orion. However if you want me to talk about Regulus then I will but to be honest with you its's all terribly boring, i don't like him very much, but we girls have a duty to our family to marry and have children that's our job whether we like it or not.” I say as we make our way towards the cliffs. I stopped at the top of the stairs that led down to the beach. “Would you like me to help you down the stairs or do you, have it?” I asked looking down at my 6-year-old little sister as she had a perplexed look on her face clearly not understanding my rambled speech. She smiled up at me with a toothy grin, “I can walk down a flight of stairs on my own” she eventually said. I laughed and put my hands up in mock surrender, she laughed and skipped down the winding staircase. I smiled about to follow when I heard my name being called. “Lyra, hold on a second, would you beloved.” I turned around at the voice of Regulus, straightening my posture and putting on my carefully placed mask. He smiled down at me when he finally stopped in-front of me. “Lord Black what can I help you with?” He squared his shoulders “Always straight to business with you darling” he tried to say as a joke, but he faltered halfway through. “Lyra, you and I both know that we don’t love each other, I love someone else, and I know you love Euphemia…” I tried to interrupt him but he put up his hand to stop me, “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me, I’m going to talk with our families tonight and let them know that I can’t marry you.” My eyes widened in panic but, I bit my tongue. “Thank you for giving me a heads up, I wish you nothing but the best.” He seemed relived at me answer, he gave me a kiss on the cheek before her hurried away back to the villa probably back to his lover. A cold feeling washed over me as I realized, I had made a mistake leaving my wand in my room, I shook the feeling away and headed down to the beach to enjoy the last few hours of my freedom before my parents would eventually get a hold of me and punish me for my failure. I put on a brave face and played with my sister in the waves, committing to memory her laughs and giggles, her smile, the pure childhood joy I wished would never leave her face. A few hours later as the sun began to sink into the horizon, Walburga and I headed back up the stairs, so that we could watch the sun set over the ocean. Walburga skipped ahead of me, with not a care in the world. I looked back out over the ocean when all of a sudden, a heard a loud crack followed by a scream. My head whipped around towards my sister. I froze in panic at what I saw my sister clinging clinging to a collapsed piece of staircase, I rushed up the stairs to my sister grabbing her hand. “I’ve got you; I promise I wont let anything happen to you." I had a good grip on her, and I had managed to pull her partway back onto the staircase when I heard something that shook me to my core, the part of the stairs I was on was cracking and was closed to crumbling. In that moment I knew that I wasn’t going to make it out of this alive but I could save Walburga. I quickly pulled her up and stood up with her in my arms, “I need you to be brave for me Burga, I’m going to throw you onto the next set of stairs, you’ll be OK, but I need you to go and get me help OK” she nodded her head scared and I counted to three before throwing her to safety. “Run Burga, run as quickly as you can” she hesitated for a second and ran the rest of the way up. I knew I shouldn’t have given her false hope in thinking she could get help in time, but I couldn’t let her watch me die, in one last ditch effort I took a running jump to the standing piece of staircase. The upper half of my body collided with the staircase it held for a second before the staircase gave way. All breath left my body as I fell through the air, when they say your whole life flashes before your eyes, I didn’t realize they meant a person, I smiled as I saw my life with Effie. My body hit the sand and rocks below, I thought it would hurt but I didn’t feel a thing, that’s not a good thing, or maybe it is this way I could finally be free. I had a feeling I wouldn’t get to be with Effie, at least this way she wouldn’t feel guilty. “Lyra…Lyra… can you hear me…” I slowly opened my eyes to Effie, tears streaming down her face “Take my memories Effie, be free my love, its OK for you to move on and be happy” I managed out before the warm darkness of death took me.