[PK] Phasmophobia

[xo31 3979]

In the dead of the night, something, somewhere, thought itself to extinction.

 

Something that was never meant to be, in the first place.

 

Something that never meant to exist in the first place - and yet, it did.

 

Once, perhaps, it was more than this.

 

A comforting wind passed over some, while a harrowing one passed over others. 

 

Perhaps, words spoken may find themselves whispered in it's last moments. What would be a letter - replaced by a ghostly curse.

 

The curtains closed. The act cut short.

The end of Barrowlord Szardiael - the Barrowlord of Humanity, the Forest, and the Blacklist.

 

And the end of Anthony/Lazarus Rose.

[Cheese 8883]

The Barrowlord Szardiael wasn't always that. Before, he was Lazarus, and before even that, he was Anthony. A man of great power, maybe, but first, he was someone's brother, who had entered her life decades too late.

 

But brothers and sisters fight; they always do. Juniper in particular had, for so long, hated his path. How could he end his life, surrender himself to undeath, when he knew two of their other siblings had taken their own lives in the same way. How could he have been so selfish? To leave her behind? To let her own daughter, barely two years old, witness his petrification?

 

She held onto that anger for nearly two decades. When Szardiael reached his hand to her, she was quick to lash out. To yell, to fight, to send him away. She couldn't bear the wound in her chest to reopen every time she saw the phantom that was once just her brother.

 

It wasn't until her final eve in Lotharia. Recovering from the strain of welcoming her son into the world, she was too tired to argue or order him from her sight. It was that night, her life seemed to fall apart. With the little strength she could muster, Juniper fleed from her home before the brigand of orcs could sever her head. It was only through his help, Szardiael's aid, that she was able to run to Norland. At the cost of her reputation and livelihood in the Horde, perhaps, but those were far less valuable than her life.

 

It could be the beginning of something new, Juniper believed, so . Bridges once burned could be rebuilt. After losing so much of her family, maybe it was time to preserve what she did have.

.     .     .

 

In a blitz of abyssal energies, a sword manifested. And then, it was brought down. . . but its edge did not find Juniper. The tip was dug into the carpet, digging into the nice wooden floors. The blade itself ignited into soul-like flames. And the man knelt.

"I. . . am sworn to you now. Through life, and through death, a knight."

 

"...That is big, even for you. You are my brother. I do not need anyone to fight for me."

 

"My most prideful battles have been in your name. The ones which I did not regret."

 

"The Rex still wants me dead. I cannot drag you around for eternity. I will die one day."

 

"I am already dead."

.     .     .

 

The news was crushing. There weren't words for it. She couldn't even summon tears immediately. The final letter trembled in her hands. What was it she felt? Sadness? Anger? Betrayal? The sick satisfaction that she was right to have never welcomed him into her life in the first place? If only he had stayed dead-- if only he had never died at all.

 

The rest of that night was fuzzy. The haze of a grief-filled drug trip blurred out most coherent thoughts. What Juniper could recall, though, were two things: The face of her brother, the true Anthony, being turned to stone, and faded ink upon a letter, hundreds of years old.

 

"Have you considered being cursed? It seems all your siblings have died by suicide."

[woke 1157]

🥀

[StingyParrot 1595]

The Barrowlord's mali'ker student found himself lost, just as adrift as he'd been after his former master's departure. Yet he had scripture to study, doctrines to follow - and a target, now.

[laugh_giggletehe 113]

 

Once, there was a library full of warmth. Its hearth kept away the frigid chill of the rain outside that sought to beat against the backs of those gathered, huddled around a table that sat surrounded by towering shelves of knowledge stored.

An ashen purple hand is lifted upwards, held by Lazarus’s own. He spoke to her of Shepherds, of the endless void and of the loss of a child. She had not understood it at the time, no- not until her daughter had disappeared; her presence pulled from Neia’s life with only her bedroom and a handful of personal items collecting dust as evidence she had ever existed at all.

Over the years did their relationship grow and change- from mere acquaintances, to friends, to mentor and mentee. So much time had passed, and still did the half-uruk refuse to request help from him- not when she had donned chains of gold, nor shackles of violet. Not when blows were sent her way, seeking to tear, to maim, to destroy- still, did she keep him at arm’s length.

꧁──────────────────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ──────────────────꧂

The Barrowlord Szardiael had always been someone she could have depended on, should she have allowed those painstakingly built walls to crumble. All it would have taken, he claimed, was a letter- for her to reach out and tell him of the danger she had been in. Alas, hubris had taken its wretched hold, strengthened by a yearning for independence- and they fractured.


The world ended, Aevos overran with the Mountain’s forces- and there, on Kalldur, did they finally take a step in the right direction. After years of Neia refusing help, of keeping her friend at arm’s length- did the two finally speak. An oathbreaker and an undead, face to face in a shabby clinic- then, and only then, did it finally dawn upon her that Lazarus was still there, deep within the enwreathing souls that made up Szardiael’s form. Even if it was only a shred of the man she’d once drank in her kitchen with, of the mali’ame that had offered to train her children in self defense, of the man who had been her friend.

꧁──────────────────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ──────────────────꧂

Sat beside her eldest son on her balcony overlooking the city, years upon years after her disconnection and subsequent realizations did a ghastly breeze blow across her visage. The damned wind whispered to her, coiling about pierced ears and hissing out an admittance intertwined with a challenge. Its meaning had not immediately hit her, of course- no, first came the sinking feeling of a pit formed within her gut.

The grief was only truly realized when that spectral breeze carried a long, visually ruined scrap of fabric that swept and arced throughout the air until she reached up and caught it within one clawed, gauntleted hand. Then, and only then, did it dawn upon her.


Her friend was no longer. Dead was not the word for it, of course- Lazarus had been dead for a long, long time. No. Szardiael had been unmade. That loss is swallowed alongside the bile that threatened to rise, and after wallowing for but a breath- and she responds to her son, looking out to the starry sky above.

 

Spoiler

I still don't know how to respond to PK posts. Learning curve!

 

[Rig 17580]

Vriza contemplated for a moment what happened to the Barrowlord he was in steady contact with. Alas, the world was cruel, and fate sometimes even crueler.