Today’s snippet, titled “The Banished”, is a piece I wrote about my PC in Mark’s Pathfinder Campaign.
Be forewarned, there may be mature themes and naughty language below.
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It will hurt less, in time, she thought, daubing at the blood on her face with the hem of her cloak. It will be less painful. We will become immune to it.
The words were hollow.
Rhiallis knew that losing a comrade would always retain its shock and horror for her. Some people, for instance their deceased compatriot, the elven wizard Jensen, would be able to shrug off the death of an ally with hardly a second thought. Others, like Graves, who felt each loss keenly – almost as if it were a personal affront – would soldier on, pushing past the grief. Mira hoarded the pain close to her heart – feeling it deeply but not dwelling on it. A token from each fallen friend remained with the halfling and somehow, that seemed to dim the sorrow a bit.
“She’s in a better place,” someone said, reiterating a classic platitude. “She’s with her loved ones and her ancestors.”
Well that’s a lie, Rhiallis thought, glancing over at the shrunken corpse. Better burning in one of the Nine Hells than being sucked out of existence utterly. Better lost in the grey lands than to be obliterated.
“Rhiallis, you want to say a few words over her body?”
She nodded.
There was not much that could be done to make the corpse ready for burial – not that they could bury her in the tiled halls of the citadel anyway. What remained of Mytra was but a shrunken shell. Her golden locks had gone nearly white in the attack; her beautiful hair gone from silk to brittle hay. Her face, never perhaps as perfectly proportioned and classically beautiful as some, was twisted in a rictus scream. There were deep hollows where her cheeks had been and her eyes were so far sunken as to disappear into the pits of their sockets.
She was a horror.
As the prayers left her lips, asking Iomedae to guide whatever remained of Mytra to Cerunnos’ holy lands, Rhiallis knew there were tears in her eyes. She beseeched all the Gods of goodness to preserve some small piece of the lovely young woman so that she could join her family in the afterlife for her sacrifice demanded some small reward. Mytra did not deserve to be banished from existence, to have her very soul subsumed by nothingness. She should frolic in the greenlands and feel celestial light upon her face for she had given her life in a righteous cause.
Each tremulous word reflected her own fear.
If that shadow had sapped her strength in the same manner and her soul had been ripped from her body to attack her friends. If the holy energy of Iomedae had destroyed her. If things had gone that way.
Rhiallis wept for Mytra, of course, but many of her tears were born of a more selfish place. The only thing that had kept her going, despite the horrors and loss and sorrow of her journey in the Worldwound, was the knowledge that one day she and Viggo would be reunited. If not in this world, then in the next.
But Mytra’s demise was more terrifying than any other because it forced her to acknowledge the very real possibility that that may never happen.
“…be it done in Her name,” she concluded.
The party stood and began to gather once more, ready to breach the citadel.
“That was a nice prayer,”Mira said softly, passing by. The hin prepared to climb back on Graves’ back and cast a wan smile back at her friend. Rhiallis felt as if she could read Mira’s mind in that moment, as if their being the last two of the original group had made them kindred. We were the first, we’ll be the last, she imagined Mira thinking, the past is done and can’t be helped. Besides, life is too short to dwell on the bad stuff. Smile, Ree. Nothing ever seems as bad when you got a smile on your face.
Rhiallis shouldered her bag with a sigh. She hoped her little friend was right.
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Note: Image is “King Jagiello Statue Central” by (Mulligand) from SXC.hu; edited by me
