Furious Scribe
patreon
47. Basil - Elven Dirge
🕑 Added 2024-10-23 01:56:46 +0000 UTC
Chapter 47
Elven Dirge
We heard them before we saw them, a sharp, trilling bird call, which perked the pointed ears of both E’lal and A’cia. Many of us had been sitting in a circle, sharing stories about our journey thus far, trying to stave off worry about how our companions might be faring on such a dangerous mission.
When E’lal and A’cia quickly stood, heading to the platform edge, the rest of us weren’t far behind. Strangely, it was at then that my fear for Hull came to a sharpened point, pricking my chest painfully. Qi’shen we knew was alive; his summoned Watch Platform told us as much, and while it was true at any moment it could vanish if he died, all of us taking a few cards worth of damage in the fall, every moment the wood boards stayed strong beneath us, we knew he still breathed. Hull, however, could have been murdered by orcs, undead, or even his own mother, and I wouldn’t have the slightest clue. The sudden surge of concern for my friend wasn’t the kind that would make me faint like I had in the ravine, but it was deeply unsettling. I had known the sometimes sour, always fearless, boy less than a year and already couldn’t imagine my life without him. Besides Esmi, no one else knew me the way he did, or valued what I had to say. That was the key of it: he respected me, even though I hadn’t deserved it of late, and I him, and that was something I never wished to be without again.
Reaching the lip, we helped unspool the rope ladder there and throw it down so that our returning members could ascend. The Watch Platform had some soft glow bulbs that provided enough light for us to make our way around the top of the structure, but the night was too dark for me to see anything more than a few shadowed shapes moving down below, well past the tree limbs the large Relic sat upon.
The climbers made their progress up with little noise, making me think that they were perhaps unharmed – at least those who had survived such a risky raid – but that illusion shattered when the first of them crested the edge.
It was Qi’shen, with Ky’reen over his shoulder, both of them covered in dried blood. The elf girl’s eyes were closed and she looked ashen and sunken cheeked. I expected A’cia to summon her Life source to heal the pair, but when I glanced her way, a tear was streaking down the beautiful elf’s face. E’lal dropped to his knees, letting out a wail of sorrow, both sounds much quieter than they should have been, which could only mean that Qi’shen’s dampening Aura was still in effect.
“Is she…” I started, not wanting to say the last word for fear of making it true.
The older elf got his footing on the platform and touched E’lal and A’cia gently, his face just as mournful as theirs.
“Dead,” Gale said beside me with cold finality.
I looked his way, wondering how my brother could be so certain, and he shrugged. “You’ll learn the look in time. Anyone who lasts long enough inevitably does.”
The elves moved toward the center of the Watch Platform, and I was torn between following them and waiting to see if Hull returned safely. In the end, my indecision kept me where I was, and I got to see Gerad clamber over the edge. He was dirty some, with oddly shaped spots of blood on his forehead, but otherwise hale and healthy, a stark contrast to the first two.
Did he even help? a hard voice in me questioned. I didn’t know Ky’reen as well as E’lal, A’cia, or even Qi’shen, but I knew how much the other elves cared for her, and I had always been impressed by her hunger to improve in training. If I learned that the prince hadn’t used every ounce of his ability in whatever battle had led to Ky’reen’s death, I’d loathe him even more than I already did for trying to kill Hull.
Gerad stalked by me, unknowing of my thoughts and uncaring. Afi was next, looking haggard but well enough, all her limbs functioning and eyes clear. She turned, offering a hand down, and thank the Twelve, it was Hull who took it, scrambling up behind her. His hair was even more of a mess than usual and blood splattered his clothes, but I hardly cared as I plowed into him, hugging him tightly.
“Merciful Twins, you’re alright.”
“Easy there,” Hull said, patting me on the back. When I finally released him, he gave me a forced grin. “Wasn’t near as bad as being bait. Only thought I’d die twice instead of half a dozen times.” Hull’s eyes flicked over my shoulder, and his shoulders slumped, breath hissing out of him. “Shouldn’t have said that.”
The creak of the wooden platform announced that Gale had followed before he spoke. “Surviving isn’t something to feel guilty about,” he said to Hull. “Sometimes, it’s all we can do.” My friend looked up, appearing doubtful, but still, he nodded. Gale walked off then, probably to confer with Qi’shen about how the rest of the mission had gone and determine our next steps. I had a flickering hope that returning to Treledyne would be in our future, but my brother didn’t look like those were the sort of plans he was off to make.
“We truly are glad to see you well,” Esmi said, “Afi too.”
