@shallow wanted some UNBEARABLY SAD SHIT so i wrote some unbearably shit. feat. our D&D characters, rin & arjas. and DEATH.
The grave was almost entirely unmarked. No one in the village knew anything about Arjas, and his purpose in their little town was revealed only after the fact. A courier had visited the governor's house—the finest house in the village, the ONLY fine house in the village—and found the door ajar. Inside, upstairs, he entered the bedroom, and in doing so nearly stumbled over Arjas's corpse. The mayor was on his bed, an arrow stuck through his chest. Arjas had a dagger in his throat: the governor was not always a politician, and though he remembered his old ways, his reflexes were dull. Quick enough to kill the intruder, but not quick enough to escape his attack.
The people were grateful. The man was corrupt, they said, squeezing them for every spare copper he could manage. The village was too remote to send for formal help. Someone had hired Arjas, though nobody would admit who. Even so, the innkeeper and the blacksmith and a few other people with good muscles came to collect their heroic assassin later that day. They couldn't bury him in the church graveyard; he was an outsider, and, technically, a cold-blooded murderer. But they found a clearing in the woods, a space beneath an oak tree, and they buried him there.
Rin got all of this out of the tavern, though it took some effort. Some wheedling, some cajoling. Ultimately a little bit of menacing. But once the innkeeper and the locals were drunk and frightened enough—they had never seen a drow, didn't know what he was capable of—they told him everything he wanted to know.
Rin kneeled before the tree, his throat tight, his chest aching. He pressed both palms, flat, into the dirt. One of the villagers had stuck a grave marker into the ground, a haphazard sun symbol made of twine and wood. Their god, he supposed; Arjas never followed any particular religion, insofar as Rin knew. He stared at it for a few minutes, paralyzed with grief, his thoughts a mess of guilt and longing. It'd been six years since they saw each other last.
Some petty untruth had finished them off; Rin couldn't remember which. Arjas had caught him misdirecting about food, or where he got his vests tailored, or whether he preferred red wine to white. It was meaningless, the kind of casual lies Rin told automatically whenever anyone asked him even basic personal questions.
Arjas had gone quiet for a few minutes. Long enough that Rin asked about it, long enough that he could tell something was wrong.
“Why do you always do that?” Arjas had said, frowning at his drink.
Rin had tried to play innocent, laugh it off. It didn't mean anything; why did it matter? But Arjas had followed the path, pressed the attack. He knew Rin for a con artist; they both were. They had worked together for years now, taking people for what they worth—and as much as they could get beyond that, too. But Rin's storytelling didn't stop with the spoiled nobles of Waterdeep. He never quit the act. He never put the mask down. Arjas wasn't unaware. But he was tired.
“I've never lied to you,” he said. They were upstairs now, in their room. An inn that had faded from Rin's memory. Mediocre, he thought; Arjas always liked to spend as little as possible on their lodgings. He remembered sitting on the bed's thin sheets, remembered the tremor in his hands as Arjas, for the first time ever, raised his voice.
“Never,” Arjas said, “about anything.”
Rin had swallowed hard, feeling knives in his throat. He'd clutched the bedpost—rough pine, half-heartedly carved, splintering against his palm—and tried to marshal the panic fluttering in his gut. A primal response to anger, a fear that bid him to flee and hide.
“Because you don't have to,” he'd managed, not quite looking Arjas in the eye.
“Why?” Arjas said. “Why do you have to, with me? What do you think's going to happen? Do you think I'll betray you?”
Rin didn't answer right away. Thinking back on it, he pinpointed that moment as the end. Arjas hadn't walked out until the next morning, but he was already gone before then, his decision made in the space between asking the question and the long seconds before Rin's answer.
“No,” he'd said, finally, weakly. Too late. Not enough. And not true, either. He expected everyone to betray him, eventually. That was the way of the world, wasn't it? Even with the people closest to you. Especially with them. No one can crush your heart so well as the person who's already got it in hand.
