Completed Remember Bhathairk

[Weylin Kyrel]

Eyes darting around, the orcess made a comment about the sunrise. This got the hunter to focus on it as well. A "mhmm" followed out of him as he stared for a few moments before his nervousness overtook him. He began to look around them once more watching all of the orcs go about their mornings.

He was expecting something to happen. Something bad. Something involving anger and yelling.

Zeri spoke.

Weylin froze a bit at them. It was partly due to what she said but mostly in how she said it. They were filled with regret and self loathing. He looked over at her. His gaze now focused squarely on her and only her. This was something he understood. That sense of lose. Feeling you were responsible for what had happened. It was how he felt after that horrific day. Not just about his family but also his community. He felt weak. He felt he had failed them. It was how he still felt too often even now. But he had time to get past it. Zeri it was all fresh.

There was no need for thought. He couldn't think right now. His mind was still in a daze. Instinctively he just wrapped his arms around her and embraced her. He drew her head into his bare shoulder and gently rubbed her back. Softly only these words past his lips.

"No. You aren't."

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

Zeri leaned into Weylin's embrace. She hugged him in kind and heard his quiet words. Her forehead was against him and it was warm and she stared through him with a vacant and hollow gaze. A gaze that, over time, softened and returned to Arethil. She relaxed and did not try to say that which could not and could never be expressed adequately with words. She lived in the warm moment of their embrace and let her world be just that for a time.

* * * * *​

Zeri eventually raised her head up. Came face-to-face and nearly nose-to-nose with Weylin.

"I'm glad that you were there for me," she said, "and I'm sorry that I convinced you to do that to the Meadow."

And she worked up the courage to say what she wanted--needed--to say next.

"I...I want to go and apologize to the Tree. I know that it will hear my words."

She took in a tiny breath.

"Will you come with me?"

Weylin Kyrel

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

The hunter just held the orcess in that embrace softly rubbing her back. No more words uttered. Only peace and silence. It was something he didn't know he needed as much as her until they were both well and truly in the moment.

Then it came to an end.

Zeri moved her face and placed it right in front of Weylin's face. It caught him so off guard that he just blinked at her a couple of times out of surprise. She spoke her words with a few pauses. Everything that had happened had gotten to her. She wanted to apologize to the tree after how much she wanted to murder it before. That made no sense. Why would she want to do that now?

The hunter slide his hands across her back and gently gripped her shoulders. Eye contact was never once broken. He just stared at her for a moment before he said bluntly, "No. That is stupid."

A gentle squeeze of her shoulders and then he continued. "We need to find the traitor. He must pay for all his crimes. The tree can wait. Mother Owl said it isn't natural. She didn't say to kill it, but also didn't say to save it. This was just the wrong approach. Need a different one. We will find it after we find this traitor. He is responsible for what happened. Not you. Not the tree. Just him."

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

Zeri drew back slowly when Weylin voiced his response. Slid back so that his hands fell from her shoulders and she could sit just out of reach if he did not lean forward. She closed her eyes slowly and opened them just as slow, her expression changing from solemn to hurt.

She sat cross-legged. Her hands down on her ankle, elbows locked. And she bowed her head down.

"I already told everyone," she said.

A moment passed.

"Warriors and adventurers have flooded the city while you were asleep. They are scouring Bhathairk, looking for Urgish. Weylin...he may already be dead."

She looked past the tents and toward the ruined Gates of the once Great Orcish Stronghold. She remembered her talk with Pa while Weylin slept.

"But even if he is not...his justice does not need to come from my hands. I would do it if it were necessary. But it isn't. I...I don't want to go down that path again, Weylin. I don't. I don't want rage and hatred to poison my heart. I don't want to seek vengeance for its own sake. I don't want to hold my peace and happiness in bonds until blood is spilled or until something burns."

She smiled--a small thing--as she gazed still toward the Gates. "Urgish will be found. He will meet his end. It will likely not be by your hands or mine. And I think that is okay."

Her smile grew just a tiny bit and she looked back to Weylin. She said it again, "I think that is okay."

