THE EXORCIST
(but unfortunately for everyone involved, he is German about it)
Father Faust and the Limits of Professional Courtesy
The room was freezing.
Not poetically. Not atmospherically. Literally freezing.
Frost crawled across the windowpanes. Candles shuddered in their holders. The bed rattled with enough force to suggest either a powerful demonic presence or extremely poor craftsmanship.
At the foot of the bed stood Father Johann Georg Faust.
Black cassock, immaculate. White collar, severe. Ritual book in one hand, silver crucifix in the other, green eyes glinting behind his glasses with the exact expression of a man whose evening had already been wasted by incompetence.
On the bed lay the afflicted girl, thrashing under the blankets, hair wild, limbs jerking, the whole situation aggressively committed to spectacle.
Then the demon opened its mouth and roared:
“YOUR MOTHER SUCKS COCKS IN HELL.”
Silence.
Faust lowered the ritual book by half an inch.
Charles, who had somehow been allowed into the room and now stood near the wardrobe like a decorative emergency, blinked. “Mon Dieu.”
Vlad, leaning in the doorway with elegant skepticism, folded his arms. “Crude.”
Faust stared at the bed for a long moment.
Then, in a tone dry enough to preserve herbs:
“That is your opening line.”
The demon hissed. “PRIEST.”
“Yes,” said Faust. “Obviously. And you’ve chosen to begin with obscenity and maternal provocation. Lazy.”
The bed jolted so hard it slammed against the wall.
The girl’s head twisted with a violent crack.
Charles made a small, horrified noise.
Faust did not move.
“If you damage the host’s cervical spine before I finish, I will be annoyed.”
The demon snarled.
Faust looked at the angle of the girl’s neck and frowned. “And burdened with paperwork.”
The lights blew out.
Then flared back.
The girl lurched upright with that hideous, unnatural grin and snarled, “YOUR GOD HAS NO POWER HERE.”
Faust turned one page of the ritual text.
“Your scriptwriter has no power here either, apparently.”
The demon screamed. The candles guttered. A chair in the corner tipped over for emphasis.
Then the levitation began.
Slowly, dramatically, the girl rose from the mattress, rigid as a plank, hovering above the bed while the blankets slipped down around her legs.
Charles gasped. “She’s rising!”
Vlad tilted his head. “Predictable.”
Faust looked up once.
“Yes,” he said. “A suspension display. Intimidation by elevation. Very old-fashioned.”
The demon grinned wider. “MAKE ME FEAR.”
Faust’s expression did not change. “At the moment, I fear upholstery damage.”
That earned him another furious shriek.
The bedframe banged against the wall. The air stank of sulfur, cold iron, and theatrical overcommitment.
Faust stepped closer, cassock whispering over the floorboards. “Now listen carefully. I have tolerated the vulgarity, the furniture abuse, and your frankly adolescent devotion to pacing. But if you vomit on my cassock, I will become extremely unpleasant.”
A hush followed.
Vlad sighed. “It will vomit.”
Charles clutched his crucifix. “I knew it.”
The demon convulsed forward and unleashed a violent stream of green bile across the room.
Faust stepped one inch to the left.
The vomit missed him completely and struck the wall with a wet, apocalyptic splatter.
Faust turned his head slowly to inspect the damage.
Then he closed his eyes.
“…Uncivilized.”
The demon cackled with renewed confidence.
Then, swollen with infernal pride, it drew itself higher above the bed, voice splitting into something jagged and ancient.
“EGO TE MALEDICTUM DOMINUS INFERNI, OMNIS LUX TUA CADAT, ET NOMEN TUUM IN CINERE—”
Faust raised one finger.
“Stop.”
The room did not stop.
The bed continued to slam against the floor. The candles guttered. Something cracked in the walls.
Faust, however, had already disengaged.
“…What,” the demon snarled, “did you just say.”
“That is not a sentence,” Faust said flatly.
Silence hit the center of the room like a dropped weight.
The demon blinked.
Faust lowered the ritual book slowly, like a man realizing the experiment had been compromised beyond salvage.
“You began in the accusative,” he continued, tone cool and surgical, “then veered into melodrama and debris. The structure collapsed halfway through. Whatever followed was less a curse than a public breakdown.”
Charles made a small choking noise.
Vlad turned his head, shoulders shifting once.
The demon stared.
“I AM SPEAKING THE TONGUE OF HELL.”
“No,” Faust replied. “You are speaking the corpse of a language being puppeteered by a moron.”
