A Proper Goodbye to Me Doves (PK)

[SophiaTsu 185]

A Proper Goodbye to Me Doves

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“Vera, me dove,” whispered Mother. “Wake up, me dear.”

 

Vera opened her eyes slowly, adjusting them to the bright light. There was her mother, though it was a version of her she had never seen - younger, with no wrinkles or grey to her hair. 

 

“Mother..?” Vera asked, finding that her throat was dry. She tried to sit up and get a better look around, but her strength was completely gone, forcing her to lay on her back staring straight towards the white nothingness above.

 

Her mother smiled. “Ah’ve been waitin’ fer ye.” She held something to Vera’s lips. It was warm and slid down her tongue and throat with ease. 

 

After her mother had finished serving her the drink and using a cloth to dab gently around her lips, Vera found the strength to speak again. “Mother, what was that?”

 

“Ambrosia,” Her mother answered with ease, sealing the liquid away in some side container. “Nectar of the Gods. Rememba’ how I told ye tah neve’ forget whe’e ye came from?” She truly was stunning, her skin soft, hair pinned to the sides of her hair like she always had it when she tended to the children.

 

“The Gods…” Vera felt her body change from this strange twinging of numbness to a state of energy and fulfilment. “What is this place? Where are we?”

 

Vera’s mother tried to give her a reassuring grin, but her eyes, those deep green eyes, gave it away. “Yer in a bette’ place now.” 

 

An unsuspected bolt of shock went through Vera’s body as she curled into herself. She felt like she was on fire...she was on fire! She patted down her arms and legs, trying to get the pain from going away.

 

“Please, Vera, me dove,” She gave her a look only a mother could give; stern but ever-so loving and kind. She needed her to calm down. Vera flinched as the pain eventually subsided. “Good. Now that that’s done an’ ye’ve drank yer ambrosia, we have all the time in the world.”

 

Vera painfully looked around, eyesight spotty and hand to her head, only to be scolded. “Don’t move yer head that fast, ye’ll get sick tah yer stomach. Yer lucky that I got to ye when I did, me dove, and I’m already pissed tah hear about what ye’ve done.”

 

“What I’ve done?” Vera couldn’t remember. There were many things that Vera had done that could upset her mother, but she just couldn’t think of one particular time her mother would have been around to be upset. After all…

 

“My, ye grown up tah be a nice lookin’ lass. Got yer mahder’s hair, I see. An’ eyes - ooh, we ‘ave good eyes, ye know.”

 

Vera saw a shadow in the distance, a familiar one at that. Tall and slender, pointed ears…

 

“Auntie?” Vera yelled out, her voice still a bit hoarse. Her exclamation echoed and echoed throughout this plane of existence. How could that be her Auntie if her Auntie was gone? How could this be her mother if her mother was dead?

 

That’s when the memories began to flood back into mind: Vera was in a washroom, not her own, somewhere far away from her childhood home. She had received news of her Auntie, something drastic, and she was holding to her kitchen knife with a white knuckled grip. She was preparing lettuce and grub for the rabbits in their pens, the few that were left after her belongings were raided by strangers. A girl turned nameless in another nameless place had lost again the only things of her nameless value; her livelihood and her family. 

Gone were the days where her mother fitted her into ugly sweaters for a family portrait. Gone were the days Uncle would lift her up by the torso and spin her around like a mere doll. The conversations with her adopted-brothers, the mighty hunters of the family, had since been lost to time. And that truly was the enemy of this all, was it not? Was time not the blind judge, jury, and executioner of all that dared to take on the Ambrose family name?

 

No, it was not.

 

The real enemy was people. People who were sneaky, people who were cruel. People who snipped others’ ears and banished children from their homes. People who sat in large castles, taxing hundreds for their own pleasure because they were born into a system of wealth and luxury. These people who laughed at others and made fools of what should otherwise be considered decency-

Vera caught herself. She was thinking of her brother again. Her fingers traced her chin and her throat, almost reliving her last moments taking the blade to her own skin and taking surgical cuts. The pity she felt for the farmer that would find her, the one who rented to her, was short-lived; After all, she was dead, what else could she do?

 

After a few moments, Vera met her mother’s eyes again. “I’m in the afterlife, aren’t I?” As a response, her mother simply nodded, holding her hands over Vera’s as a way to show support. 

 

The timid silence was soon broken as Vera’s mother, Alli, started asking for all the details from the mortal realm. There was some giggling, some embellishments of stories; Vera told her mother of the time her Auntie had made a rabbit out of fire so big that it caught the bed a light.

 

Alli kicked and laughed that signature laugh: snorty and full, cheeks practically wet with tears. She cooed Vera to tell her more. “What about meh? What do they say about meh?”

 

Vera stumbled a bit with her response. “Well,” she said, “They credit you for how old you were, which is admittedly a feat of its own if you think about it.”

 

Alli looked a bit disappointed. “Not even ‘Alli the Mahder’ or ‘Alli the Kind’. But ‘Alli the Old’?” Vera shrugged. Alli’s face started to slide from joy to an almost rage, eyes narrowed with a piercing gaze. “An’ those Keepe’s, still kickin’?” Vera again shrugged. Alli huffed. “Smells like magicks tah meh. If anyone should be dubbed ‘the old’, it should be that one betch-”

 

“Mother,” Vera interrupted, giving a look only a daughter could give; a gentle reminder that this was not a very important matter anymore.