Weylin Kyrel

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

As the orcess spoke the hunter just listened. How things between them usually went. But he did frown. There was much he didn't agree with in what she said. He would say she seemed to be trying to run away from her problem or find some form of denial in it all because of her sense of guilt. But she also seemed to be coming to some sort of acceptance for herself.

What was the best part to address?

Weylin just let Zeri finish and then he just sat there with a frown for a moment. He made up his mind and said slowly, "I wasn't saying we kill him ourselves. Just bring him back for justice."

He had to pause here. Every word in his head felt like the wrong thing to say. Agreeing with her felt wrong. Disagreeing with her felt wrong. Saying nothing felt wrong. There was no right left to him. So he eventually settled on what seemed to be the least wrong choice.

"But whatever makes you happiest is what I'll do. Just tell me what you want to do."

Weylin looked at Zeri in the eyes. He was waiting. He was waiting for her.

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

I wasn't saying we kill him ourselves. Just bring him back for justice.

Zeri just smiled serenely. "Even so."

She did not necessarily need to have a hand in either. Urgish would have his head mounted on a pike. This Zeri knew. It was the only justice that awaited him for the grievous crime he had committed. But Zeri did not think that she had to be the one swinging the executioner's axe, nor even the one who dragged Urgish to it. She would do either of those things if she had to. She had not and would not forgive Urgish for what he had done, no matter how right he was about the Tree--he was now, and would always be, a kinslayer.

But it was not as if only she and Weylin could catch Urgish. She had told everyone and the word had spread like a fire in the dry months of the Steppe. Hundreds upon hundreds of warriors, fighters, adventurers already had a headstart of hours on them, whether they were going into Bhathairk specifically to hunt for Urgish or for other reasons. They knew his name, they knew what he looked like, they knew he was a mage. She trusted that they would find him. And she could be content with that. It was the justice for the murdered tribesfolk that was important, not by whose hand it came.

Pa had said a few wise things about the great capacity for harming oneself in dark times like these. How rage and grief could become like locusts, feasting on her spirit until scarce tatters remained, if she allowed for it. And Zeri knew within her heart of hearts that she could not pursue Urgish without inviting those selfsame locusts back in.

...Just tell me what you want to do.

Zeri reached for the shortbow in the grass and took hold of it. She stood. And then reached her free hand down toward Weylin.

"I'm going to apologize to the Black Tree. It has a Spirit too, just like every other tree."

Still she smiled.

"I would be happy if you came with me."

Weylin Kyrel

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

The hunter just waited for the orcess to answer. And she did. Still she was focused on the tree. A flip in her perspective on it but that same focus as she had before. He wished she would stop bothering with it but he knew she was going to do what she wanted regardless of what anyone else said or did.

Weylin took Zeri's hand, but he didn't need the help to stand. It was more about accepting her gesture. Once on his feet he said, "Need clothes." And with that he headed back into the tent.

Once inside, he had to find all of his things. His items, such as his bow and father's sword, had been dumped into a messy pile on one side of the tent while his clothes had been neatly placed near the bedding he woke up on. He went to the clothing pile and focused on getting those on first.

His cloak was missing, but he didn't concern himself with that detail. The important part was that his parent's rings and his father's sword were together. A weight he didn't know he had been holding onto left him with that realization. Around his neck and then hidden below his clothes went the ring and strapped to his back went the sword. Everything else followed.

Weylin walked out of the tent fully ready to depart to the tree. His gaze instinctively searched for Zeri while taking note of all the strangers around them. Without meaning to he pulled his clothes and pack tighter to him.

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

"Of course," Zeri said in response.

She waited outside where she had been standing. She drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it and gave her loaned shortbow a few practice draws, aiming the arrowhead safely down at the ground. It was good--probably even a little better than her old hunting bow. She hoped that she would not have to use it, that all of the Risen were now truly put to rest within Bhathairk. Them, and...

Weylin came out of the tent, and Zeri put the arrow back into the quiver and looked to him. She felt a little bad for having him brought to the camp where she knew he would be uncomfortable, but there was no choice.

"Thank you for coming. I thought that...maybe you wouldn't."

She offered a small smile.

