Epilogue: Immortality (Nerium, Alliance Deadlands)
[The following is an epilogue I imagine for my Deadlands PC, who I retired when the Deadlands campaign ended. It spans far into a speculative future.]
"Over time, over many years, the people grow into heroes - into people like you have been, who can shape the world into what they want it be, like you have. And there will be a knock at the door: a friend, a remembrance, a memorial, a raised glass in celebration. And sometimes it will be a man, with faded scars where once lines of brilliant blue light glowed with power, standing there with a pot in one hand and a block of cheese in the other, saying ‘Hello, friend. I love you.’"
(The Deadlands Epilogue -- Evan as Chithiss)
Fondue sat ready next to a plate of apples and two glasses. Surion asked Chithiss if he'd like wine or beer. The man who had once been the Withering had become a friend. The man who changed the reality of Laerthan was, somehow, in many ways just a man.
Nerium held onto a baby Biata with one hand and a third glass with the other. Kestilen’s orphanage was not well suited for an infant, and so her long-time volunteers became parents. The girl was named Vera, after Vry. Lord Vryan had remained a friend. A leader, a hero, a good man, a brother in arms.
Nerium reflected upon the story Heresy told her when he guided her through Resurrection. He had shown her what he believed could be her future: Nerium, possessed of the calm often found among her long-lived people, and Surion beside her. She wished she could thank him one more time for that story, and show him the peace she had at this moment. But he was human, and he was gone.
Surion lived to his four hundred and ninth year. He fell for the last time defending Moonsong, and died as honorably as he lived. Their adopted daughter had taken after him, with black feathers and a preference for spears. Vera fought beside her namesake and her mother in yet another war against the desperate and short sighted.
Vry vanished without a trace in his old age, and the natural lifespan of Elves was what made his death apparent. Vera lived to see a time of peace, and died at 1,712.
Philomena came and went, sometimes as a lover and sometimes as a friend, on and off for 600 years. Her paintings became famed enough that Nerium read of her death in the newspaper 5,000 years later. Her parents reached nearly 7,000 years old before an epidemic claimed them together. Her sister died in warfare 300 years later.
Eire fell. The fall of the nation did not threaten Laerthan itself, and Nerium had not gone to war. To do so would not have saved lives or freedom, and her duty was not to one nation.
Another human-majority nation stood strong where Eire once thrived, and found its path to prosperity. Despite the sideways looks she got sometimes, with curiosity or distrust toward the horns that were so rare in this part of the continent, Nerium founded a small school in a small town. Though she preferred teaching healing to the older children and leaving skills like reading to her wife's care, she could not stop herself from teaching alchemy and Celestial magic to the most interested students. Her neighbors were not like the adventurer companions of the long past. The dual-school wizard intimidated many of them, and the school boarded more orphans than it enrolled from town.
She woke one morning to wailing at the door -- a toddler too young to tell her his name or where he'd come from, and a note in his pocket that only said “I'm sorry.” She named him Essie, and considered them both fortunate that he had far less dangerous habits than his namesake. He preferred alchemy to healing, blades and guns to Celestial magic, and the life of a guard to a life of crafting. The coincidence only went so far; he wed another human and she lost track of his family line after ten generations.
Nerium changed identities countless times. Cosmetic Transformation after Cosmetic Transformation, move after move. There was only so long she could conceal what she had become. Her skills were not practiced solely as hobbies, and she put them to use when needed -- but a known dragon mage made an impression on the neighbors even in cities with shadow mages. In time she found comfort only among adventurers, even though such groups thrived only in times of the upheaval she wished would end.
She knew, and had always known, it wouldn't end. Fear, need, vanity, greed, envy -- conflict was in the nature of mortals. Good intentions combined with desperation led to evil. Nerium rarely took sides. When she did, with conviction that lives would be preserved by a particular force’s victory, her long-cultivated bond to Laerthan rose to protect its people from one another. She wielded more force than she believed belonged in the world.
