writing adventure 9- An Artform

     Defeat had finally found her as she slumped against the fence. Bleeding out before the stranger that had sealed her fate, the woman did not remember a lost love, or a fallen country, or a cause. She did remember one sentence her mentor taught her though, the day after she had told him of her past and the multiple changes of her name.
     "Dying is a form of art," Joe had told her, a man with more than one name himself, "and you have perfected it even before you shed one drop of blood."

     That was really all she had been good for after all, she realized. Dying was the only thing she could ever do. Her family needed to move on, and so they left her to die in their burning house. And die she did. She left her name and her soul down in the ash, and became someone else. The only man she ever loved escaped from his responsibilities, and so she let those thoughts die, like waves on the shore. Her boss needed information, and so she killed to get it, which not only meant death for those who met her, but death to her conscience as well.
     So much art in her life, and so little to show for it as Duena forgets the name of her mentor and how to breathe all at once. The sky was a gray blue, the earth a faded brown, and the face of her killer a pale, soft green.

     Green? Why green? she thinks, in her foggy and tired mind. And then she sees a familiar face beside her. The mentor, the one who told her the only thing she will never forget. By now, he has obviously told the killer he beat the wrong woman. That, for once, Duena had come for peace.
     But it's too late, and she doesn't really mind. This is something she's good at, she thinks. This is her grace, this is her salvation. The blood that soaks the ground is enough now. She's done with blood.
    
     The mentor kneels at her side, assessing damage and speaking with the killer. She wants to say he is innocent, and that she's killed much better people than he has, but the paint has dried on her masterpiece and there are no names in her language that can undo this.
     And she dies.