Into Cernunnos' Arms

[Cave_Creature 467]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co5gy_2uOEY

 

 

She woke with a start. A sudden rush shot through her veins, emanating from the center of her chest where shards of red broke on her skin and dissipated into the air. The pain was brief and she was unharmed, but the shock had opened her eyes, filled her blood with adrenaline. She felt bark against her back, mud underneath her, her bare soles and limp hands in the dirt.

 

As she lifted her head from where it lolled, her eyelids parted. The brightness of the sky struck her first - and then the dark figure, the masculine shape obscuring the sun behind him. The silhouette stood silently, a long robe hanging from his shoulders that reached the mud. He watched her, tall and unmoving, and she searched for something to make clear her surroundings. She saw the city’s wall to her left; there was a small swamp all around - and then she saw Hiylu.

 

The woman, her hair both ivory white and charcoal black, always found in her misty-green gown, stood a few yards away, her soft eyes on her. Her concern was hardly on her, who she considered her friend, but on the infant in her arms. The dark-skinned, red-haired little babe squirmed in her grasp, as she nervously rocked and cooed to calm it. Faeinn. She tried to form a question; she tried to ask what was going on. But her muscles felt so heavy, her body was slow and unresponsive, her throat thick and tongue undulating as she attempted to speak. She had taken the herb many times before, she knew what it felt like to awaken from nightsap-induced sleep.

 

It became so clear in her mind. Hiylu, she’d trusted her. She was her friend, she tried to take care of her since they’d met, she cared for her. And she had her baby. She would not have awoken here if she’d not been betrayed somehow. Her baby! She struggled against the slumber that still gripped every muscle in her limbs, a cry of anger coming out as a fragmented gargle that caused Hiylu to step back, wide-eyed, wincing at the fury and hatred that must be in her eyes. She felt a murderous rage in her being, a desire and a certainty that she would kill her if there was no explanation, if her baby was not safe.

 

But the wrath filling her soul was quickly replaced with a stunned confusion, as the figure swooped down on her and gripped the sides of her head. She felt his fingers pushing into her hair and skin, his thumbs on either side of the bridge of her nose. His palms obscured his face, but she felt the hot breath on her face as he spoke. It was fuzzy, his words hazy in her ears - all she heard clearly was what he said with the most venom, and the most reverence. “Leyuperith.”

 

She wasn’t thinking. There was nothing but alarm and animalistic instinct in her mind, as his thumbs drove themselves into her eyes. They put up a resistance, pressure building in them and pain blooming in the depths of her skull. The longer he pressed, the more she was able to squirm, the more control of her muscles she had; she writhed, her hands came up to claw at his sleeve-covered wrists, any ounce of the fight she had going into her furious hands. As the pain grew, a groan formed in her throat - his thumbs tore into the flesh of her eyes, sinking into the sockets and mangling them, and her groan became a piercing scream, crying out in desperation and torment.

 

As soon as it came the pressure of his thumbs disappeared - her eyes were wide open, and she saw nothing. She only felt the agony, and the hot blood sliding down her cheeks, steaming tears and the visceral gore mixing with the ochre she had painted on, her claret washing away the symbol of her family she had held so dearly. Her head was swimming, the wailing of an infant and the confused cry of a woman heard only distantly as she slumped over, her head held up by the man’s hands.

 

He was speaking to her. She could barely understand it, his words sounding garbled and slow, the vibrations in the air pounding against her skull in the deep, deep darkness of the world. It was all black, as black as the void, and she felt disconnected from even her own body. The feeling of cold mud on her skin and rough palms on her face, they were the feelings of a body she didn’t own, something outside of her consciousness.

 

“Say her name,” he seethed, the cold anger dripping from his words as blood sliding off the edge of a blade after its fatal swing. She could feel the life seeping out of her with each ragged breath she drew, and her only thought was to beg him - beg for any sort of mercy such a man could offer.

 

“Plea-hea-hease,” she sobbed, her shuddering, dry cries scratching her throat. His hands tightened on her head, the pressure building again in her bones, and he growled something; she searched in her foggy mind.

 

“Leyuperith.” It was her last bid for life - what help he could give her, or why he would, she didn’t know, and she wasn’t thinking. She didn’t have the will to resist command. His hands disappeared, and she was carelessly tossed back against the tree. She leaned into the mud, her face growing numb and the pain of the air against her open sockets fading into an icy coldness. She breathed in uneven gasps, the darkness sinking into her muscle and bone.