The girl’s body lifted another foot off the bed.
Faust did not look up.
“Your syntax is unstable. Your case endings are inconsistent. And your pronunciation suggests you learned Latin from someone equally unqualified.”
He adjusted one cuff.
“Also, it is dominus inferni, not whatever that performance was supposed to be.”
The demon recoiled, genuinely offended. “I AM A PRINCE OF HELL.”
“And yet,” Faust said, already reaching for his satchel, “you conjugate like a panicked schoolboy.”
Charles doubled over.
The demon snarled, voice rising, trying again.
“EGO TE, SACERDOS, IN NOMINE TENEBRARUM, DAMNO IN AETERNUM, ET OSSA TUA—”
“No,” Faust said.
Not louder.
Just final.
He snapped the ritual book shut.
“I will not participate in this.”
“YOU CANNOT REFUSE ME,” the demon roared, thrashing hard enough to rattle the bed frame loose.
Faust bent to pick up his satchel, movements brisk, efficient, and entirely disengaged from the supernatural crisis still unfolding.
“I can,” he said. “And I am.”
“Because of the Latin?” Charles asked weakly.
Faust straightened, expression glacial.
“Because of the Latin.”
The demon stared in disbelief. “You are abandoning the rite over grammar.”
“I tolerated the obscenity,” Faust said, ticking it off with faint irritation. “The levitation was pedestrian. The vomiting was unnecessary but survivable.”
He slipped the crucifix back into its case.
“But this,” he said, “is academic negligence.”
Vlad covered his mouth fully now, shoulders shaking.
The demon tried again, louder, angrier, more desperate.
“EGO TE MALEDICTUM, SACERDOS STULTE, PER IGNES INFERNI ET UMBRAS MORTIS, PERDAM ET FRANGAM ET—”
Faust winced.
Actually winced.
“No,” he said. “That is worse. You’re just arranging nouns near each other and hoping terror fills the gaps.”
He turned toward the door.
“Father!” Charles hissed. “You can’t just leave it like this!”
Faust paused at the threshold.
Without turning, he said:
“Fetch Ed and Lorraine Warren.”
The demon blinked. “What.”
“This has passed beyond sacrament and into American improvisation,” Faust continued. “They seem better suited to your interpretive approach.”
The demon sputtered, genuinely insulted now.
“I AM NOT AN AMERICAN PROBLEM.”
Faust opened the door.
“Your Latin suggests otherwise.”
And with that, he stepped out, closing the door behind him with quiet, immaculate finality.
Inside, the bed slammed once more.
Then:
“…Was my pronunciation actually that bad?” the demon muttered.
Charles wiped tears from his eyes. “Catastrophic.”
I knew Veritas meant truth in Latin, but I didn't know Victus. So I looked it up and found it means food .... 😑 your username meaning "In food there is truth" is the most pretentious way I've ever seen someone say "The proof is in the pudding" .... but you know what I gotta admit, I respect that 🤭
Much obliged. It actually started as a dog-Latin joke with a friend who isn't on tumblr anymore, but I'm glad it still amuses.
what is lorem ipsum? What does it say? What is it hiding?????
Hahaha. It doesn't mean anything--it's intentionally garbled language. Many of the words aren't even real, and the rest can't be meaningfully translated.
Apparently it was originally derived from a Cicero passage, but altered to be meaningless for typesetting purposes. That's Wikipedia's opinion, anyway.
In which Ardyn has a bonding moment with Solaris and much introspection happens.
Featuring:
fierce princess warriors, Ardyn's mother, making breakfast, the author's bad attempt at writing Latin and another brief hint at the meta plot.
Warning:
vomiting, Ardyn's not so nice thoughts and talk about a funeral
There's a part in this chapter that's written in Latin. I wrote it myself and as a consequence it won't be very good, please keep that in mind XD Just posting the translation here so nobody will get confused.
Eos sleeps,
Her hair is the light
Of the sunset.
A black wing brings the night
And I look up
Towards the sky,
Where the stars are shining.
Ardyn VI
8.6.755 ME
Insomnia, Deep City
Kingdom of Lucis
Ardyn waited until Noctis and his Amicitia were well and truly out of earshot before he made his way deeper into the room on uneven steps. He came to a stop next to the stool his nephew had sat on and glanced down at the frail girl sleeping in the rickety bed.
The marks of the scourge could still be seen along the right side of her face, pale, smoky shadows beneath her paper white skin. It would be so easy to make it bloom in full again, see the blackness spread and consume until this girl was just another creature poisoning the shadows of the night. The scourge within his own blood yearned to connect with what remained in her, to strengthen it and see what kind o daemon she would become.