Weylin Kyrel

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

Weylin just stared at Zeri while giving her a nod in response to her words. Something still seemed off about her to him. A lack of a something that she normally held.... She was being a hare. Normally she was a songbird. Energetic, whimsical, chatty. While cautious she didn't hold any fear. But now she was a timid, frightful, flighty hare. It got a frown out of him.

"You are being a hare today. Not a songbird." Weylin said to her not really thinking about it.

He then started to look around at all of the strangers. His straps were pulled around him tighter. Then he looked back to the orcess. "Ready?"

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

He frowned. Again. She didn't know why but she wouldn't let it bother her. And neither did she truly understand what he meant by hare and songbird--at least not in the present moment. So she let it go.

"Ready."

* * * * *​

From the survivors' camp and through the ruined Gates they went. Despite her thoughts and feelings now in the wake of her long talks with Pa, still Zeri did not feel good walking through those Gates. It did not feel as it had always felt before Neha's rise--like coming home. And it was not on account of the Gates and all the homes and structures beyond being in their meager states of disrepair and ruin. When the grand task of rebuilding was done and a new Great Orcish Stronghold rose up from the debris, the landscape under which rested the foundations would still be different. The sundered earth, the rent open flows of lava, the jagged stones and the old buildings from the undercity, all of this would rob Zeri's eyes of what she saw in her mind. The Bhathairk of her birth. The Bhathairk of her childhood. The Bhathairk that held all of her dearest memories of home and family.

That place was no more.

But...it was not the fault of the Black Tree. Szesh had tried to warn her. Weylin had tried to warn her. Pa had tried to warn her. Mother Owl had tried to warn her. Even Urgish, truth be told, had tried to warn her. And she just didn't listen until something terrible happened. Zeri could not undo what Urgish did. She could not undo the burning of the Meadow. All she had left was an apology, as lacking a gesture as it was in the face of everything. And before she set foot on the new path to come, the next chapter in her life and what she had decided between herself and Pa, she would do just that and apologize.

Zeri went along streets whose character she once knew with a familiarity so intimate that she could walk them blindfolded. She walked with Weylin on the path that she and nearly two hundred other orcs had hours before tread with an intent adverse to the one she now held. She had her bow and arrow at a low ready, maintaining a certain vigilance as they went.

And from further up the ragged street, something.

A group of orcs in a clearly celebratory mood going the opposite way to them--back toward the Gates. One among the five was holding his spear aloft, grinning widely as his fellow tribesorcs kept clapping him on the back and shoulders and boasted proudly of him.

Impaled upon the spear: Urgish's head. It was a dreary thing, frostbitten severely all over from his use of powerful spells at his moderate ability. His eyes were not quite closed, and his mouth was slack, and altogether his face carried a specter of sullen regret in death.

The orc with Urgish's head briefly brandished the spear and his prize to Zeri and Weylin as they neared. He laughed heartily and mightily and proclaimed loudly, "A death fit for a kinslayer!"

Then as he and the other orcs passed they began a lively chant, stomping their feet in unison as they walked and chanted and their triumph was palpable.

Zeri looked over to Weylin. Met his eyes.

Just smiled. A small thing.

And she kept on.

Soon they would near the Tree, and the site of the massacre whose perpetrator could not escape the justice of Bhathairk.

Weylin Kyrel

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

The beginning of the trip started with the hunter nervously trying to keep as much out of sight as he could. It wasn't working very well as his companion was smaller than him and they were out in the open of the camp. No one was paying much attention to them but you wouldn't know that from the way he was behaving.

As they went on and got further away from people the more relaxed he became. His eyes stopped wandering around looking for threats and instead were wandering around looking at the sights. Unlike the orcess, he had no memories of what the old Bhathairk looked like. All he knew of it was the rubble around them and the stories that he had heard. So he still had no idea what a city was suppose to be like. This place was no different than those dwarven ruins back in the Spine that he and her had literally fallen into.

When the merry band of warriors loudly marched their way down the path, Weylin stiffened up and went on full alert again. Pure instinctive. Memories of what happened to his home drifted easily to the surface. They were celebrating something. A kill. He wanted to get away from this group. Every little fiber of his being told him to make distance.