 

Whatever thoughts she could form varied wildly. She thought of him first and foremost, thought of crimson hair and scarred dark skin and she thought of the way his jaw clenched and his knuckles turned white when his soul was being reaved. She had ached with his aches, whatever happinesses that had come to him would bring her joy. She’d broken her promise. She wouldn’t be the one to lay him in his grave; nor be at his side forever; nor would she be the one mother of his children that would stay. She couldn’t ever say sorry, and sorry she was - the fading scraps of her being throbbed with regret, resentfulness, hopelessness. She wanted a better life for him. It was her fault that now, it’d be worse than ever - how bitterly the memories and the blood tasted in her mouth. He wouldn’t let go. Whatever comfort and solace she could find resided in her knowledge that if he had his daughter, if he had his people, she would not be his downfall. If she could have stayed in the forest, stayed with her brother in the relative safety and calm of the Aspect’s world, all would have been well. Everything would have been fine…

 

The druid’s last thought was of herself, a selfish thought of a dying woman. She merely, with her final wisps of consciousness, could hope that for all the love that she had had for them - for Laurelin, her friends, students, and for her family, and those that may as well have been her family, all the people whose faces moved across her memory, although their names were quickly fading - that in the end, perhaps, they had loved her back.

 

 

 

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

 

 

Artimec awoke, draped in the blankets of a bed that was not his. In a home he did not recognize. He groaned, oh, how his head pounded at him. A fair haired mali'aheral elfess lay in the sheets with him, sleeping soundly. He didn't recognize this woman.

 

He groaned, pushing himself up to a sitting position, the movement causing his apparent partner to murmur quietly in her slumber. He must have looked like a mess. His hair razzled, eyes bloodshot, his mouth felt like sandpaper. Oh how my head aches.

 

How did he get here? What was he forgetting?

 

A near empty bottle lay at the foot of the bed, with just enough residue at the bottom for Artimec to know it had once held abstinthe inside it.

 

What had he been trying to forget?

 

Artimec slung himself off his head, he snatched his iconic hawk's staff off a nearby counter and slung his emerald robe back over his chest. He left the home without saying goodbye.

 

What got into me last night? I suppose some must be worried. He thought to himself, now passing through the forest glades and ancient ruins of Laureh'lin isle. Then he came upon it.

 

An elder tree, with an archway gate of twining roots, a fence of hedges and pockets of lovely lilacs stood before him. And at that moment he knew exactly what he'd spent all of last night trying to flush out of his mind.

 

Of course, Salhassans grave ...he had spent all of the previous night growing it for her, a beautiful grove to serve as the resting place for a beautiful person. It had been a full day now since they'd taken her dead body to him.

 

He entered the miniature grove, walking up to the base of the elder tree and putting his palm to it, closing his eyes, and drawing in a sharp breath.

 

"I promised myself not to break if I ever lost you. I believe I've already come very close ... Aspects forgive me."

 

A single tear streaked down his otherwise emoteless face. He wiped it away methodically and stepped off from the tree. There would be no breaking.

 

The man who did this to his sweet Salhassan was dead. Impaled through the neck, burned into ash, soul and body lost to the natural balance forever. A similar fate would need any who would scorn him in the future.

 

His fingers curled tightly around his staff as he walked away from the grave with a new resolve, a stiff, cold, determined resolve. There would certainly be no breaking.

 

He had a people to lead.

 

 

[Zelona 8]

The elfess sat in her brother's home in darkness. Her head bowed unable to do more than try to piece together what had happened. She would never have killed Salhassan. She knew this too well. Her affections towards Salhassan was more than she originally admitted. Her small form trembled as she waited each day in darkness. Her last memory of Salhassan being nothing more than them talking about the baby. What happened? She could not remember. The gash on her head still pulsed with pain. Her brow sweat as she tried to think of what happened. She remembered very little, and now there was no way to prove her innocence. Guilty until proven innocent. She would not remember the horror and fear she felt, watching her lover take Salhassan's life. The mounting fear he would turn on her and the baby. He promised he would never hurt her, but the moment he hurt Salhassan, she was unsure. But none of that was remembered. Now she waited for her execution, knowing the elves believed her guilty of killing someone she truly loved. She had little choice but to stay hidden at home or blindly wandering the town. The names of the two people she lost that day, engraved on her flesh. She took a breath and raised her eyes towards the ceiling, hoping Salhassan could hear silent prayer, and forgive her of what she could not remember.

[flameslinger2002 49]

Soul Woodwind would wake up the next day. Thinking to himself if he was only a little bit faster on his patrol around the wall with King Tristan maybe just maybe he would have been able to save her from her gruesome death. Now he awaits the execution of one of the collaborators in Salhassen's death.

[MamaBearJade 2090]

News of the Prince's loss reaches a young ker's ears. Her body straightening as she stands in the temple of the ancestors. Looking at the efigy of her first son, Narazh raises her head before making her way to the wood elf city. She would pass the curious glances of her kin as her form walked swiftly from the place she had called home. She would need to have a word with the wood elves.

[Dragonslayerelf 654]

Lindrael Torena, upon hearing news of the death of this fine upstanding citizen would then shake his head, the most amount of emotion he is capable of expressing in regards to pity, sorrow, and empathy. He would then continue to go about his duties, sniffling or coughing occasionally, still recovering from a week-long illness.

[Lizellan 25]

Delwyn caught wind of the news not long after it had reached Laureh'lin. Though she had not been in residence long,  she still felt a sense of pity wash over her for the family of the druid.

"It truly is a shame..." She would mutter to her sister.

[Elad™ 560]

Moved to the Archive. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.