With so many having departed, it was just Esmi and me beside Hull while the paladins talked with Afi, Anya casting healing magic on her even though she said she didn’t need it, and Paytr pulling up the rope ladder.
“She’s a fighter sure enough,” Hull said about Afi, sounding… relieved? Pleased? “It’s a wonder we made it back at all. Wouldn’t have without the help Fortune saw fit to give us, even if it came too late for that wolf girl.”
“Help?” I asked, and Hull told us about the strange half-elf with a huge sword who had killed the Epic, living version of his Spell Drinker demon, just after it had gutted Ky’reen. He looked like he wanted to hit something when the story was finished, and considering how he’d taken to punching trees and boulders in his free time, I had little doubt he’d be off doing that when this conversation was over.
“Do you think she could be part of our forces?” Esmi asked. “There to accomplish the same task as you?”
“Could be,” Hull said with a shrug. “Don’t think Qi’shen recognized her, but he didn’t say much on the way back. He.. ah… didn’t take things well tonight.”
I wasn’t sure whether to take comfort or not in hearing that someone who was much older than I and ranked at captain level could be rattled by these events. If such violent activities never grew easier, it made the prospect of trying even more daunting, yet it also made someone’s willingness to continue through such hardship all the more impressive.
“Got some new cards, though,” Hull said, lifting his hand to show it was covered in some dried black goo that I hadn’t noticed before. For a brief moment, I worried that he had used that hand to pat my back. “Think you could give them a look?”
“Happy to,” I said, pushing that superfluous concern down – as many of us surviving as possible was what mattered, not the state of my clothing. “But first I must see to the elves. For all the help they’ve given me, I feel beholden.”
Esmi shifted. “I think I’ll stay with Hull to look at those cards if you don’t mind.”
Even in the low light, I could tell that she was holding herself more rigidly than usual, and I understand all too well wanting to avoid spending time around a dead body if it could be helped.
“Not in the slightest,” I said, pecking her on the cheek and clapping Hull on the shoulder – relieved yet again that he had returned in the flesh – before leaving them.
The Watch Platform had some hammocks on poles and lean-tos for sleeping under, but the centermost of the connected circular platforms had no additional structures other than a firepit in the middle. It was here that the elves had congregated, Ky’reen’s body laid out, E’lal and A’cia hovering over it while Qi’shen spoke a short distance away with Gale.
I paused on the outer edge of the platform, unsure what was customary among elves to say in such circumstances. It was like my doubt was forming an invisible yet impenetrable field, and I had to physically force my way through it in order to approach them.
“I’m so very sorry for your loss – all of our loss.” The two elves looked up at me, such pain in their eyes I couldn’t help but feel it echo in my heart as well. “Might I join you?”
E’lal fluidly stood, wrapping me in an embrace just as tight as the one I had used on Hull, and A’cia did the same, the pair of them hugging me together; they smelled like anise with an undercurrent of pine and tangy sweat. They sat back down without answering, but I took their gesture to mean that I was welcome. It was nearly the same spot I had been in when waiting for everyones’ return, but now there was a body laid out before me. The killing blow Hull had described had been covered by leaves – plucked from the branches that hung all around us no doubt – wrapping around Ky’reen’s entire midsection and up to her chest. There was still a great deal of blood on her clothes and skin, but for whatever reason, the darker, almost brown color of it wasn’t nearly as hard for me to stomach as when it was red and wet.
With a tiny snap, E’lal pulled a leaf from above his head and placed it over a blood splatter on Ky’reen’s pant leg. Apparently, the dried blood was still sticky enough to keep the leaf in place, or perhaps the leaf had a bit of sap on it. I watched A’cia do the same on the back of Ky’reen’s hand, so I reached up, grabbing onto one of the overhanging branches and pulling it down a touch. From there it was easier to take a few leaves from it before letting go. Unsure what purpose this action served but at least armed appropriately, I decided to start with a streak of blood on her shoulder. I had never touched a dead body before and so thought I’d find it easier if not only a leaf but a layer of clothing separated us. Even so, I had the oddest worry that I was somehow hurting her as I pressed the leaf against her body. I think it was because she looked so close to being alive. Motionless, yes, eerily so, her neck tilted back just enough to seem unnatural, but her hair still fanned softly around her head, her face tattoos were still vibrant, and her lips were slightly parted as if she might start to breathe, or even speak, at any moment.
“We can help you purify her card if you like,” Anya said, surprising me. I turned to see that most everyone had joined us on the center platform, though many were keeping their distance. Anya stood amongst the closest, a kind look on her face as she lifted an adorned flask. “We brought some Twins’s blessed water from our temple.”
“Her card is still within her body,” Qi’shen said, breaking away from Gale and coming to join his kin.
