♒ If they could choose how to die, how would they want to go?
“And when it is my time…”
The priestess spun slowly in circles, dancing her way down the halls of the estate she was bound to. Candles flickered a soft light across the gilded art work - painted eyes seeming to follow her as she made her way across to an open garden in the center of the otherwise sprawling mansion.
“Do not ask your gods why, it was not their hand, but mine…”
The garden was illuminated by the midday sun, glittering through the stained glass dome that arched over a marble fountain in the center of the garden. The sun painted a rainbow of colors on the marble, blinking and dancing across the smooth edges. Ramsey danced with the light, following its hops and twirls around the fountain as she sang.
“And do not weep for me, for I did not die… I’ll still be here, as you’ll find.”
The priestess followed the aqueducts of the fountain down another hall of the estate, the water running in beds along each side of the wall. She continued to dance, often dipping a toe or two in the streams before continuing on, leaving wet footprints behind her. Her song echoed through the empty hall. Though she felt alone, the priestess felt full of relief in her solidarity, free from what had kept her prisoner in Uldum for so long. She had built her own sanctuary in the estate, keeping a piece of her beloved Quel’thalas as an oasis in the never-ending desert. On the outside, the estate was half buried in the sand, an abandoned and decaying structure with sealed doors and a distinct lack of windows, aside from the top of a stained glass cupola. The inside showed no signs of such derelict, instead boasting expansive halls, gardens with false light, rooms that seemed to multiply and never end.
“I am in the breeze, the flowing streams, the sun that shines upon you…”
Miles below the sand, in another garden enchanted to feel like it was in the Eversong Woods, Ramsey continued to sing. Her dancing had slowed as she grew tired, fatigue setting in as it always did. The source sustaining her had also been leeching away her life essence, replacing it with a facade to keep her blissfully unaware. She had become one with the gardens, the libraries, the paintings that watched with jealousy. She could not live without them, and them without her. There had once been another, a man who had stolen her heart. He brought the priestess there, using her as a means to control his own demise.
“And when you whisper, I shall hear…”
Beyond the gardens, Ramsey pushed open the doors to the chapel. The chapel sat at the heart of the palace like a heart carved in marble, brightly lit though no candles burned, no sun to shine. The light came from a suspended relic above the altar, honey-gold light gathered in the gilded ribs of the vaulted ceiling, illuminating the frescoes, a sky painted so vivid it felt like looking through a window. Directly below laid a pool, filled by the aqueducts Ramsey had followed in her dance. The pool was set into the floor like a sacrament: a circular basin of white stone ringed by etched phoenixes and prayer-lines in elegant Thalassian script. Hymns echoed though the chapel, reverberating out from further hidden halls and enchantments that kept the estate alive. The priest slowly descended into the pool, the water coming no higher than her knees. Her robes pooled around them as she turned and laid in the pool, staying afloat in the cool water that would keep her body beyond what her soul would endure. She slipped a dagger from her sleeve, the blade traced in gold with the words of her song. Ramsey drove the blade into her chest, her breath catching as she whispered the last line of the spell.
“and at the altar’s light, I’ll still be here.”
Ramsey’s arms fell beside her, eyes fixed on the ceiling, taking in the frescoes one final time as she felt her heart come slowly to a stop. Her blood turned the pool a rich maroon, the streams carried out into the gardens, giving life to the estate even in death.
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