But he couldn't do that right now. Zeri was there with him and there was no real reason to fear the group. It was silly of him to go into a panic, and he knew that. But he couldn't help how he felt.

Instead of running, the hunter made sure he kept himself between the group and the orcess just in case something happened. It was impossible to say if they might turn on them or not. That one magic orc had so another could as well. His efforts to stay between them doubled when he noticed why the group was cheering. He didn't want Zeri to have to look at the traitors head. He just wanted to try to save her some painful memories.

The hunter caught Zeri's gaze and smile. After a moment he gave a slight smile back to her. Both of them kept going towards their destination.

When they began to near the site of the massacre something she had said to him came back to mind. Mother Owl was still out there needing to be laid fully to rest. She was one of their elders and had put her life on the line for others in need as was their way. Now the endless dream had taken her but her form still had yet to be laid to rest. He couldn't ignore that. As important as the tree was for Zeri this was more important. The tree could wait. Mother Owl could not.

Weylin reached over to touch Zeri's shoulder and get her to stop. As he did he said, "Need to stop. Mother Owl needs me."

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

Zeri stopped when Weylin touched her shoulder. Looked over to him with a wondering expression. And then he said what he had to say and she understood immediately.

Mother Owl. Zeri's last direct interaction with her was...less than pleasant, and in that moment Zeri did not like her very much at all. But it had been a bad moment, brought to be by a series of other bad moments and the decisions that led to them. Gosh, what if she had listened then? Would it have been too late? Would nearly two hundred tribesfolk still be dead and Urgish's head upon a pike?

But Weylin wanted to attend to her. Needed to attend to her. The site of the massacre was just over the small rise, the Black Tree already looming tall and visible from their current vantage.

Zeri nodded. Small and precise motions of her head. And she asked quietly of him, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Weylin Kyrel

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

The hunter's mind was racing over exactly what he could do here for Mother Owl's final resting place. A city was no place for one of the Old Folk to be lain. Wild places full of life were the best. Places like the Spine, like home. All of this rubble and having buildings upon buildings placed over the top of her would be insulting and suffocating. This place simply would not do for a Wise One.

Zeri's words took Weylin back into the moment. She wanted to help? Seemed typical for her yet it somehow took him by surprise. The idea of someone outside their communities to offer to help with this final, important rite was alien. Most treated them as backwards savages, although orcs did tend to be more respectful as a whole.... There was something she could do.

His immediate surprise at her offer was clear on his face for a moment before clearing up. A slight smile replaced it. "Yes. Need a blanket, shovel, and offerings. She liked those bread things with fruits and colorful trinkets. Shell bracelets. Colorful cloth...."

The hunter's expression became melancholy. His gaze seemed to go somewhere else, somewhere far away. Memories of his mother and father's burials came back to him. He couldn't give them proper rites for their final rest. Neither in the Old Folk tradition for his mother or his father's tradition from his homeland. Were they able to find proper rest or had he doomed them to nightmares?

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

He smiled. She liked it when he smiled.

Zeri listened to what she could do. Acquiring adornments for a burial. And in a Bhathairk that was no more, she would know exactly where to get all of the things for which Weylin had asked. She knew generally, now, those places. Letting the familiar guide her through the new and unfamiliar, the shattered landscape and the ruins left by Neha's rampage. There were a few tailor's shops and storehouses nearby where they could possibly get the colorful cloth and the blanket--provided the buildings weren't utterly destroyed, or the items inside ravaged by green fire or whatever else. Food, well, she didn't hold out so much hope for. She glanced briefly to the bracelet, made by Weylin and given to her by Mother Owl, on her left wrist; she would part with it if need be. As for shovels, there would be plenty up by the Tree where...the ambush happened.

The thought was timed with the souring of Weylin's expression. Mother Owl's loss had hit him hard, perhaps, and just now it seemed. Like Zeri's own reckoning with the death of her Ma and her brothers.

She looked down for just a second, and then back up. Resolved not to go back down into sorrow and despair. But also to be gentle. Delicate, this moment.

Zeri reached out and laid a soft hand on Weylin's shoulder. A warm, light squeeze. And a tiny smile offered, her hope that it was like those first few rays of sunlight cresting over the horizon.