My eyebrows rose hearing that, and Wenden, always the most severe of the three paladins, actually sputtered.
“What?” he said. “The card must be removed from the body as soon as possible and cleansed, severing its connection from the mortal so that it may enter in the realm of the divine.”
I could tell Wenden was quoting scripture, but Qi’shen just shook his head.
“That is not our way,” he said, solemnly. The older elf sounded and looked oh so tired as he sat cross legged beside A’cia, accepting a leaf from her.
“But –” Wenden persisted.
“Go on,” Gale said, ushering him and Anya away. “Let them be about their business.”
The elves returned to their mysterious work, and a few other members of our party watched curiously on the fringes before moving to the outer portion of the Watch Platform, leaving me alone with the elves. With the four of us, it didn’t take long to finish covering the body, only a few parts remaining exposed, a closed eye, a nose, some fingers, which in a way made the corpse seem more unnerving to me.
“Out of the three of us, she was the most eager to make this journey,” A’cia said. I had guessed that the end of one task would likely mean the beginning of another, but I was still somewhat caught off guard to hear her speak after so long a stretch without any words being exchanged. “If not for Ky’reen, I do not think E’lal or I would have come.” She smiled wanly. “She was always so skilled at herding us to where she wished to go.”
“Ky’reen told me after the last raid that there were few better things than feeling orc flesh tear beneath her claws or teeth,” E’lal said while staring at the body. “She said she could hear the land sigh in relief each time she ended one of those insatiable creatures. She thought that meant that the roots of A’dinn’uon were below us, and that made her feel at home. ”
Qi’shen nodded, the lines of the older elf’s face looking harsher in the glow light. “When she first learned to shift, she said to me it was like being birthed anew, every hair on her body feeling the tingle Life. I could tell it made her want to stay in wolf form all the time, but I knew she never would because she would miss you two too greatly.” A’cia sniffed, holding E’lal’s hand tightly, and I saw him return the grasp in kind. Their way of partnering with more than a single person was foreign to me, as was this ritual, but I could see the depth of their loss painted on their faces, and knew that it was just as heartfelt as mine would be if I was to ever lose Esmi. “Truly,” Qi’shen said, “she made the most of this body.”
They lapsed into silence then, and it took me a moment to realize that they were waiting for me to say something. I panicked slightly, having only interacted with her a handful of times, and said the first thing that came to mind. “She told me I smelled once, just a few days after we started War Camp together.” Three sets of elf eyes were on me, all raw, all waiting to see where I would go with this. “But then, when you came to see my duel –”
“She said your scent had improved,” E’lal said, finishing for me with a smile. “Your drink was so fine that night I had forgotten about it entirely. Thank you, friend Basil, for making that moment live again in my mind.”
I nodded my head jerkily, still feeling out of place but glad I could offer something.
Qi’shen began pulling cards from behind Ky’reen’s ear, tucking them into a pouch beside his waist. He still did not remove her Soul card though, instead standing. The other elves did the same, so I joined them, noticing that Qi’shen was summoning source and drawing his own cards. It didn’t take long for him to get whatever he needed, and his Life Source dipped in the air, a card misting from his hand and forming into an oblong shape on the ground, parallel to where Ky’reen lay.
It was one of the strangest Relics I had ever seen, bands of overlapping wood forming a cocoon of sorts, ivy crisscrossing the structure like veins. Qi’shen touched the end of it, and what had looked like unbroken grain split open down the middle, the vines pulling back as it did, revealing a soft bed of loam in the center of the Pod with tiny white flowers. Gently, E’lal and A’cia picked up Ky’reen’s leaf covered corpse and placed it inside the cocoon. After they had, Qi’shen took something from inside his breast pocket and placed it atop the body. Looking closer, I saw that it was a dried anise fruit, its long stem and pointed brown edges making it look like a star-shaped flower with seeds in each leaf. It’s presence explained the scent that the elves so often gave off.
I was not the only one who caught the gesture, E’lal’s head jerking toward Qi’shen. “That is not Ky’reen’s.”
“That is yours,” A’cia said, her tone accusatory for some reason.
“Ky’reen’s was lost in the battle,” Qi’shen said, sounding almost as pained as one might if it was the Soul card that was missing. “She deserves it more than I.”
E’lal and A’cia seemed uncomfortable about this, sharing a look, while I remained completely oblivious as to what might be causing the difficulty.
“I apologize for asking,” I said, when the silence stretched, the three seeming at an impasse, “but what is the significance?”
“Do you know of A’nis’a, our Root Mother?” Qi’shen asked me.