“Fuck,” Arjas muttered. He shut his eyes, his hard breathing slowing down to something shallow and frail, something miserable and quiet. “Have you ever told me anything true?”
“I like mushrooms,” Rin said, too quickly. An idiotic play for levity. Arjas just stared at him, defeated, shoulders hunched. He looked like someone who'd just fallen through a floor, who was both surprised and disappointed that he was still alive.
“No, I—” Rin tried again, standing up, reaching for Arjas, “I didn't mean that—I mean, I did, but, there were other things, too! There were important things.”
He tried to touch Arjas's shoulder. “How I felt—how I feel. That wasn't a lie.”
Arjas had jerked away. Shook his head. After a moment, he said, “What's your name, Rin?”
Rin fidgeted. Deflected. “Halierin. I've told you that.”
“No,” Arjas said. “The real one. The one your mother gave you.”
“Well, I hate my mother, so I don't think her opinion on anything is relevant--”
“Rin,” Arjas said. He didn't sound angry anymore. Just exhausted. His voice was reedy, soft. “Or whoever the hell you are. Let's forget it, okay? Let's forget the whole damn thing.”
Rin had pleaded, begged, argued. It wasn't about you, he'd said. There were dangers. There were people he had to fear. Circumstances to manage. Veils that had to stay drawn. Arjas had listened to all of it, patiently, silently. And then, when Rin's own voice had gone hoarse from trying to justify himself—all the while never really giving ground, all the while never really answering a real question—Arjas had gotten up.
He looked at Rin. He said, “I loved you. I just want you to remember that.”
Then he sat down on the floor. He shut his eyes again. He went silent.
Rin thought, okay. They'd rest. They'd talk it out more in the morning. He'd get Arjas to understand.
But when he woke from his trance, Arjas was gone. No trace left behind—no arrows, no music sheets, no spare shirts or skins of water. Cold sun filtered in through the open window, hurting Rin's eyes, digging deep into his skin. He was alone, and the room was bare.
For a while, he'd thought they might see each other again. That Arjas just needed to cool off. He thought he could change, too, that he was ready to tell Arjas everything, every last bit of the truth, and he even thought he was ready for that to be too late, for Arjas to take it and put it away and leave regardless. But he would never know now.
Rin took a silver-handled dagger from his vest. Its blade was thin and sharp, good for putting between an unsuspecting rib. Small enough to hide anywhere. He set the blade down, then took a scrap of parchment, a bit of ink, and a quill from the bag at his waist. He wet the quill, pressed the parchment down as flat as he could, and he wrote. He could mimic almost anyone's hand; he was a master at calligraphy, at cursive, at the formal, blocky letters of a royal decree or the dramatic sweep of a gala invitation.
But just this once, he wrote as himself. His letters were slanted and slender—he pulled them across the page, making a simple name easily fill up the scrap. When he was done, he wrapped the parchment around the dagger, tying it in place with a pale blue ribbon.
“I hope you moved on,” he said to the dirt. “I hope you found someone better. Someone who deserved you. I hope I never crossed your mind.”
That's not true, of course. He's lying again, even here and now, talking to nothing. He cringes, shaking his head. He hoped Arjas thought about him all the time. He had hoped something big and romantic stopped them reuniting, some impossible task, and that Arjas wanted to see him again, too. That there was something to salvage, if only it were possible to try.
He dug beside the grave, not too far, not too deep. Only enough for one small thing.
“I should have given this to you sooner,” he said, setting the dagger down into the freshly turned earth. “I should have given it to you from the start.”
He folded soil back onto the dagger, not stopping until it was buried beyond sight. He bent low, pressing his forehead to Arjas's grave, feeling the sun symbol scratch against his scalp. His vision blurred; his cheeks felt hot and damp.
“I'll get it right next time,” he said. “Just wait for me right here. Just wait for me.”