"I know of a place where we might find some offerings to honor her," she said quietly. "It isn't far."

Weylin Kyrel

 

[Karanon Ulventhral]

Karanon Ulventhral was was dressed in furs when he walked into Bhathairk today. He had been hunting and living alone in the nearby woods. He refused to leave. He refused to stop searching for Shaerra. She had to he out here somewhere. She had to be alive...

He had spent what felt like months searching in the ruins of the under city. And then what felt like even more months searching above ground. But the dark elf's companion was truly lost.

It had been so long. He couldn't remember how long. Memory wasn't the same anymore. Not since that fateful night. Not since his mind broke. Not since he saw Neha. Not since he lost his mind looking at her. Attacking her with her own flames... And then? Well, that's the problem.

Even at that point it's all in flashes. Glimpses that come in flashbacks like that time in Zar'Ahal when he was - humiliated - by a noblewoman.

But these memories were different now. For today he stood in the ruins where it happened. He stood and knelt where he had fired flaming bolts at Neha from. But still nothing.. no flashbacks no insights... no suddenly realizing where Shaerra must be. Just silence. A cold, empty silence before a kneeling drow, contemplating the dust of a place that once was shop in Bhathairk.

Zeri Rekani Weylin Kyrel

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

Weylin gave Zeri a smile. Not a slight one typical from him but an actual smile for once. A nod went along with it as well. Then he said in a rather tired yet appreciative tone, "Thank you. I'll go find her. You don't need to see all of it again."

And with that before she likely had time to respond he began to head off towards the field of death from the day before. Already the scavengers had flown in. Gulls, crows, ravens, and buzzards were everywhere. A sight sure to bring dread and anxiety for most. For him it just brought about sorrow knowing what had gathered them, but he was glad a sign that the cycle was not broken had appeared. After everything it wouldn't have surprised him if the dead rose and attacked those left by the gates.

Not being a witness to the full horror of what had happened, the hunter didn't know exactly where Mother Owl might have fallen at. His guess was she had something to do with the wall of dead briars. Perhaps roughly the middle of them? He didn't know how this magic of her's worked. But it was his only guess.

So he slowly began trying to make his way through a field of corpses and feasting carrion birds towards what he guessed was the middle of the briar wall.

Zeri Rekani Karanon Ulventhral

 

[Zeri Rekani]

"Okay," she said, speaking to Weylin's back as he promptly turned right around to start the walk up toward that place, that horrible place, the corner where Urgish betrayed all of them. "I'll meet you back here...then."

Her eyes dipped. A little smile puffed up her cheeks. Then she herself turned around and headed back the way they had come, the old mental picture of the way to the tailor shops and storehouses clear in her mind's eye, telling her a different story of Bhathairk from what she could see before her in the thin morning light.

As she walked among walls barely standing and piles of broken stone and wood and all else both littering the street and not, she thought of the future. Again, her long talk with her Pa. They had come up with a plan together, a plan on making sure they could do everything to find (or, in Pa's case, be found by) Paola. She needed to know what happened, if she was not able to hear the wave of the news rolling over other larger cities--like Alliria--that she may have been in. She needed to know that both Zeri and Pa were still alive, that there was at least something to be thankful for.

And though Zeri wished desperately that it could have been under nearly any other circumstance, this was her call to adventure. This was the mission upon which she would journey into the wider world of Arethil. Not simply to dream far and roam farther, as Paola herself was doing (but yes, that too). To find her sister. And let her know through the tragic news that she and Pa loved her, and loved her with the all of both of their hearts.

This was the story that was hers. Not the story of a mighty warrior questing to slay a fearsome monster, like the tales Zeri adored, but simply of a sister searching for her fellow sister. A reunion years in coming.

Zeri reached what was once the pristine corner of the street where those tailor's shops stood. Two still did, mostly, even if they appeared as if a particularly strong wind might be the push to make them collapse in on themselves. Zeri approached the door of the closest one, reminding herself of what Weylin needed: a blanket and colorful cloths. Right. Should be easy enough.