So long ago, the adventurers of Chiram’s Hollow befriended the man who reshaped the world. They discussed what it should look like, some of them with as much understanding as their perspective could encompass of the gravity. They had seen the Sundering, the Withering, living rituals, dragons, Cerebral Devourers -- complete cosmic power was believable if not comprehensible, and not nearly as frightening as it should have been. Nerium grew into the awe she was too numb to feel at time. She grew into power of her own that she actively sought, though she wished it felt unnecessary.
She lost track of Tova, and did not seek to find out if she withstood a long life instead of the short one inherent to her people. Kinayo stood Guardian of Eternity for millennia, but was not made for eternity himself and went mad. The Sphinx preserved their city out of time, but time claimed them and they became stone. Nerium learned the truth about Francis Teawaddle. She spoke with dragons and learned magic from them. She spoke with Chithiss and learned thoroughly that “reality” did not mean what people thought it did. She spoke with the Earth and learned balance.
She stopped considering years, then developed little care for centuries. The world she was born in was long gone, and time held little meaning. Her options were to live in the moment or live in madness and pain. She chose the sense of urgency she never really outgrew, though the panic that once came with it had faded. She chose dedication and commitments. She chose to love and lose. In the middle of a cold war, she chose a partner and to bear his child.
She could not count how many she had raised. Some had been brought to her as infants, and some as old as teenagers. But it had been 500 years since she last raised or taught children. She welcomed the sleepless nights with a newborn, and the innate free spirit of the first young Sylvan she'd seen in a millenium. She wanted a bond of blood and the tether to Laerthan.
Nerium loved her daughter as much as she loved the land. She loved Thalia’s father, though she knew a human’s lifespan was fleeting. She realized quickly that a short-lived human was better prepared to raise a long-lived Sylvan than she was as an immortal. Nerium could not explain modern mindsets or technology. She still rode horses more often than horseless carriages. People read about Eire as ancient history if they read about it at all, and couldn't imagine living in a country like it. Nerium had adapted to most of the changing world, and forgotten much of her past, but she was not modern.
The need for Reality Anchors was long gone. Nerium and Tova had become landbonded and immortal to strengthen Laerthan against the Cerebral Devourers, but Chithiss could shut them out himself. She'd been freed of that duty long ago. The Earth's children threatened each other in the absence of threats from beyond the mortal plane, and she held the land bond only to protect them from each other and the land from them. It felt necessary and right, dangerous and arrogant, heavy yet freeing. But these were the Earth's children, not her own. She was not meant to be Anaxion, believing himself the rightful protector of mortals who did not know as much as he, who would be better off with his rule, because he was ancient and powerful beyond their reach. She was born mortal and remained a Sylvan. Her daughter was Sylvan. This was a much needed reminder.
Thalia’s father had only 40 years to give her. Nerium offered 400. She found joy without judgment in the strange ways her daughter lived, which were not unusual by the standards of her homeland. Nerium learned new games, new jokes, and new fashion. She learned to let go.
The Perfect Harmony had seemed unacceptable when Chithiss tried to force it on mortals who very much wanted to stay that way. It had seemed like a Curse of Undeath, unnatural and deeply undesirable. Chithiss had learned this, and changed, and protected mortals so they could keep the lives they so wanted, but he was still the same being. His demand had become an invitation, but what he had not explained to the adventurers of Chiram’s Hollow was that it was an inevitability. They wouldn't have liked that information. Nerium certainly hadn't when Chithiss told her the first time, nor the second. But she had made her peace, and then sought peace.
“You will live as long as Laerthan exists.”
“You can become Chithiss.”
For the love of the land, for the love of Laerthan's people, and for the hope that tomorrow would be a better day, Nerium did both.
Featuring: Surion, played by Sean C. Chithiss, played by Evan (NPC) Vry, played by Albert Heresy, played by Gary Philomena, played by Samara (NPC) Tova, played by Melissa Kinayo, played by Bill (NPC) The Sphinx, played by Samara (NPC) Francis Teawaddle, played by Samara (NPC) Anaxion, played by Sean M. (NPC)
