3 w a dnd character ?
3. Things said too quietly
“I wish you could have known them.” Aelia says, barely more than a whisper, after Alunda and Vigil finally bundle Cerise into another room, repeating back her own assurances that he should make it though the night. Sylreth stands guard just outside the door, Aelia can see the shadow where he blocks the light in the hall. She’ll have to convince him to take a rest too, at some point, but none of them really want to sleep. The last few hours play back in Aelia’s head.
They’d been sleeping, exhausted after days of travel, back in a city with real beds and walls and a roof over their head. And the next piece of the set in their grasp. Alunda couldn’t do the spell until morning, but they’d been efficient, in a way that scared Aelia a bit, even now. The shack just outside the town holds nothing but corpses, the entrance locked until they can properly deal with it in the morning. Only three of the bodies need to be properly buried. Aelia’s head dips back against the bed, nails digging deep into her palms until Tai takes his next shallow breath.
“Dad always wanted me to have friends, he told me when I went off to school I should find people who brought out the best in me.” Another shallow breath, too long since the last one to be quite right. It’s better than an hour ago, she thinks, when they’d awoken to knives in their backs and darkness all around them. By the time Aelia lit up the room, the fiend with it’s claws in her going slack under a blade of shadow, Tai had the other fiend clutching it’s head, writhing in pain and easy to pierce with the Sun Blade. By the time she’d even spared Tai a glance, realized that the red spread out beyond his skin, soaked the bedsheets and pooled on the floor, the sound of fighting from the other rooms had drowned out his last breath.
Finding Cerise had been easy, her holy weapon pummeling one assailant to the ground in the hall, the darkness lifting as Vigil sunk their blades into another, the smell of burning flesh and acid blood in the air. Aelia had dragged her away from mauling a corpse for good measure and— she’s not sure the order if events after that. Somehow they all got in the same room, lit by the glow of Aelia’s sword, until Alunda out a hand up and slowly she relaxed her grip, plunging them into shadow save the watery glow of Cerise’s spells. She’s not sure how many seconds passed before Cerise looked up.
“He’s gone” she’d said.
“Diamonds—“ Alunda said, quickly, and Cerise had nodded, and Aelia had fumbled through her pack and drawn out a handful. Cerise scattered them across Tai. They ought to arrange him better, Aelia thinks. But Cerise shakes her head—no time, or it will cost more— and the room glows again. And then again and again, as Cerise heals together his flesh into a thick scarred line and purges the poison from his system.
They’d cleaned as much as they could, while Alunda placated the inn staff, and Vigil set up fresh alarms and Cerise poured the last of her spells into him, until he practically seemed more alive than normal, cheeks flushed, healed but for the ragged breathing and the coolness of his skin, blood still returning to it’s paths under the skin.
Aelia draws in another breath. “He’d have wanted to talk with you, hear all your stories. He taught us to read so early, but made sure we appreciated the telling of a tale. And he always wanted me to bring home colorful friends.”
Tai moves, minutely, wincing as his body tries to take a deeper breath. “The leaves are gonna change, Tai.” She says. Dawn is breaking through the window. She wants to ask if this scar will go with it, or if the gash will forever mar his skin. She wants to ask if he feels his father’s absence, like an afterimage burned into the backs of his eyes at the moments it hurts most.
“They were— my siblings. He really had a system for our names. But they were really just two sides to the same coin. I think I was the outer edge.” She waits for another breath.
“Aelia?” Tai’s voice comes thin and strained
“Ye- yes, don’t try and move.
“Mhmm.” Tai settled back, against the sheets. Aelia sighs.
“He’d have treated you like another son. Been glad someone in the family could hold a conversation.” Her laugh is sour. Tai drifts back away, pain taking him. Aelia is quiet for the rest of her shift.