H130, Day 197, 1AP (Hadrian, Wraith)

[exile]

(Picking up from the Friendly Fiend, same day)

Hadrian laid his tankard down on the scuffed table top, savoring the taste of the dark ale on his tongue. It was from a local brewery, or so he had been told by the barkeep. The fare in the Lost Keep had proven to be more than passably good today, and he set into his beef stew contentedly offering a distracted smile to his dining companion.

The common room was largely vacant this afternoon, with only a few scattered patrons finishing up late lunches and the odd committed bubber getting a head start on the day. Nearby, a table of Godsmen broke into gales of laughter that slowly subsided once more into conversational tones. The proprietor had vanished into the kitchen some time ago, and Hadrian had not seen him return. The gnome was positively dwarfed by his counter however, so perhaps he was tending to something behind it.

“So sister,” Hadrian began, setting his spoon aside and dabbing at his lips with a napkin. “Tell me about your most unexpected resurrection. I can see that you are not at peace with yourself. Perhaps sharing your burden will help to bury it.”

[Uathach Blackmantle]

Wraith stirs her spoon half-heartedly through her bowl of stew, and dunks a chunk of bread into the meaty slop. She tastes it with a disconsolate sigh. It wasn't the food that disappointed her. Like Hadrian, she observed that the fare here was better than it had been in days gone by. The source of her discontentment lay within herself. But she was here now. Hadrian had sensed her distress, and taken the time away from his own affairs. The least she could do was try to talk to him, and make some sense of her confusing transformation... or was it more a realisation?

Shaking her head, she nibbles the bread, and drops it, half-eaten, into the untouched glazed ceramic bowl. Likewise, her goblet of heartwine, imported from Glorium, was left neglected on the table.

Her stomach growls in protest. She ignores the hunger pains. "I..." She begins, and frowns pensively. What could she say? She was too afraid to admit that she'd fallen so far from the Dead's tenets, that she was beginning to feel like she was awakening from a horrible nightmare. The future she now faced was one of uncertainty, ridicule, or worse. No one took stag-turning within the Factions lightly... and she was beginning to feel, if this downward spiral continued on the same crash course, that was a probable eventuality.

Maybe that was a good start? Wraith sighs, and nods as though coming to some agreement within herself. "I feel like I've been walking around in a dream lately, since I last met with my tutor less than a week hence." She winces, and wonders if he might be observing her. He'd given her that creepy feeling before, like her every moment and action was being watched, studied and measured.

"Only now I'm starting to wake up... and I realise that none of this is real. I'm... I'm not one of them anymore, Hadrian. I can feel it. I can feel myself slipping away, from all I once held dear and knew with absolute certainty to be true. Now the path before me is dark and frightening, and no light of mine can illume the way ahead." Her haunted eyes stare vacantly ahead, fixed upon something affixed to the wall.

It is an old painting, dusty and careworn. The countenance of the face it bears, though it might have been beautiful and serene once, has since faded with age and neglect. Not so unalike the tiefling who gazes upon it now.

[exile]

Hadrian chewed thoughtfully while wraith confessed her darkest secrets, considering how best to handle the whole affair. This wasn’t an unexpected revelation on her part, indeed Hadrian had spotted the fine cracks in the foundations of his companion’s beliefs not long after their first encounter. But all the same, such discussions demanded tact and delicacy; Wraith was vulnerable and she had chosen to share that fact.

“I think, perhaps, that is a most apt description, sister,” he exclaimed, laying his spoon down on the table. “We often speak of the souls of the dead as travelling towards a light when they depart this world. There was a time, I sincerely believe, when you walked along that road as well, but it has been a long time since you lost that guiding light. Far longer than a week, I should think, though I’ve been loath to confess it.”

Folding his hands on the table before him, the aasimar pressed on. “I believe that it has simply taken a long time for your mind to acknowledge what your eyes already knew, dear sister; the light is gone, and it is time for you to face the darkness. Take heart though, Uathach, the darkness isn’t frightening. There is life and warmth in this lightless existence, and as I believe it is the only one we have I think it time you start to explore.”

“Do not be discouraged, my friend.” Hadrian tried to offer a reassuring smile to reinforce his suggestion. “You do not need a light to guide you now. Only your heart. Listen to it, for it will never steer you wrong.”

[Uathach Blackmantle]

Wraith's haunted gaze swings away from the painting and returns to Hadrian's face. Her smile is slow but sad. Picking up her spoon for the first time, she dips it into the bowl, scooping up a portion of the broth and tastes it. Though wholesome and quite tasty, the meat and vegetables were like ashes in her mouth... not unlike the first time, so many years ago, when she began to question existence and her place in it.

Lowering the spoon again with a disconsolate sigh, Wraith folds her hands in her lap. Her stomach growls in protest. She ignores it. "I suppose... what I'm feeling now won't change until I come to terms with these realisations, and do one of two things. Pull myself out of the dream and face the lightless existence ahead, or remain in comforting darkness forever." She whispers. Picking up her spoon again, she digs into her stew. Given that she'd neglected her food before, while considering her future, perhaps this could be a symbol of the more positive change she now considered.

Wraith dries her lips with a napkin, and sets the crumpled cloth aside. "Except the darkness offers no solace like it once did, long ago. As a child I had no one to turn to for comfort. My father despised me, and my mother was dying. Death seemed to offer some solace from the pain and suffering all around me. But I'm sure you've heard the same exhausting tirade before, so I'll spare you the details.

