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.
Vestrin clutched the oily lapel of the coat. To no one in particular, he whispered. "I was supposed to get the pocket watch. . . .cheating bitch."
There was no air to laugh even sardonically. Just a hollow chuff of something that sounded like a sob. That rich fop from the Estan Free States had told them about retirement watches given out to important people. He'd begged them not to steal it, crying that it belonged to his father, and how he'd give them whatever paper bonds they wanted if they just let him keep it. All bullshit. But she'd fallen in love with that watch. . . .they didn't eat for three weeks so she could keep that shiny piece of ticking metal.
It fucking figured.
Vestrin barely had the strength to climb out and, like his son before her, had no words that would come when he tried to fill the minutes it took to catch his breath. As he shuffled the dirt back in the hole, there was only the metallic clack-shuff of the shovel biting into the dirt, depositing it into the pit.
When he was finally done he grabbed his trousers and with considerable effort managed to get them on. Parched and numb, he sat there on his knees between the graves. Minutes passed in silence with only the dull purr of wind rolling over the hill to wash away the stink of blood and disease.
A sound to his right. Grass crunching. He yolked to the left grabbing for the dagger he'd stupidly left beside his gear. By the time he had the magic blade in his hand he could have been dead several times over. But he wasn't. Standing in his old spot was a tall eastern looking woman with a distinctly orange-yellow pair of eyes and wavy brown hair. She was dressed in clothes that cost more than even the land under them was worth. It was the bitch who'd contracted the Guild.
When she poke, her voice was a soft rumble like a cat preparing to strike. "It has been too long, Vestrin."
Tired and weak he was in no mood for anyone's shit. "You aint wanna be alone here at night. Dangerous place."
"Only if I was in yourrr shoes." She said flatly. Her gaze swept the freshly dug plots, lips turning downward, she pouted her lips out a touch. "I expected only one."
"Fuck you! Don't you-"
"Behave," she said in a sharp tone that carried up and down the hill. "You've lost enough for one day, and now I hear that your friends and compatriots have all turned their backs on you. Very dire indeed, for the golden boy. . . .you have even failed my father, which he is not fond of."
"I-"
"But I am not here to place blame, Vestrin." She eyed him though she didn't tear her attention from the graves. "Only to find out what you plan to do next." As an afterthought she threw in: "The blade, regrettably will be coming with me in any case. That was for your work. Kindly hand it over."
Vestrin clutched the blade all the tighter, staring at the woman. He tried to process his options but the days had left him too battered, too worn to even muster a reply. She seemed to recognize it, too. They stewed in the silence for several moments before she produced a single blue rose and laid it upon his son's grave.
He opened his mouth to scream. Did she