With a high pitched hiss Ardyn wretched his gaze away from her, moved towards the window and pushed it open to keep his actions from following his thoughts. He would not alienate what precious family he had found here to satisfy a baser need that, technically speaking, wasn't even his own. No matter how much he wanted to take revenge on the Amicitia line for what Gilgamesh had done to him.
The air outside the window wasn't any less muggy than inside, but it carried a hint of freshness that was lacking within the room and helped him calm his thoughts. He refused to follow baser instincts and the bad habits Besithia had been trying to instil within him. That just wouldn't do. He was Ardyn Lucis Caelum, eldest son Atalanta Lucis Caelum the Unyielding, she who, despite everything, had managed to keep most of Cavaugh beneath her banner as the last remnants of Solheim began to crumble away, husband to Gratia and father to Jubaris. He would not disappoint them again.
Turning his attention back into the room, he walked back to the girl's bedside and cautiously lowered himself onto the stool, as if he was afraid the scourge within him could leap up again like a ravenous beast. Which wasn't that far off, he thought.
His gaze lingered on her features as he bent down to pick up the crumbled blanket on the floor and tucked it tightly around her. The scourge didn't only sap you energy and your mental fortitude, but also stole your body warmth as millions upon millions of tiny parasitic lifeforms spread in your body and made it habitable for themselves.
There wasn't much of anything of Gilgamesh in her. Ardyn didn't know if he should be relieved or not about that realization. Maybe there was something in the shape of her eyes and the form of her brow and, if he read her bone structure right, she would grow to be quite tall with unusually wide shoulders for a woman.
A quiet moan ripped him out of his musings. Ardyn helped her turn towards the edge of the bed and vomit a thick black substance into the bucket. He wrinkled his nose in slight disgust but kept up a quiet stream of soothing mutterings to help keep her calm.
“Where...?” she murmured, blinking up at him in incomprehension.
“Do go back to sleep, my dear. Everything is alright. It will be better in the morning, you will see,” he soothed, carding a large and slender hand through the child's hair.
Strange, he thought as her eyes fell shut again and she relaxed in sleep, that he had not forgotten how to do this after all these long years.
Ardyn tucked the blankets back around her and tapped his fingers along the length of his cane in the rhythm of a nursery rhyme the words of which he had long forgotten.
“Is the mean blackness gone?” came the quiet question from the door.
Ardyn twisted around on the stool and saw Solaris standing in the doorway. Her unruly shoulder length hair was even wilder than normal which made the subtle similarities between them even more obvious. It was strange to see someone with this many Solheimr characteristics - other than him - in this day and age. She looked at him with her honey and gold coloured eyes that suddenly reminded him of his mother, without the usual hesitation that had been there whenever she looked at him. He wondered what had changed.
“Not quite yet, dear one. The mean blackness is very stubborn,” Ardyn answered just as quietly.
Solaris nodded thoughtfully, as if that was the only thing that could make sense and carefully made her way over to him. Oh, the beautiful minds of children.
Her gaze flickered hesitantly up to him and Ardyn was willing to wait for her to figure out what she wanted to say. He had seen her be shy and uncertain, sometimes even mistrustful, around people she didn't know and hoped she would open up to him in the future.
“The scary man's yelling at tata 'n' mati,” she mumbled and fidgeted with the material of her long sleeping tunic.
“Oh? Should we go down and check on them?” he asked, watching her reaction carefully.
He was more than willing to eviscerate an entitled Amicitia, if the chance presented itself. Solaris shook her head.
“Mati yelled right back,” she stated, a fierce, childish pride in her eyes.
“Should you have been down there? I imagine young princesses such as yourself should be in bed right now, to grow into fierce warriors.”
Solaris frowned. “Don't warriors hurt people?”
“The good ones only do it to protect those they love,” he explained and suppressed a pained grimace. This wasn't a conversation he of all people should have with an eight year old girl.
She wrinkled her nose cutely as she considered his words for a few moments, then she nodded decisively. “I'll be a fierce and good warrior to protect mati 'n' tata 'n' Astra and everybody else I like. Like Vox,” she declared, determination lacing her voice.
Ardyn nodded seriously and with all the gravitas this situation deserved. “I'm sure your parents will be happy to help you.”
Suddenly nervous again, Solaris twisted her fingers into her tunic and looked down. “Will you help me?” she mumbled shyly and barely audible.
