Volume 5: What Was Left Behind
Chapter 1 - The Unrequited
"For the wandering soul, there is a certain longing for the idea of a home life. It's at once inviting and tender, teasing us with the promises we know better than to believe; seductively luring us into the arms of comfort ever beyond our grasp. This time will be different, we promise ourselves. This time, you will finally fit in.
You will be accepted.
You will be welcomed.
You will be cared for.
The heart can be lied to but the soul knows what it wants, and denying its simple demand is the kind of suicide that the sharpest blade or longest drop cannot hope to compete with; it is the insidiously quiet spiral into a crushing oblivion.
The greatest irony is that this spiral's path open with three little words:
I love you."
Sarah Kettar
Diary Entry 5528
Vestrin
The shovel bit deep into the packed dirt. It kicked up rocks that grazed his knees like blades. Sweat rolled down his battered flesh only to frost over in the early morning air. And still he dug. A six foot by three foot rectangle in the middle of a dead district, in a park. A park was fitting.
People had spent time here. Mingling, they called it. Different races met to talk about whatever shit they talked about to make themselves sound important. There wasn't any talking going on here any more, though. The husks of the estate grounds laid all around him- around them- reaching ashen and soot stained fingers into a dead sky. Prayers to a god that was, and never had been listening.
The Salter's district. An entire district owned by some rich snob who thought he could make polite 'race mixing' normal. They had their balls, their open debates. They helped the poor to curry favor with the masses- Vestrin himself had eaten his fill from their larder when it was offered. But in the end, like everything else, it was ripped away.
Like the earth he broke under the dented blade of the shovel. Everything eventually gave way. Everything except his tears. He was empty. Too empty to even feel anger at the cowards of the Guild for refusing to pay for Rebecca's burial.
There were no tears. Not even for the small grave filled beside hers. What fucking good was a man who couldn't cry for his own son? For his friend? He slumped against the side wall trying to bring the tears, trying to taste the heat. And nothing came.
So he dug.
There was no guild. There were no friends. He was alone. Not a single copper to his name to even mark these places, and only salty tears to feed the soil. Briefly he considered opening his wrists over them, a thought that raced through his mind as he finished padding out Rebecca's final resting place.
They both deserved better. But on his hands and knees, naked but for his tattered boots, he sculpted a pillow from the dirt and lined his friend's bed with rocks and the flowers he had found roaming the overgrown gardens. Maybe it would have been best if he joined her, maybe that should have been the price, the penance as clerics called it. Maybe that would have made this right.
He didn't have it in him to think of the red headed elf beyond her escaping as his son bled from that fucking plague. The open sores- oozing into sheets blackened with dried blood- wailing for him to be near. Holding him as he went quiet.
The bitch who had contracted to the Guild was nowhere to be found. Smarmy cunt had probably disappeared when she found out some freelance assassin got involved. The Ace of Diamonds. . . .world class talent who happened to be chasing after the same bounty. Was it any surprise he failed? It didn't take away the hurt but it felt reasonable. Sane. Healthy. Rationalizing. . .
It hadn't been his fault he hadn't been able to catch her. No, of course not! It was that fucking bitch who'd handed him the contract in the first place! She was hedging her bets! His son's health hadn't meant anything to her-
"Stop it." He growled, punching the dirt. "Stop."
He couldn't change the past. No one could.
Warily he hauled himself up and grabbed Rebecca by the coat. It was the only thing he had left to give his life long friend, the one thing they'd argued over for years when he'd found it on some stiff on the lower east side. He laid her down gently, smoothing out the wrinkles in her leathers and pulling the coat tight and respectable like.
It looked good on her. With her hair arranged to hide the finger sized hole in her forehead, she almost looked like she' was on her way to a merchant's meeting. At any moment she'd spring to life and secure the future they'd always talked about! Yeah. Spring right the fuck up and wake them all from this nightmare.
Except she didn't.
He was still asleep.
He always would be, too.