I'm in purgatory, basher. Or as near to it as one can actually get without physically dying. And I feel I'll remain here until I make a decision, and choose one of the roads ahead of me."

[exile]

“It is hardly a road at this point, sister; it is a razor, and you have walked along its edge long enough. I don’t know what fear or uncertainty keeps you balanced upon that narrow precipice but you must resolve it soon before the weight of your burden cleaves you in twain. I can support you, but that is all I can do, sister. –You- must be the one to make the decision. Look inwards, for I sincerely believe that is the only place wherein truth lies.”

[Uathach Blackmantle]

Jul 6, 2008 11:35:37 GMT -5 exile said:

“It is hardly a road at this point, sister; it is a razor, and you have walked along its edge long enough. I don’t know what fear or uncertainty keeps you balanced upon that narrow precipice but you must resolve it soon before the weight of your burden cleaves you in twain. I can support you, but that is all I can do, sister. –You- must be the one to make the decision. Look inwards, for I sincerely believe that is the only place wherein truth lies.”

Wraith frowns thoughtfully, and stares into her bowl of stew for a long moment. "I know." She murmurs belatedly. Picking up her spoon again, she digs into her stew in silence, only pausing once every morsel has been cleaned away with a chunk of bread.

Sighing in contentment, Wraith pushes the bowl aside, and picks up her wine goblet. "I think, as odd as this will sound, it's fear of my own peers... Nay, they're virtually harmless." Wraith adamantly shakes her head. "Creepy, yes, but aren't we all that way if we become morbidly obsessed with Death?" Frowning again, she stares into her wine goblet. She was procrastinating, and she knew it, because admitting this would seal her uncertain fate.

"I don't fear Death, basher. Sometimes I've welcomed it. But, no, I don't want to die, basher. Not for a very long time. Not until I find my son and see him grow into manhood. Not until I complete my life's work, and fulfill my destiny here. Whatever that may be." She gestures with her wine glass before taking a sip.

Heaving a melancholy sigh, Wraith realises it's now or never. Either she had to come to terms with her fear, and these inevitable changes, or else she would linger and stagnate like the rest of them. "I fear the unknown. I fear becoming just another stag-turner, and the consequences that come with such a betrayal. I fear lying to myself. I fear that I have been lying to myself all this time. When I say I feel like I've been dreaming, Hadrian, I've been dreaming a dream of death. I don't think I've ever actually lived it like the rest of them. Just merely preteded I was like them, as a way to escape and hide from the life I couldn't accept."

Wraith's haunted gaze drifts back to the faded painting. "I fear him, basher. I fear what he may do to me when he discovers the truth about me. If he doesn't know already. And I believe he does, unless I'm just being plain paranoid"

[exile]

“Do you hear yourself, Uathach? I don’t understand why you speak as though the decision still lies ahead of you. You’ve already made it; the way of the Dead is no longer yours.”

Hadrian took a sip of his ale, only to discover that it was rapidly loosing its chill.

“There will always be those who cast a peery eye on stag-turners, sister, the factions among them, but if you do not act to change your fate then you will be committing the greatest treason of all: treason against yourself. What can anyone do to you of greater ill than that?”

Setting the mug back down, the aasimar turned the full weight of his gaze on the frail woman he cared for so dearly but could never seem to help.

“You will find people who will accept you regardless. My fondness for you will not be diminished, Uathach. And even among the factions you will find some more forgiving than others. The Bleak Cabal has often swelled with disillusioned cast offs from the other factions, and the Free League is as nonjudgmental a group as any you’ll find in the Cage.”

[Uathach Blackmantle]

Wraith nods and sighs. What more could she do, when the truth was staring her in the face? Out in the open, she couldn't deny it now. Oh, she could hide from it, shove it into some dark recess of her mind where it could be forgotten, for a time. How easy it was to don the Veil of Death, for the sake of keeping up appearances and blending in with the rest of them... How easy it was to deny the truth, when the truth could be so frightening.

"Many times I have wondered if I should've been something else, if I was destined for another path, or to live another life. But I know had I made different choices back then, despite how hard my life had become, I would not be the woman I am now. I certainly wouldn't have the tools and knowledge I have at my disposal now. My life, my knowledge, has shaped me into a healer, a surgeon. Perhaps I could be more than this..." She raises her wine glass for another sip of the full-bodied vintage.

"As much as certain individuals horrify me, basher, I owe much of my life experience to them, and improving upon their practices." She scowls as the face of Ridnir Tetch comes to mind. "But I know this is not what you question, or what you wish to see me acknowledge within myself. Aye, I have made that decision... Whether I do or don't chose to accept it is another matter entirely." Raising her wine glass in a salute, to life now, before, and in the months ahead, she drains her glass and sets it aside.

"For now I must maintain appearances, and continue with my existence as though this never even happened."

[exile]

Hadrian regarded Wraith with a look of deep seated skepticism, clearly questioning both the value and wisdom of her decision to ‘maintain appearances’. Upon a moment’s reflection however, he let it slide. Wraith’s admitted acceptance of her change in stars was a large enough stride towards her emancipation for one day.

Raising his tankard between them, the Bleaker offered up his wishes. “To you, sister. May you find some measure of happiness in this life, now that you have accepted it. And may Death not find you until you have lived it completely.”

[Uathach Blackmantle]

[ooc: and I think that's a wrap. I have nothing else I wish to add here. ]