“You... want me to help?” he asked completely baffled. That wasn't something he had expected.
“Mhm.”
“As my princess commands,” he said and sketched a formal bow, which wasn't all that effective sitting down, but hid quite successfully the turmoil that was surely showing on his face. This was a form of innocent trust he had never thought would be directed at him again. At her giggling he sat back up again, blinking rapidly.
A tiny hand grasped the hem of his own tunic and without thinking about it he wound his arms around the small girl looking for comfort. One hand clutched his cane like a lifeline. Solaris hugged back just as tightly as he did and he had no idea how it happened, but suddenly she sat curled up in his lap, her head against his collar bone and his arms securely around her. Ardyn studiously ignored the painful twinge in his knee this position brought him.
Before he knew it, he was softly swinging back and forth while humming an ancient lullaby his mother had sung to him and Somnus when they had been barely Solaris' age. Within minutes her eyes fell shut and her breathing deepened, fast asleep after all the excitement so late at night. Or early in the morning, rather.
What a precious and resilient child.
Ardyn continued to hum the lullaby about bidding goodbye to the mother of light as the sun set and dancing in the moonlight as she, who had created the world, protected them from what lurked in the Deep. It was a song about the circle of night and day, about joy and protection and hope.
Hope, he thought, what a dangerous commodity. So easy to disappoint, yet so difficult to really kill. He had thought hope had died within him when his wife and son had been murdered by his own brother and Shield, when the darkness of Angelgard had entombed him, but obviously he had been wrong. There was no denying the deep rooted warmth in his chest, it's edges bubbled with a nervous anticipation.
Thoughtlessly he smoothed a hand through the sleeping girl's hair. It was too early to tell what the best way forward should be, but it would definitely be the best for him to stay here, he thought as his gaze flickered to the older girl sleeping in the room.
A soft knock against the door frame made him look up. There stood Hiemi with a soft look on her face.
“How's she doing?” she whispered as she came to a stop next to him.
“I think that everything that happened during the last week is finally catching up to her,” Ardyn answered with a slight grimace. “She asked me to help her become a a fierce and good warrior so she may protect everybody she holds dear.”
Hiemi nodded, a grim look in her eyes. “Healer and I've been waiting for that to happen for a while now. Not her wanting to be a warrior, but I can see it, even if my husband may not want to. The two times I let her handle a knife she showed it the respect it was due, at least.” She side eyed him when she noticed his hesitation. “You can ask, you know?”
“I gather our resident and conscious Amicitia didn't take the revelation well?” he chose to say.
Hiemi couldn't help her amused snort. “Healer told me about him, but by the sun, that man has a bad temper.”
Ardyn just raised an eyebrow at her. He had heard her and his nephew arguing once about table-cloths of all things.
“Why you,” she huffed in amusement and made to gently shove him in the shoulder. She didn't touch him, however. She had without a doubt picked up that he wasn't very comfortable with other people touching him suddenly. Ardyn shot a small teasing grin at her.
“Everything will turn out all right with them, I think,” Hiemi continued after a few moments of silence. “For all his faults, I get the feeling that Gladiolus is incredibly loyal. When I left, Healer was trying to convince him to not stay away from his work.”
Loyal, huh? Well, Ardyn would just have to make sure this Amicitia stayed loyal to the right person. Otherwise there was still another one, younger and more malleable that could replace him.
“If he scares Solaris again with yelling at you and my nephew there will be consequences,” he promised, protectiveness and a quiet menace lining his voice.
Dark green eyes pierced his own golden ones, searching for something. What it was he couldn't say.
“If he dares to hurt or scare my children knave Gladiolus will have to answer to me.” That was as much a threat as it was a promise.
They shared a heartbeat of silence full of certainty that no one would survive hurting this new generation of Lucis Caelums. Solaris gave a quiet huff in her sleep, bringing attention back on herself. Hiemi's gaze turned soft and warm as her eyes fell on the sleeping form of her daughter.
“Come, I'll take her back to bed. There's much to be done today and we could use your help, Ardyn,” she said and carefully gathered Solaris in her arms, lifting her with little difficulty.
Ardyn nodded but stayed seated for a while longer, watching over the youth in the bed and making sure she wouldn't need the bucket again. He made a face as he touched the black goo within it with one finger. Dark mist steamed out of it and sank into his skin. It was decidedly uncomfortable. Shaking out his hand after nothing remained, he stood up.