I shook my head. I had only recently become interested in Life source cultivation and thus the elves, and so only knew what I had picked up about them during our recent training together.
“She is a Legendary Soul,” A’cia said, speaking quietly instead of with the intensity she usually used when schooling me about cultivation. “Who buried herself to become our Grand Forest, our homeland of A’dinn’uon.”
“Fruit of her namesake is taken with any who leave,” E’lal added, pulling his own anise out of his vest pocket, this one having more points than the one that rested on Ky’reen. He hesitated, and then swapped the two, handing Qi’shen’s back to him. “You will need this to see you safely home. You plan to carry her, do you not?”
The older elf hesitated but then accepted the tiny brown thing that looked like a flower. “I do,” he said, and though it was only two words, I felt the weight of them. Qi’shen touched the pod, and it whispered closed, the wood aligning so it looked seamless again and the ivy creeping back over the top, encasing Ky’reen completely.
“I apologize if this is rude,” I asked, unable to hold my questions in anymore. “I can understand your desire to have a token of your home,” – their anise reminded me in some ways of how Esmi had kept that old pen of mine for the time we had been apart – “but why are you putting so much care into Ky’reen’s body? Surely her Soul card is what must be protected?” I was no paladin or tender, but I honestly couldn’t believe that they still hadn’t removed it yet.
“She must be buried in A’dinn’uon,” A’cia said, matter-of-factly, “so her flesh and bones can nourish A’nis’a, joining in that continued growth.”
“She must?” I asked, trying my best not to sound like I was arguing.
Qi’shen shook his head, but I was relieved to see that he didn’t appear angry, only sad. “You humans see the duality of the Twins in so many things but never this. Are the body and Soul not intertwined in Life? Why would they not be in death? Without proper treatment of the body, the Soul card will eventually weaken and break.”
The older elf might as well have told me that the sun would one day crash into the land for how impossible it sounded. The eternal nature of Soul cards was a foundational belief in every text I had read and in every conversation I had heard, whether it was an avid member of the Church of the Twins, a Rapturists, or someone who barely acknowledged the gods at all.
“It will? I’ve never heard such a thing.”
“Because you are a young race yet,” Qi’shen said, “but you will see in another thousand years or so. The burnings I’ve heard you do for bodies may satisfy the Fire focused among you, and maybe even those of Air, but for most,” he shook his head again, “you are seeding your own eventual demise.”
If Qi’shen’s goal was to shock me, he certainly had; the only reply I could muster was a numb nod. A thousand years? Would it even matter if it was that far away?
“Join us now and perhaps you will feel the truth of it,” E’lal offered, placing his hand upon the Pod. Qi’shen did the same, and A’cia put both palms on the end she was near.
I reached out, the wood feeling neither warm nor cool against my skin. Ky’reen was in there: fierce, wild, sharp-toothed Ky’reen. Even after helping to prepare her body, I could hardly believe it.
The elves started singing then: a low hum in their throats that transitioned into a wordless song that with my years of Air cultivation I was able to follow on the heels of without too many stumbles. The tone of it had a natural flow that made it easy to predict the next note, and I soon found myself barely thinking as I lifted my voice to be as loud as theirs.
Qi’shen spoke, talking of his failure to protect Ky’reen as he had promised he would. How he should have expected a threat like that from the demon army, something that could stop his Soul Abilities, and his unfathomable regret in not spiriting them away sooner. A’cia and E’lal continued to sing, so I did my best to match them, but it was a challenge while seeing the grown elf break down, weeping uncontrollably, to the point that I could no longer make out whatever last words he was trying to say.
When he finally collected himself enough to take back up the song, his voice scratchy after how he had used it, E’lal began to speak. While the others had been gone raiding, my former bunkmate had explained why he hadn’t joined them on the mission even though he was well suited to such assassination. It was a rule among their people that when in hostile territory elves always stayed in pairs, at minimum, so he could not have left A’cia alone. However, hearing him explain this calmly a few hours before compared to now when he practically shouted it against Qi’shen’s Aura were two different things entirely. He railed at himself for not taking Ky’reen’s spot, going so far as to flail his fists against his body with such force that a few cards burst out of him.
The sight of his self-flagellation made me deeply uncomfortable, but the song beneath it all grounded me, and made me feel like I would be breaking something sacred if I was to leave now.
When he concluded, E’lal spent a few moments gasping for air on the ground before rejoining us.
A’cia collapsed over the pod when it was her turn, hugging it tightly. She regretted not spending more days and nights together, not finding each other sooner, and in many ways, coming to this war. She cursed herself for not wrapping Ky’reen in roots until she saw sense and keeping them all in A’dinn’uon where they had been happiest. When A’cia quieted, her shaky voice settling in above mine, I knew what was expected.
