Wake of Woe
[[ Belated aftermath to the last Summerglen event, Fallow Fields and Hallowhearths!
Thank you once again to everyone who came to the event, it warms my heart that people have taken an interest in Summerglen and the story I’ve been slowly writing around it!]]
The bitter tang of blood was heavy on the air, plumes of sickly sweet rot rolling over the ruined floor in billows and bursts, permeating upheaved stone and sinking deep into the dark soil below. Spring was on the wind, bearing with it wet-heat and pollen that danced in heavy clouds through the fel-streaked valleys, but within the devastated halls of the chapel it only served to hasten the putrefaction of flesh and heating stagnant smears of blood until they birthed a more belly-churning scent. A hellish haze hung around her shoulders, and Caeliri let herself be swallowed whole by the trademarks of decomposition.
“Why do you return here?”
Caeliri’s eyes swept along the long-dried river of blood, following the snaking trail of maroon down it’s path to the edge of similarly colored skirts. She did not need to raise her eyes to her Seneschal’s face; she knew the woman’s pale, thin lips were pulled into a solemn frown and that the crimson brows above her bright blue eyes were furrowed tight enough to cast shadows over her sallow skin.
Lyla Redgrove was not a woman to question her employer or her oft-odd habits; the quel’dorei was stoic, polite, statuesque in the way that frightened people are, still when they did not need to move, exact in their motions when they did, trying to minimize their existence until they blended into the woodwork. It did not make her less effective in her position; she ran the young Dame’s small household with a terseness that did not allow for error, as if error was the foremost thing to be fearful of.
Thus, she did not question commands that came from Caeliri’s lips, nor offer argument as Liadove did; it was not her.
Not usually.
It was beyond the scope of Caeliri’s downcast vision, but Lyla’s hands - pale and near skeletal, ran through with veins so stark blue that her skin seemed almost translucent - curled tightly together, catching a loose length of blood-colored skirt and sliding it between her knuckles to soothe the tension twisting in her belly.
Caeliri said nothing, turning her head slightly towards the gruesome mound of flesh that had once been villagers, then a monster made of their disparate parts, then nothing more than loose skin and punctured organs that the Sunguard had laid to rest.
For days she’d come to the chapel and sat among the rot and ruin, and it was beyond worrisome.
No answer given, Lyla pressed on, her voice wavering --
“This behavior… is beyond unseemly. It speaks of madness--”
Reflexively Caeliri laughed - a short, sharp sound, entirely unlike her normal symphony of sweet giggles - and it did not help her case, “You think me mad, Lyla?”
The corner of Lyla’s mouth twitched, nearly reeling back into a fearful grimace, “Not mad,” a pregnant pause passed between them as the frightful woman selected her next word with a scholar’s scrutiny,”... morose.”
“Morose,” Caeliri parroted back, her shoulders heaving with a sigh. She forced her eyes away from the floor to the heap of rotting faces. In the slurry of skin, there were faces she recognized - decrepit and looseleaf as they were - and it made her stomach turn. Light be blessed there was nothing but bile in there. Guilt, hot and sharp, panged in Caeliri’s chest, and she drew in a deep breath, tasting turning flesh and old blood on her tongue, “...I can’t just leave them--”
“They are no longer; you mourn nothing but meat.”
It was a harsh truth; when the Legion’s fel-fissures were purified, the magic that bound the unwilling spirits of the dead to Summerglen was severed, and they had fluttered away like so much sand on a windy beach. Still, Caeliri could feel a lingering presence, a whisper of agony still etched in the stones of Summerglen, an unending reminder of the life lost here.
She’d noticed it first with Elleynah, in the ramshackle ruins of Azsuna; phantom fragments seemed drawn to them both - Elleynah for her Sight, Caeliri for her sundered soul, still marked by death, blackened by the Winter of Woe and the time she’d spent in the unwieldy Inbetween - and even now, a thousand miles away from that cursed place, she felt the fear and pain of those whose lives had been ended here. Caeliri had hoped that employing the talents of those Light-blessed would purge the spirits in their entirety, but it seemed as though the echoes of their violent end would never fade.
Or maybe it was all in her mind. Maybe at last all the guilt she slung over her slim shoulders was crushing the sense out of her.
”You only make yourself suffer more.”
Silence swelled between them again, and Caeliri could not - would not - pull her eyes from the bloody avenues that ran through the crumbling floors. “Do you know why I built this place?”
“For spiritual enlightenment?”
“For sanctuary.”