What he had just absorbed was... strangely muted, inactive almost and if it increased the pressure he was already feeling in his blood, he didn't notice.
Slowly he made his way downstairs and into the kitchen. Gammer was already there, kneading dough and humming a disjointed melody. Apparently she was coming over most mornings now, since the Shadow Market was mostly closed until it was clear all the bridges had survived the earthquake without further damages.
Noctis and his Amicitia sat at the heavy wooden table, cups of tea between them, and talked quietly amongst themselves. Gladiolus, or whatever his name was, was obviously not happy about something, but to the man's credit, he kept listening intently to what Noctis was saying.
His nephew looked up when he heard him enter the kitchen and smiled. Ardyn's answering smile was maybe a tad bitter when he saw not only Jubaris, but also Somnus reflected on the young man's face. He nonetheless followed the silent invitation to join them at the table. The Amicitia boy looked at him with curiosity clear in his eyes.
“Gladio, may I introduce you to my uncle, Ardyn. Ardyn, this is Gladiolus Amicitia, my Shield and one of my oldest friends.” Noctis' voice was a strange jumble between the need of the Deep City tongue to swallow every letter not needed to make oneself understood and the clear cut dialect of Noble Lucian. Which only made it more headache inducing.
Ardyn nodded in greeting, wishing he had thought to bring his head for a bit of dramatic flair. Oh well, there would still be more opportunities for it in the future, no doubt.
“Uncle?” asked Gladiolus with a raised eyebrow. “Like you think of him as such, or for real your uncle?”
“By blood and magic, he's my uncle,” was the answer.
The Amicitia boy looked at him with large eyes. Ardyn's answer was a wide Ifrit-may-care grin that would have made Iedolas livid, a daring edge clear in the way he tilted his head.
“This guy is a Lucis Caelum? For real?”
Should he be insulted by that? He probably should.
“Yes, for real,” confirmed his nephew, his tone laden with relief and amusement. Which, rude. But it had been so long since he had been acknowledged by his true name that he would let it slide, just this once.
“Huh.”
“Seeker of Vengeance, come, I have an important task for you,” called Gammer from close to the door that led to the backyard.
Fighting down a sudden wave of apprehension, Ardyn looked over to her. She hobbled back into the room, rolling a large wheel of cheese next to her like a child would a hoop.
“By the sun, where did you get that cheese from?”, Noctis exclaimed and shot up from his chair to help.
“No, Healer-of-the-people, you sit back down. It's not your help I require. You and your Shield don't have much time to find back together again. You should use what you have.”
With a sigh Noctis sat back down. His eyes followed Ardyn as he stood up and made his way over with uneven steps.
“What by Pitioss?” he could hear the Amicitia boy mutter beneath his breath.
He ignored his nephew's answer in favour of concentrating on the task before him.
“What is it you want me to do, Flame Whisperer?”
Gammer cackled and batted her eyelashes in a way that could have been called coy, if the woman hadn't been so old.
“Such flattery. It's hard to come by these days, indeed it is. Help this old woman make breakfast. You're supposed to be pretty good at that, Seeker of Vengeance.”
He blinked at her and swallowed down the remark burning on his tongue. Instead Ardyn helped her lift the cheese wheel onto a part of the counter that had been cleaned up beforehand, which was quite the feat between an old woman and a man that couldn't stand on his own two feet equally. It was nearly half as large as Gammer was tall, it's waxen skin smooth beneath his hands and had a strong smell that made his stomach grumble with hunger.
Under her guidance he cut the wheel open and grated some of the cheese into pockets of formed dough that were already partially filled with cut mushrooms. It wasn't heavy work by any means of the word, but it was something to do that didn't involve sitting around, thinking and talking. No matter how much he liked to talk under the right circumstances.
“Your thirst for blood has begun to ebb away, the fires of your soul are calmer now,” she said after a while.
Ardyn just hummed non-committally and chose to remain otherwise silent. Gammer huffed full of indulgence.
“A storm is on the horizon,” she intoned in a voice that made his hair stand on end. “You will need to decide soon what you will do once it hits. And hit it will, with a furiousness that hasn't been witnessed since the days the Empire of the Sun fell to fire, treachery and swords.”
Was she... was she talking about a second war between the Astrals? Did Ifrit want to ignite yet another Kingdom for some perceived slight? Somehow that didn't sit right with him.
