[PK] LOVE WENT LAST.

[Navigator 4260]

 

 

---

 

It was meant to be a calm stroll through the woods. One of many that he’d find himself taking, recently, seeking meaning and purpose from nature, from the flow of the wind, from the chirping of birds. Ever since Kalldur, he had not really settled on what he was going to do - a musician? Maybe a late-blooming warrior? He wasn’t sure. He was happy where he was - a partner, a stepfather. It was comfortable. 

 

A figure approached slowly through the woods, perhaps out on a walk much like himself. Black-skinned, softly glowing white eyes. It was not until Marius’ eyes went upwards that the horns were seen. But Marius had learned kindness, softness, and charity - cursed children were all too common in the realms. This was surely to be another. He smiled; he raised a hand and waved! And after a few more moments, he recognised who it was. And slowly, did his smile drop.

 

“He misses you, you know. . . I think they all kind of do.”

“They want me dead. I’d hardly call that missing me.”

 

Before Marius could really retort, he spotted flames summoned from the palms of that familiar man. Marius smiled again, his hands folding into his sleeves. Nervousness. Anxiety. A concoction of feelings began swirling up within him. The smile was not happiness - obviously. No, it was the smile of a man whose life flashed before his eyes, who recognised what was the outcome set for this encounter. Shaking hands retrieved themselves from his sleeves, and a nervous exhaled - shaky - followed.

 

“Y-You don’t have to… you could come b-back…”

“Far too late.”

 

It was a flash. Far too quick for the Amador to react, and he felt the flame strike against him. He wheezed and fell backwards, patting with his bare hands at the onyx flame that slowly consumed his neck. He wheezed. He cried. A name was called out, quietly and uselessly, grasping onto what little was left. The man approached. Marius raised a hand, his palm colliding against his assailant’s shoulder. It didn’t stop him. He was not given last words. Why would he be? This wasn’t about him. And even if it was, it didn’t matter. His last words would’ve been about love. About kindness. The way he had lived his life.

 

So when the blade plunged itself into his burned neck, with tears streaming down his eyes, he called out that name, again, in a blood-gurgled gasp. His hand grasped at the wrist of the knife. Cold. He was used to the cold. He liked the cold. The gentle lick of snow and freezing winds on the skin - where others felt it bite, he felt it soothe. He had never been one for warmth. Not until he met him. And in those final moments, it was him who appeared in his eyes; Njáll. His beloved. His partner. His meant-to-be husband. He’d never get to put that ring on his finger now, but that was alright. The gentle cold was here, it enveloped him with a kind embrace. The pain subsided, and the gentle memory of hands held together, staring out into the Norn sunset, brought peace to him in that instant.

 

And so, Marius Aleksandr Amador was dead.

The body would be found on the camp-site across the bridge from Verdrgrad.

[mothsthetic 2250]

"Elijah? There's a letter for you."

 

Dead.

 

The word rang in his mind a thousand times over before it fully processed.

 

Elijah, Marius' younger brother, sat at his desk staring down at the parchment before him. His eyes kept reading over the same words over and over again, even though they weren't in the same order. Marius. Dead. Bridge. Murdered. Why would someone murder his older brother? Every memory that came to mind of Marius, they were light. They were sunlight, warmth across his face, and breeze in his hair. They were smiles, and love, and- How? How could someone tear that away from the world? How could someone find it in their heart to commit such an act? There's no- His vision clouded over. There was more said to him, from the other as he read the letter, but nothing stuck. None of the words were processed. When did the ground get so close? When did his legs give out beneath him?

 

I should have been there.

 

"Ea should have been there."

 

But he wasn't. And now, Marius never would be again.

Edited November 24, 2025 by mothsthetic
finally got home from work

[spaazmatism 1018]

BLOOD.

He was soaked in it, from head to toe. His face, hands and blade were made slick with that ichor, turned lukewarm by the gelid Nornish air.

Each breath was shaky, as he wiped his dagger upon his pant leg, trying to dry it off. It was futile; his trousers were just as blood-soaked as the blade was.

With each moment by the corpse, those breaths became shakier, and shakier yet. Not the work of the cold, no. Something else.

Was it regret? Fear? 

Whatever it was, the feeling was sickening. He trudged away through the snow, in hopes to avoid it, though that pit in his stomach would not close that night, nor the night after.

Even now, as he sat at home, he could not seem to wash the blood from his branded palms. 

[Lirinya 4021]

There in land, setting the beginnings of her life into play, Lilibet plodded about the settlement of Tarnavon as if the day was like any other. She had just accepted work as a handmaid, and was about ready to set off back to the Petran capital to hand in a notice of her vacating her property.

 

It took some time, some lengthy travel, but when Lilibet arrived home, she was greeted by a letter stuffed into her mailbox, just peeking out from the closure. 

 

"It could be Mari," she said to herself cheerily, "or even Elijah. Both of them owe me a letter." 

She had no idea, no clue of what the contents might be. No foresight- everything was fine. They were all living their best lives. Njall and Marius were in Norland. Elijah was in the Petra, just as she was. They were fine. Does that mean one of them will be visiting soon?

 

Excitedly did Lilibet open the letter.

Her mood was swift to drop.

 

"I write with news of your brother," it read, "Marius Amador was found dead. We are sorry for your loss."

 

The young woman, not even eighteen and adult, trembled as she read the contents. Still a child separated from her parents, and now a sibling too.

 

There were a lot of letters to write. Grieving would come soon.

[Monty Cobra 921]

“Can you braid my hair?”

   Njáll sat cross-legged on a pile of hay in the Norland tavern. The storm raged outside, past the boarded up windows and doors—what should have been an evening made dim and eerie by the low whistling wind and the frigid cold was instead filled with warmth and softness as Njáll's hair was carefully braided by deft fingers. The boy beamed and chatted away to the quieter Amador all the while and when the braids were done, he felt over them with delight—and then flung scrawny arms around the fellow boy's neck. 

“Thank you, thank you!”

---

   Those braids, loose and redone by his own hand a hundred times, remained in Njáll's hair as he came upon the body. 

---

“Da, Njáll!”

    Panting for breath but beaming a huge smile nonetheless, Njáll grinned at the audience as the announcer declared he had won the fisticuffs. Up with the spectators Marius clapped and cheered, perhaps the loudest of all. Njáll raised his scuffed and bruised hands in enthusiastic wave back to the boy, blushing red.

“Ea told vy that vy fought well!”

---

   Those same hands, calloused and ashen, settled along the arms of the body as Njáll sank to his knees beside it. 

---

“Ve should probably head back…”

   The sun rose over Njáll and Marius for one final time as they sat together on the cliffside—arm in arm, head on shoulder. Njáll got to his feet and swept Marius into arm, lifting the Amador with a grin despite his lighthearted protests. And so they returned together for that final time. One last shining moment of a fading happiness, one last soft memory.

“C'mon, mister strongman, let’s go to zhe tavern…”

---

   Njáll lifted him one final time. Though his body groaned in protest with its recent disuse, Njáll planted his feet firm in the ground and took Marius into his arms. He walked, and a hollow silence filled his wake—in it a life of memories, wishes, and desires that would forever go unfulfilled, whispering at his back, tugging at his feet. 

   Njáll did not cry. He had no tears left. 

   “Let's go home, love.”

 

[thejack 198]

Spoiler

 rip marius i saw him for thirty seconds max