At last she hauled herself up from the floor, the motion slow and labored, as if her slight frame weighed a thousand, thousand pounds and ached with ages that did not belong to her. She kept the same haggard pace she moved to the nearest support column, fingertips finding a vein of pale grey that snaked lazily through the creamy stone, tracing it up and out as far as her arm could reach as she spoke, “Lord Firestorm advised against it; he told me that funds would be better spent on arms and armor, on barracks, on something befitting war… but he ceded to my judgement. He let me make my choice, because I knew Summerglen better, and put forth the money to build this place.”
“It was a noble endeavor,” Lyla offered, an earnest edge in her voice; what else would a Confessor say?
“It was,” Caeliri agreed, letting her fingers slide back down the stone, until her hand came limply to her side. “This place was supposed to be for everyone, all faiths, for them to find solace and comfort, for us to hold sermons or village meetings or just give people a place to be alone with their faith. I wanted to fortify this place, so that it would be a bastion, a final stand for the people of Summerglen if ever the time arose. Tahnuu was meant to help me secure the supplies to erect Lightforged barriers.”
The Draenei had not failed on her part; with old hatreds laid to rest, it was easy to facilitate a meeting with engineers eagerly adopting the blessed metals of the Lightforged, and several Artificers of the Lightforged themselves. But no warrior of the faith would freely relent on their divine gifts without scrutiny, and rather pursue her initial plan to fortify the chapel with other worldly advancements… Caeliri had burned her favor on a gift.
“You spent the allotment of supplies on Lord Dawnstrider’s arm,” Lyla stated simply, her voice bereft of judgement - that didn’t stop Caeliri from flinching where she stood. “You feel guilty.”
“I am guilty,” Caeliri turned, letting her back thud against the pillar, “I told them this place was safe. I told them, time and time again, that this would be their safe heaven should anything happen.” Her hand shot out towards the lingering, lifeless lump in the corner, but Lyla’s eyes would not follow her arm. “They all came here, seeking safety, and they died here.”
“You ordered the evacuation of Summerglen prior to the assault, did you not?”
Caeliri let her hand drop heavily to her side, her wrist striking her own bony hip so hard it sent an ache shivering through her arm. “I did.”
“Many citizens stayed behind, did they not?”
“Yes, but --”
“There is no ‘but’ -- there is nothing more you could have done. The Archon, your Lord, ordered you to the west to defend the Evergrove, and you went. What difference would it have made, had you come to Summerglen?” Lyla’s pale, thin lips pressed into a stern line. “You would have traded lives in the Evergrove for lives here - maybe. More likely than not, you would have died here.”
“I would not--”
“You would have stayed and held the line until every last villager escaped. Do you know who stayed to hold the line?”
Caeliri did not answer the question - it felt pejorative and foolish to offer a response. She knew the names of the Guardians who had stayed behind, and she knew where they were now.
Lyla did not press her point. Between them the silence drew on, until it was taut and oppressive.
A sigh slipped through the former Confessor’s lips, and at last the tension that trembled through her knuckles eased ever so slightly. Daintily, she lifted up her dark skirts and crossed the space between them, small feet weaving artfully over the filth that stained the stones. Lyla laid one pale, bony hand on Caeliri’s shoulder, and Caeliri could feel the cold seeping through the shoulder of her blouse. “This is not penance - this is self-mutilation of the soul. You ruin yourself with this quest for moral purity. Your suffering now does not ease theirs then. You have already committed yourself to Summerglen’s renewal, this,” Lyla let loose her skirts and wafted her now free hand through the air, her skin catching the light and seeming to glow, “solves nothing. Nor does it help you grieve, stewing in your mistakes. Reflect, adapt, but do not linger in the remnants of what-has-been.”
The effort of touch grew too much for the Steward to bear, and she pulled her hand away, taking a few shuffling steps backwards to regain a more appropriate distance. “The Anori priests will be here any day now to assist with the last rites and the funeral pyres; you needn’t maintain this vigil any longer.” Lyla offered nothing more than a polite curtsey, and left, artfully dodging the ruined remnants of the chapel as she made her way back to the manor.
Caeliri was not so quick to depart, tethered to this place by a thick strand of remorse, but slowly, she pressed forward, down the stairs, along the aisle, and out into the white-hot light of day. It was harsh enough to sting her eyes, and she lifted an arm to block it, wincing against the brightness. There was a clarity in the burning as enlightening as Lyla’s harsh words, and when the world around her began to bleed back into view, Caeliri hefted a mighty sigh, deflating slightly where she stood - before pulling her shoulders up and back.
She had sworn to see this through unto the end - she would not renege on her promise to the citizens of Summerglen. If she could stare down the black-rot face of death and still stand to swing a sword and bear a shield, she could rebuild a village ravaged.
[[ Tags: @vaelrin @stormandozone @veloestian @thesunguardmg @telchis ]]