She took one half-step in through the ruined doorway (who knew where the door was), thought she saw something, or more specifically someone, in the dim interior, and then backed out--eyes wide and face long with a sharp surprise. She stood like that for a second outside. Then, thinking it prudent, she pulled an arrow and nocked it on her shortbow, not yet drawing it back.

"Hello?" she called into the shop from outside. "I-Is anyone in there?"

Weylin Kyrel Karanon Ulventhral

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

Vivid memories lapsed over reality. Charred corpses turned black turned to pale cadavers by a simple blink. Scent of wet, cold flesh having the faintest similarity with burning hair and blood. Squishing. Crunching. The sounds were the same, if lacking the heat of the past. It had all been cooled by the passage of time....

Weylin found himself stopped in the middle of it all. His mind lost in the past as his body was frozen anchored to the present. There was no future for his community. There was no future for these orcish souls. There was no future for him....

Thump!

A sharp pain on his head snapped the hunter back from his trip in time. One of the damn ravens had peaked his head. It thought he was one of these corpses. A strange, lingering one, but one of the dead all the same.

He shooed it away. All his will was put behind taking a sluggish step forward. Then all for a second. Then a third. A fourth.

Weylin found himself moving yet again. On his way to the briar wall's center. There were no birds there yet. Perhaps there was nothing for them to eat or the thorny debris an impossible obstacle when ready meals were available all around. Either way, that place lacking in life was were he needed to go.

The hunter would never find who he sought in the realm of the living.

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

Zeri did not take long in her search. From what was left--what buildings and what parts of them still stood, and what remained in relatively good condition within--it did not take long at all. There had been days before when she and Ma and Paola could spend an entire afternoon in the Great Bazaar. Whole days, on occasion, to the bewilderment of her brothers and to the slight amusement of her Pa. Now with the city barren and with what little remained, no, it had not taken long, and that in and of itself was something of a loss to her.

Zeri returned to the spot at the base of the shallow hill, that street leading up it to the site of the ambush at the hill's crest. She could see the tips of the standing ruins which had helped serve to box them all in along with the ice walls. Beyond that place, and the bodies that would be there, was the Tree. She had apologized to as many tribesorcs as she could, to those who had lost a loved one to Urgish's treachery, and soon she could apologize to the spirit of the Tree. For the wrong she had been doing with the gentle coaxing of the deceptively warm feel of righteousness beating in her heart. It had been all too easy to let the yearning to be a good person lead her into being a bad one.

In her hands she held a blanket. Frayed some on the edges, and three small holes of various sizes and shapes were poked through it--damaged by the collapsing ruin of the store--and yet it was the one in the best condition she could find. Dusty but not damaged were the rectangular sheets of cloth she also held: one dyed green, another red, and the third blue.

And she waited for Weylin's return.

Weylin Kyrel

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

Weylin felt sick. Not from any ailment or disease. The sights around him from the present and the past churned his stomach and weakened his knees. He felt light headed. His vision blurred. A shortness of breath clung to his lungs that he could not seem to shake. It was like he had gone too high too quickly into the high peaks of the Spine.

But he was only here wading through a sea of corpses in Bhathairk.

Thankfully the dead briar wall was before him. The corpses had ended and along with them the birds. Now it was just moist ground, brown briar, and an odd coldness that clung about the air. He looked the grand thorny hedge over. It had fallen over at some point. Before it must have towered higher over head than it did now. But it had fallen just as the wall of ice had and the hopes of life for all who lay sleeping between.

He ducked and pushed his way under. There was some room. Not much, but some. He felt a same sense of death and dread being under it as he had when he hid from that giantess. A feeling about about to be devoured.

He pushed on.

Light was an issue. His eyes had trouble seeing. A dark and shaded place. Putting his hands out like the blind would only invite the thorns to snag him and trap him here. Best to let the leather of his cloak and gloves take the cuts and prods.

At the center of it all, he came across a figure. Slender and composed it was the originator of the grand briar wall. Coming close only confirmed what the hunter knew. He had found Mother Owl. He stopped. All his spirit could handle was for him to stare. The thought of leaving her resting here crossed his mind, but he had to send it away. The vines and thorns nearly made him forget this was not a wild place.

So he pulled off his cloak and wrapped her up. Then unprotected he began to drag her back out from under the vines.