I started simply and as truthfully as I could, wishing simply that I had gotten to know Ky’reen better. I was fascinated by her ability to shift and would have enjoyed speaking at length with her about it, but I had been so obsessed with other things that I had missed out on forming a connection that could have been meaningful. I hadn’t been planning to say much more than that, but after how effortlessly and shamelessly they had bared themselves, I tried to go further, saying that I wished I had demanded to join the mission as a protector if nothing more, how I wished I was strong enough to keep everyone I cared about safe, all of Treledyne, and finally, how I regretted being so afraid and hated that weakness in me that kept creeping back no matter how many times I tried to stamp it down. How if only I wasn’t so spineless, I could have been there when Ky’reen needed.
I was breathing hard when I finished, harder than I expected. Not everything I had said had been about Ky’reen, not really, but the elves didn’t seem to mind, their twinned voices accepting mine without judgment when I was ready.
I don’t know how much longer we kept this dirge of theirs going, but Qi’shen eventually stopped and the rest of us petered out. It was then I noticed that the ivy beneath our hands had sprouted white flowers, similar to those that Ky’reen rested on, and I felt my heart lurch, tears coming to my eyes. They were beautiful to look upon, and with a tiny inhale of breath, I realized that the Pod felt warm now.
Then the Relic vanished, disappearing into motes of light, Qi’shen dismissing the source he had used to conjure it.
E’lal and A’cia hugged me again, even more fiercely than before. “Thank you for sharing this with us,” E’lal said, while A’cia whispered, “You truly are a friend to the elves.”
“Thank you for having me,” I replied. They squeezed me again and then left together hand-in-hand, A’cia saying something about them sharing her anise.
“You did well,” Qi’shen said when we were alone, a fact that felt all the more pronounced now that both the body and Pod were gone.
And inside his Mind, I couldn’t help but think.
“Many humans keep their painful emotions locked away,” Qi’shen continued, “so deep they think them gone, but in truth they are only poisoning their roots, degrading themselves, just as surely as a card with an ill-cared for body. If you were not already at your source cap or wearing that,” he said, pointing at the metal fabricator around my wrist, “you would likely have a third of Life by now.”
Yet again the older elf had managed to shock me. “I would?”
He nodded. “I will not ask you to remove the gift from your king, but what I told you before holds true. In my eyes, you have earned your third source and so I will show you the higher tiered cards you wished to trade for. Rest some and then we will speak more of it.”
The older elf strode away, so he didn’t get to see my jaw hanging open. I had joined the elves tonight out of a sense of mixed obligation and kinship, so I hadn’t expected any sort of reward. Truthfully, thinking of it that way I immediately disliked, since it felt disrespectful to Ky’reen. I was grateful to Qi’shen that he had said we would do it later so the two things were separated, which was probably the very reason he had chosen to have us wait.
I closed my mouth as I caught the first hints of the rising sun dappling the trees. It was hardly anything, but seeing it helped quiet my mind, and let me feel what I had just gone through with the elves. Joining them in expressing myself so openly had been quite the experience. I did feel… lighter having said those things aloud, which was perhaps Qi’shen’s point. Also, it had taken my doubts about the role we were playing in this war and clarified them into something much more immediate, something I felt the truth of in bones: I’d be joining Esmi and Hull on any mission they were sent on from here on out, my fears be damned.
Comments
RainbowPhaze
it makes sense that participating in the funeral would theoretically get Basil his third Life source. It was a ceremony about celebrating life, both Ky'reen's life and the ways she touched and will continue to influence the lives that are carrying on without her.
iridium248
Hull: "Yeah, the elf girl died. It was horrible, blood was everywhere. But anyway, wanna see these cool cards I found?"
iridium248
He may simply have been too slow to react, as Order is substantially slower than Nether.
FiveBoxes
Now that I think about it, the Spell Drinker could easily get defeated by spamming Spells then overwhelm it with Souls. Or spam Spells like Hull did after it had no Source. It would have to choose whether to negate Spells or save Source to use cards. Even if it had attack twice as much as it had Source, it could only strike once and it can't negate protection spells after using up Source. Though the squad would need to have proper teamwork for that to work. Gerad could have saved Ky'reen, the dude probably had a bunch of Protections on hand. Even if he wasn't obviously trying to cultivate Death, the guy would still be having some schadenfreude. (Just my bad view of him. He was probably just shocked his attack was ineffective.)
Chirag
That was a good scene, great to see our boy Basil express himself and face up to what he needs to do in a war. Also, new life cards? Let's gooooo!
