roleplay Enough for One Life

[Andustar 4143]

Spoiler

 

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“Well, how long has it been?” The thought throbbed within Artanáro’s head, memories of the distant past feeling more like an echo with each passing day.  At first, the signs were subtle.  The occasional desire to sit - to rest one’s feet upon a stool.  To recline next to a warm lit fire, to ease the pain that had crept up his back.  Of course, everyone desired respite now and then, but these occasions became all the more regular.  Then came the next signs of change.  A slight drag at his heels as he sparred with young Evelyn, the elfess’ footwork waxing, whilst the tendons in his knees snapped horridly.  

 

Artanáro… no, Rickard... thought back to his most distant memories, adrift within the slow decay of time.  His uncle Viktor’s greying beard. His grinding shoulder, scraping like a chisel with the pain of arthritis.  It had never dwelled upon him before - “So why now?” he thought.  As the century bore on, so too did age and experience pave the pathway to knowledge and wisdom.  Yet, never before did he ever feel old, not in the physical sense.  The Arch-Aengul’s blessings had annulled the curse of Iblees, or so it did for a time.  That boon had since left him, and so mortality once again ran rampant. 

 

“How many decades will it have been, roughly?”  He guessed at his physical age, as if it were a game.  A light amusement to pass the time.  Fourties? Fifties?  How long would it last?  Ironic, he had come to live amongst the sons of Malin, expecting to reside for a lengthy period, as he had been accustomed to for the last century.  Yet, now he faded, like the rest of his true birth-kin.  Nothing truly lasts forever in this realm, and that truth is perhaps no more exemplified than in the race of humanity.  

 

Was it something to envy? To despise?  Here stood a man who’d outlived all his prior peers.  A man who’d outlived every other heir to his disgraced bloodline.  Yet, one could only cherish such trivial accomplishments for so long.  So he chuckled, and so he embraced the comfort of his armchair.  No, Rickard wasn’t at all envious - not in the face of growing old.  His only fear was the experience.  The reality that there was still so much in this world to be seen...

“...Or perhaps... I’ve seen enough for one life.”

 

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[Farryn 860]

Somewhere within the Soulstream, Elvira waits patiently for her son to arrive.