After some time Weylin finally emerged with Mother Owl. An unknown number of wounds covered him. The thorns did not wish for their mother to leave them. But she had to. This was no place for her eternal rest. It was not wild enough. They were not wild enough.

He picked her up and began to trudge through the field of corpses once more. This time he didn't stop. Not even when the birds came for him and mercilessly peaked away. The cruelest of them aimed for his eyes. But he pushed through them as he had the briar. And once freed of both he made his way back to the orcess a bloody, bleeding, bruised man.

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

Zeri's eyes widened when Weylin had come close enough down the sloping street for her to get a clear look at him, and she stifled a gasp. Oh gosh, it was as if he'd been attacked again up there. He was already a mess again, worse than mere exhaustion this time, and it was terrible to look at.

Though bloodied with cuts and stabs through his clothes and into his flesh, he had her. Mother Owl. Again Zeri wished that she had not left her company on such a bad note, thinking what she had and feeling what she did of her then. Mother Owl was someone special to Weylin and now she was...she was gone. And it was Zeri's fault. Just like it was with all of those who had been slain.

Her eyes trailed down with shame, finding it hard to look at the woman that Weylin carried. Zeri had only wanted to make things better, but...this was the result.

She summoned some resolve. No. She was not going to slip back into that despair. All the tears she had cried for it had been shed already, before the dawn had even come. And though she would never forget, and nor should she ever forget, she needed to move on. Forward.

Zeri did not offer to help Weylin, either with the cuts and bruises or with carrying Mother Owl--she knew the answer she'd get if she asked. Instead she glanced down to the folded blanket and the sheets of cloth she held in both her hands, a reverential bowing of her head in the motion of it.

"She saved us. Pa and I," she said. "I don't know what might of happened to us if it wasn't for Mother Owl."

Her bottom lip curled into her mouth slightly, and she nibbled on it.

"I'm sorry this happened to her."

Weylin Kyrel

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

The hunter just held onto Mother Owl as she slept in his arms. The orcess spoke and he remained silent. Her words made him feel better. It was a sign that the efforts of the one in his arms were not in vain. With her passing was a purpose. Perhaps not the purpose any of them expected, but still a purpose.

After just standing there like a leafless tree, Weylin finally spoke up. "Don't be sorry. It is our ways. What she did. Mourn her passing, but don't regret anything she did. It was her choice. Be happy that your life and your pa's life gave her final moments meaning and purpose."

He had to stop talking. So many words. Why was he speaking so much right now?

His eyes had gotten blurry. Why?

Tears began to fall. They began to drip onto the scratched up leather of his cloak. The cloak wrapped around Mother Owl still.... Who was still....

Weylin looked around as tears still slowly formed and dropped from his eyes. He found a clear, flat spot. He set Mother Owl down gently. Then he stepped back a ways. A rock or chunk of debris caught his foot and he tripped backwards to the ground. He hit with a thud, but thankfully had not fallen on anything that would do more than add another bruise.

As the hunter just laid there with tears in his eyes and the pain from the cuts and bruises starting to filter in, he said partly to himself, partly to Zeri, and partly to just the world as a whole, "Am I cursed?"

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

The mourning came around in a dreadful full circle. Earlier it had been Zeri, and now--caught in the expansive tragedy that was Bhathairk--it had claimed Weylin too. Neha's rise had sown so much sorrow in so short a time and all of it was coming to a solemn bloom.

It wasn't fair. Not fair at all. That she had dragged Weylin into this, him and Mother Owl, and the latter paying the price for what Zeri was trying to do. Weylin had already lost so much, his home and the people there that shared a place in his heart--so much that it had left him the shadow of a man that she had met in the Spine, deep in that old and abandoned dwarven settlement. And now he had lost more.

She saw the tears welling up in his eyes and it almost broke her.

He set Mother Owl down. Then stumbled and fell and Zeri gasped lightly, covering her mouth with the tips of her fingers. She didn't let it stay her though. Zeri dropped down beside him and sat on her heels, trying to show him a hopeful, supportive smile and failing and trying to stave off the trembling downturn of her lips into a wracked sob and succeeding, her expression caught in the middle and taut like the centerpoint of a rope being tugged from both ends.

