“Boghhh … aaaan” muffled and torturing to the ear echoes escape the seared lips of the once fiery spirit of the Gobarai sorcerer. Moira steps around the burning and barely living body. In silence and with zero emotion she kneels with her shortsword in hand and sticks it in Rohem’s neck. Smoke and boiling blood engulf the iron while the hapless man exhales his final breath in bubbling painful sounds.
“Moira Iegro of the Blackmoor ! Has your enthusiasm for blood no end? No satiety?” furious, Alu yells.
Moira’s gaze denies crossing swords with Alu’s, yet her lips twitch and yearn for a retort. She gives in. “A favor. Only this did I provide. All the leeches of your Dreadlake wouldn’t make this man fine once more.”
Alu struggles to hold back words. Damy touches her gently on her back. She lets it go and both of them stroll towards Rohem’s body as Moira moves away.
The group collects itself and before a slight moment of rest becomes due, sounds of metal clashing and movement below the cremated enemies’ bodies are heard and seen. Their weapons return onto their arms awaiting the reveal of the surviving enemy. What reveals itself instead, is the now hairless blue skinned barbarian. He rises from the burning embers with slashes on his skin carved by the creatures’ weapons. No burn or scald on his bare chest. No mark left by the flames besides the removal of his dirty and tangled fur. “Fucking dragon-shit-fucking-imps!” Sabur shouts in ache, closed eyes and clenched fists. He opens his eyes and gazes the wholesome surprise on the group’s face. He flexes and smiles. “Fire don’t touch Sabur. See ? Once again, the might of Bonepool wins again!” Arms relieved, they collectively mend their wounds around a makeshift campfire prepared swiftly by the hunter after taking care of the dead sorcerer.
Stressed by the events transpired, the unpromising short rest manages only to carve the line between memory and reality as the stench of burnt flesh refuses to unnest from their nostrils. Young Rohem’s body is laid a few steps from the fire, wrapped in cloth and cleaned from the blood and the ashes. His face looks sad. Most likely not because of his demise, but of his separation from his twin. Looking straight within the campfire’s flames, Alu starts singing an elven eulogy. Realizing that, besides Moira and the attending spiritual forces, her words are probably not discerned, she resumes in common speech.
Today we mourn loved souls lost in righteous battle.
We welcome the spirits that tend to the dead and their relief,
as well as those who plotted and saw through their end.
Old lady Ash’ka, before you let go of their severed strings,
whisper in your dormant subjects’ ears our following plea.
And if our words ring true and sage,
let the stars shine bright and dim our grief.
In your glorious rest, bless us with your whistling.
A beacon for us to light the path to strength and forbearance
For your departure was strong and eminent,
in stand against the darkness.
One day, we pray we match this day in honor and in pride.
With fire in hand and joy in heart we bid farewell one penultimate time,
in hope we feast and swing and sing once more as partners in solemn lethe.
After the wode elf concludes, Moira starts whistling. In sequence, most of the group starts to emulate the whistling too, leading into smiles and a moment of gaiety. Soon enough smoke appears through the cloth that coils the dead body. Not black of burning fire but pure white emitting the smell of thyme. Damy blinks and there where the body was now is just the cloth. Just the cloth and a large white moth emerging through it, flapping its wings to reach higher. Dazed by the event, everyone’s pious gaze is following the moth who flies toward the edge of the cliff. There it meets its partner and together they get lost in the wind. Whispers of prayers in different languages and to different deities follows the incredible metaphysical sight.
Damy ponders about Alu’s song. The elf’s voice was rough, the tempo plain and the rhyme absent. Yet the phrases were beautiful to her and it reminded her of an old story Papa used to tell her about death. About an old hag who spins the thread of life for all of us and then cuts it on her wicked demand. Damy hasn’t assumed any faith in her life and any hardened belief that gods exist, but the story of the hag, scissor in hands, in front of our metaphorically threaded life, made sense to her and most importantly mimicked the raw instancy that a breathing, thinking and spirited person becomes part of stillness. Her mind almost physically hurts attempting to fathom the pace the twin sorcerers were lost. And amidst that ghostly pain, she remembers that within those same moments she could have been part of the mourned ones. She turns her gaze upon the blonde knight. “Thank you, Alesander.”
He glances at her. Then looks down revealing a miserable sense of self-hatred. “Everyone would have done the same.” he whispers.
“No. No they wouldn’t.” she insists, raising the knight’s now mellowed gaze.
Moira shrugs. “Far from me to intrude on this lovely courting, but every second we waste, spoils the deaths of the ones we just mourned for. We all need to speed this up!”
In reality, she was right. Although, Damy in that moment didn’t care to think much for what was right. She gives a long stare at the dark elf and calmly says what almost everyone holds back. “Fuck you Moira.”
The dark elf smiles, deviously pronounces the following, “Μιήρσα!”, and then gets up.
Astonished by what she just heard, Damy stays still on the ground while everyone gathers their equipment and prepare themselves for entering the shrine following Moira’s lead. She understands what that word meant because when she was young she studied the language of the sunless people. Those who live in the Underdark. ‘Μιήρσα’ in that chthonian language equates to ‘Angel’.
Alesander turns around to see Damy still on the ground floor. He approaches quietly. “Is everything alright ? What did she say to you?”
Damy breaks out of her thinking loop, quickly turning her eyes to Alesander and swiftly getting up. In perfect irony and yet completely serious and honest she replies whispering. “Moira is not … who she claims she is.”
Sinwhale stories 