Gammer gave another bone dry cackle at his incredulous stare, her brown eyes twinkled with a hint of red in the light of the hearth. He felt like he was missing something very important here. Then she started to hum, slow and melancholic, as if she were singing a lament, while deftly closing the finished pockets of dough now filled to the brim with mushrooms and cheese. It was the same song he had hummed to Solaris not an hour ago.
Eos dormit,
Sua crinis lucem est
Solis occasum.
Words swam to the forefront of Ardyn's mind, Gammer's hummed words overlain by the whisper of his mother's sweet voice.
“Please stop,” he whispered.
The song stopped. Only then did he realize how tightly the nails of his left hand had dug into his palm, a row of bloody crescents now lay there. He stared at them, his mind numb and strangely empty. The scourge in his blood shivered in quiet anticipation and fear. When he finally managed to look up he saw the old woman's eyes resting on him, understanding shimmered clearly in their depths.
“There lies wisdom in old songs,” she said. “Mothers are wise to sing to their children.”
Ardyn dearly wanted to drown somebody, preferably himself in lieu of not wanting to harm his family. Instead he took a deep breath and cast a careful look to where his nephew was sitting. A violet eye glimmered at him in concern, but the boy was still listening to what his Amicitia had to say. Ardyn smiled wanly and concentrated on cleaning the grater in the stone basin that served as a sink.
Ala nigra fert noctem
Et video sursum
Ad caelum,
Ubi stellis claricent.
The voice of his mother continued to whisper in his mind. Ardyn huffed in annoyance and shook his head to banish the sweet and sorrowful melody from his mind. Carelessly dropping the grater next to a pile of clean dishes, he stepped out of the room without another word to clear his head. He could think later, right now he needed to breathe.
Wisdom.
He had strived to be wise once. Look where that had gotten him.
Before he knew it, he was standing on the cobbled road in front of the old villa, leaning on his cane and breathing heavily. It had been a long, long time since he had thought of his mother. He couldn't remember much of her. Flashes of her sweet singing voice, wild locks of flyaway red hair and scarred, dark skin. A deep breath shuddered through his lungs.
He really didn't want to keep thinking about it, wanted to keep walking the way the... Gods had paved for him, wanted to just stay here with his nephew and his wife and children and forget the world even existed. But...
There was still something within him, buried deep and old and tired that wanted to help make the world a better place.
If this old lullaby would really help to prevent a new Astral War, he would do his best. But not today. All Ardyn wanted to do was to rest and just be. Sit at a table with good food and good company. The Gods had waited for over 2000 years, they could wait a day longer.
Satisfied with that conclusion he felt prepared enough to go back inside. Without a doubt breakfast would be finished soon.
From down the shadowy street he could see a lantern bobbing towards him. Curious of who would be out and about this early in the morning, he stayed where he was and waited. It was a small and frail woman with greying hair. Tulia Philon he thought her name was. Deep shadows danced beneath her tired eyes and her shoulders were curled inwards, as if she had suffered a heavy blow. She looked so different from the lively woman he had met just a week ago.
“Dearest Tulia, it is good to see you again,” he greeted her. He lowered his head nearly far enough to call it a bow. “Though I wish it would be under better circumstances.”
“Salve, Ardyn,” she she said and dear Gods, even her voice sounded tired. “I heard you had woken up and came to see you.”
He tilted his head in curiosity. Him? Not his nephew? Old hands gripped the ring of the electric lantern tighter as Tulia looked up at him.
“Would you do me the honour and speak at my husband's funeral?” she asked and looked like she would burst into tears at any moment.
“Oh, I... If it is your wish, of course.”
She gifted him with a trembling smile. “I thank you. You have no idea what it means to me. You were the last person to see him alive, to talk to him and it is tradition to speak of a person's last... last moments.” Tulia took a shuddering breath. “The funeral will be in two days at sundown. Healer will be there, too.”
“It will be my honour,” Ardyn responded and was only half surprised he actually meant it.
He had known Sallust for barely three days and he hadn't exactly liked the old man, but he hadn't disliked him either.
“Thank you,” Tulia said again and made to turn around.
“Why don't you stay for breakfast? There will most certainly be enough for one more, and a good meal in good company goes a long way to brighten the day.”
For a few seconds she looked at him oddly but agreed in the end. Ardyn smiled the best healer's smile he was still capable of and guided the grieving woman inside.
'torment from within' just sounded cool to my edgy high schooler self and vaguely fit the theme of the blog at the time. i was taking a latin class and wanted to apply what i was learning somewhere 🤷🏾♂️ if the grammar is iffy you can blame it on the fact that i was, y'know. sixteen.