She leaned forward and reached a hand over to his face. Lightly with the tip of her forefinger brushed away a tear here, a tear there. "It's okay..."

To weep.

She gently cradled his head and lifted it and shifted herself, stretching out her legs and setting the back of his head down on her thighs. And she laid a hand down on his hair. "It's alright..."

To have this solemn moment.

He asked if he was cursed.

"No," she said delicately. "You still have me. I care about you, Weylin. And I'm here for you."

Weylin Kyrel

 

[Weylin Kyrel]

His head was placed in her lap. She stroked his hair. She told him that he still had her....

Weylin didn't know what to think or how to feel right now. Emotions and memories swirled endlessly against and into one another like snow flurries in the wind. Where and how would he ultimately land? Would he settle or would he begin rolling downhill again?

No answers came. So all he could do was accept it all and let what would be be.

Tears continued to form and roll from the sides of his eyes. He closed them. A wavering frown was across his lips. His hands moved to rest on the sides of his face, but found their place on her thighs. He let them stay. All he could do was hunker down and wait out this storm of emotions like he would a blizzard. Hopefully her warmth would see him through this as well.

How long he just remained silent like this was unknown. The passing of time had become meaningless to him even before the meadow was set ablaze. But he eventually found enough of some form of peace to speak again.

"Thank you." Weylin said slowly and in a voice nearly exhausted of emotion. "Sorry for burdening you.... Sorry for...."

Sorry for cursing you too....

Zeri Rekani

 

[Zeri Rekani]

The sun rose from the earliest breaking of dawn up into a low sentinel in the east, casting the soft light and long shadows of that new morning. The blanket of clouds went retreating to the west and left in their wake the clear blue sky, bright and untarnished. The same sky that floated overhead for many of Zeri's days spent in Bhathairk. There above were kept some fond memories.

Zeri just sat with Weylin. Quietly present as he mourned yet another passing. She would gently wipe the tears that rolled down his face when she saw them and she would lightly brush the very tips of her fingers through his hair. Small comforts, she hoped, like letting him rest his head on her legs. It was all she could do as his sorrow worked through him--much like he had done for her.

After some time, he spoke.

Sorry for burdening you...Sorry for...

"Sshh." Like a whisper. "You don't need to be sorry either."

She offered a faint smile. A touch louder, her voice, but still softly spoken. "Remember when we finally found the Urdelveogg? The Edelweiss flower? I was so happy and relieved when you pointed to that patch of them that I went sprinting and tripped and fell over on the ground and I was a big ol' mess--like Ma would say. You remember that?" A giggle tried to make its way out from her lips, and in this it was halfway successful, the laugh tiny and brief. "Do you remember the look White gave me? Just rolled her head to the side the way that dogs do and stared at me while I was picking myself up and brushing off that snow on my parka and my pants. I felt a little embarrassed at the time--silly for slipping up like that--but it was funny."

She let out a fond sigh.

"I don't think I ever did get the chance to tell you what I did with the flower when I got back home," she said. "Nothing. It...well, gosh, it turned out that by the time I had gotten back, the whole reason the Council of Elders needed the flower was gone." The woman inside the Amalgamation, Anima, had escaped. "They just thanked me for my effort and that was that. Ma and Pa were soooo glad that I had come home safe. They saw that I still had the flower in my hand even after meeting with the Elders but they didn't say anything about it. They just hugged me and kissed me and Ma made a big supper for all of us that night."

Zeri leaned over a bit. Looked at Weylin from above--upside down from his view.

"And you know what, Weylin? I'm not even disappointed now that the Elders didn't need the flower, that it wasn't even all that important in the end. I don't think my journey to the Spine and back was a waste at all."

Her cheeks went warm with color, red flushing against her green skin and the blue ink of her tattoo.

"Because I met you. And we went on that journey together. It was...oh spirits, I'm sweating," Zeri dragged an arm across her forehead. Continued, "It was a very special t-time for me. All of the g-good and all of the bad."

She made her smile bigger. And said, "So you see? You'll never be a burden to me. Okay?"

Weylin Kyrel