 

Alli waved it off. “Psh. They neve’ appreciated me tries at diplomacy. I say feck em’.”  It was strange that her mother had not asked about Vane, Vera’s twin brother. Instead, Alli helped Vera stand and get a better grasp of her surroundings, which were very much still bright and white. 

 

The shadow-figure in the distance was gone, just an endless domain of purity that seemed to stretch for miles was available to the eye. “Where is this? I don’t remember it from Auntie’s lessons on religion.” 

 

Alli smirked. “Hopefully she didn’t teach ya that Faith shite, the one’s they tried tah convert meh to before marryin’ yer fahder.” There was a twinge of some emotion when Alli mentioned her husband, even if it was so very brief. From Vera’s very limited knowledge on their marriage, perhaps the emotion was...grief. Or disappointment. “This is a waitin’ lobby, I’ll take ya tah the Gods’ domain. It is beautiful the’e: grass and trees and ivy, flowers and scents that I’ve neve’ dreamt of! All he’e.”  Alli motioned towards a direction that held no bearing to Vera. “Ye’ll get tah meet yer brahda’s, yer niece, yer siste’. Ye’ll get to see the older lads again, too, de bear seekers.” At that remark, Alli winked to Vera, implying that she would be able to spend time with the aforementioned hunters of the family.

 

“Mother, I should tell you…” Vera folded her hands in preparation to let her mother know of what her brother had done, what he had become.

 

“I know.”

 

The pause was almost a lifetime of its own, sitting dull and heavily in the air as Alli faced away from her recently-deceased daughter.

 

“Yer fahder, I knew he wouldn’t raise ye the same. I didn’t trust his spoiled brain, ‘specially not wit’ the ideals that he maintained about who should beh in charge.” To that, Alli simply raised her eyebrows. “He was destined fer the throne, I saw it in his eyes as soon as he was born. Tenacious, like his fahder. But also stubborn and...dispassionate.” Her words began to drift away, almost as though she was reliving her time in the mortal realm. “It was the next gold coin, the next profit made from the work of another. His tongue was quick an’ he had wits beyond his years,” Alli dragged out her next words, “But he never quite figured out using his wits fer peace. Or love. And now, he’e we are.”

 

Vera saw the tiredness in her mother’s eyes, and now she believed that she understood all those days and nights where she heard her mother sobbing, pleading to the Gods and Uncle for them to release her from this life, this prison.

 

“Maybe ‘Alli the old’” is fittin’. Because that was the only thing they acknowledged me fo’.” Alli laughed dryly. “An old woman, widowed twice, married tah a rich man, taking care of her biological and non-biological children, simply put the Mother tah the lost orphans of No’land. The dust an’ grime that was once Lorraine blossomed into House Ambrose, who was murdered, ignored, an’ snuffed out.”

 

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Vera choked on her own words, attempting to give her some peace, some kind of comfort that it wasn’t all that bad.

“Remember the good? You remember when Vane and I were just babes, swaddled in a cradle, cared over by you and Cain and Asher?” Vera’s throat swelled. She was trying to reignite that fire inside of her mother that warmed everything around her.

 

Alli gave a partial smile, lost in thought. She eventually looked back to her child, cupping her face with her hand. Even in death, she was still so soft and so very much alive. “The good days ‘ave passed, me dove. They’ve passed an’ I say good riddance.” She held Vera in her grasp, her voice shifting to give each of her words dramatic importance. “Those days were good, but we were so sad, so sad indeed. It was the time of hear'break, betrayal, denial, an’ solitude. He’e...he’e is whe’e we can make new days tah smile upon. We ‘ave moved on; that is not our world anymore. We both need tah leave fully, leave the peppery good days behind.”

 

Vera clenched her jaw. To leave the mortal realm, to leave everything that she had ever know...even if she was already dead, that was a hard decision to make. 

 

But, it was the right thing to do. She knew that once her mother and her had passed through to the Gods’ realm, after she was fully in death’s embrace, all in the past would be but a memory. The days of smiling with her brother, laughing. The days where she played with her siblings and friends.

 

“Even though I am saying goodbye,” Vera nodded assuredly, “I will be okay.” 

 

So, the two stood up and brushed themselves off, Alli in the lead towards a beautiful and bright future. After a few moments, Vera started to look back, if just for a second, just to see if she could make out the last of the mortal realm, but her mother’s cries of glee when seeing those who had already departed intrigued Vera’s attention more. 

 

((It is with this that I say with a light heart, that I am officially done with LOTC. I have been playing this game since 2010 or something, back when I lied about being 13 just to play. I have met many amazing people, some so memorable that they will be in my heart forever. I do not intend for this short story/PK post to break lore; this is how my characters’ interpreted death. It has been months to a year since I’ve actually logged onto the server and played, but the LOTC community has always found a way to lurk into my life.

It is time to move on, and even though I am saying goodbye, I know that I will be okay.

Thank you and **** you for the memories.

-SophiaTsu))

 

[hemomancy 2851]

A pale woman off in whatever lays beyond smiled. Yule Onfroi looked to her niece, a crimson blindfold across her face, the garb she wore matching. "'Ello Vera, I've been told quite a lot about you." Mused the elf.

 

And amongst the living, a similar pale woman sat within her home, her hand doing stitch after stitch between cloth. Her one eye closed for a moment, as she accidentally pricked her finger. "We really do drop like flies, don't we?" Questioned a tired Athri Onfroi to an empty room.