• Mature • [The Glass Temple] A Hero's Death pt ii

[Faith Augustin]

41st Zi'da 717
following this & this

Yestertrial, she had started the process of getting the baby Aeon had saved adopted to a couple who would love him, keep him safe. She'd arranged for Aeon's body to brought here and now, this trial, she had to take care of him. Stan, the tunawa who was in charge of the Glass Temple looked at Faith and he managed to look at her with a stern gaze. As much as Faith was impressed with that, her gaze back was just as forceful. "I'm fine, Stan. I'm pregnant, not ill." It was her job as a servant of Famula and Vri. More than that, it was her job as his friend and it was her duty. Padraig had understood that, because it was simple and she explained it to Stan in the four words she had told her husband. "He was my brother." Stan sighed and nodded, then turned around and left her in the room he'd put aside for her.

The remains, such as they were, were in the coffin and Faith moved over. The nature of how he had died meant that there was very little that could be done for him, physically, and she knew that this was fine. Stan had put everything that could be found and identified into the coffin and the acolytes here at the Glass Temple had dealt with it as much as it could be. "Fred, I'm here. Aeon." She spoke to him, visualising him standing opposite her as she worked. "I brought you things. So that, when Vri takes you, he knows that you are remembered. It's a tradition here, and it's beautiful, isn't it?" She liked it, very much, as a tradition.

"I know that Vri is with you, that Famula's light shines on you," she said to him, her imagination forming her friend in front of her. "But this is the last thing I can do for you. Yestertrial, I thought I would have to kill him, you know. Noth. But you always tried to stop me from going against monsters, do you remember? I promised you and I never broke that promise in life. I won't in death." She sighed, slightly, her hand on the side of the coffin. It was open, she could see the wreckage of his remains in there, and yet, she spoke to the image she conjured up in her mind and started to see.

"So, I'm going to make you another promise. What I'm going to do. I'm going to live." Faith smiled at him, and she was not even aware of the tears which fell down her cheeks.

She wouldn't have cared if she had been. He deserved them. He'd earned them. There should be a thousand people here mourning him. To the young woman's mind, it made no sense. But she was here and that would have to be enough.

► Show Spoiler

If the night turned cold and the stars looked down
And you hug yourself on the cold cold ground
You wake the morning in a stranger's coat

No one would you see
You ask yourself, who'd watch for me
My only friend, who could it be
It's hard to say it

I hate to say it, but it's probably me
When your belly's empty and the hunger's so real
And you're too proud to beg and too dumb to steal
You search the city for your only friend

No one would you see
You ask yourself, who could it be
A solitary voice to speak out and set me free

I hate to say it
I hate to say it, but it's probably me
You're not the easiest person I ever got to know
And it's hard for us both to let our feelings show
Some would say I should let you go your way

You'll only make me cry
If there's one guy, just one guy
Who'd lay down his life for you and die

It's hard to say it
I hate to say it, but it's probably me
When the world's gone crazy and it makes no sense
There's only one voice that comes to your defense
The jury's out and your eyes search the room
And one friendly face is all you need to see
If there's one guy, just one guy
Who'd lay down his life for you and die

It's hard to say it
I hate to say it, but it's probably me
I hate to say it
I hate to say it, but it's probably me

[Faith Augustin]

41st Zi'da 717
following this & this

"My baby will hear stories about you. About how you were brave, of course, but about how you were kind, too. I wanted you to know that. I thought it might be something that made you smile. I brought things," she said, reaching back into the domain bag she had with her. "First, here, some aloe salve. Do you remember." The first time they'd ever met, she'd offered him some of that, in order to soothe the pain of the fresh scars on his face. "I wanted so much to help you, but you didn't want to be helped, you wanted to be helpful." She put the small pot of salve in the coffin, near the head. "And here, here's some rosemary from my garden. I'd been buying things that trial we met. When I was off fighting zombies and holding the king's hand as he pretended to be a slave kneeling next to, Tristan had forgotten that he could shop, too. I came home to empty larders."

She'd bought rosemary at the market, she said and as he'd approached her and called her miss, it was the scent of the rosemary which she remembered. "You didn't care that I was a slave, but you didn't ignore it. You saw it, the brands and the scars and you saw beyond them and saw me. I think that's what we did, isn't it?" She smiled and put the sprig of rosemary in there. "We saw each other. I think we were both lost, that trial, both struggling with guilt and weighed down in different ways."

Then, she pulled out a small doll. It was ragged and damaged, missing an arm. "In the battle, when the beast attacked and Qe'dreki at the same time, I stayed and helped with the injured, do you remember I told you." She looked up and wondered if it was acceptable that she could see him there? He was there, Aeon stood there and he was smiling. "I couldn't save her. The little girl whose doll this was. I kept it, the doll, so that I would remember. That I tried, that I failed. But to not try? That would have been worse, Aeon. So much worse." She put the doll in there, whispering a blessing to Vri as she did. "My memories of you, brother of my heart, they will not abate, I promise you."

After the first time they met, she recalled, he'd been a regular visitor, companion and friend to her. "I could give you nothing. You never needed me to." The young man smiled at her, shook his head. Then, Faith reached once again into the domain bag. From it, she pulled a small piece of fabric. "This is part of the blouse I was wearing on the boat to Ne'haer. U'frek's boat. Do you remember?" He smiled and closed his eyes, which Faith realised he had two of, a slight nod moving the ghostly form which she knew was not a ghost.

Those she knew after all.

"You taught Padraig and I to fight. I kicked you, and I felt awful for it." Her smile was genuine, even though the tears fell, slowly now. "But it was a lesson. Everything was a lesson. Things .. you were right about Malcolm. I only realised it coming here. I had all the information, Fred, but I hadn't put it together," she explained. Then, she went on to tell him. "He's a mortalborn of Vri. I knew he wasn't a bad man. I knew it." She'd shared a dream with him, she said, where he'd been dead. She'd told him that he would go to Famula and he had begged judgement from the twins. He'd told her, there, in that dream. Of course, it had been a dream and nothing more but now? Now she knew better than to think such. The markings on the back of Malcolm's neck, seen so visibly when she and Lady Elyna had stitched him in the kitchen in his home, after he'd been left for near death? Faith had seen those since. Jesine marked ~ like Arlo. Vri's daughter, Jesine. "I have a friend who is a mortalborn. I think, sometimes, people treat them suspiciously. I can't blame him for having a secret, Fred. I can't." They all did, after all. One or another kind.

"I was going to bring our echo scrolls, so that you would remember that we wrote and wrote," she said, and then she shook her head. The young soldier who was watching her smiled and nodded, pleased that she had done what she had, Faith thought. "I'll give them to someone else. People who can use them. I've hung your necklace over there, too, the one from that journey. So, I brought this. They are my notes, Fred, from the first ever class at the University I attended. You told me I would, do you remember?" Putting them in to the coffin, she sighed, and then the former slave bent her head in prayer over the decimated remains of her friend.

"If you can hear me, Lord Vri, please show this man that he was loved. That his death will be mourned even as his life is celebrated and that if there is no one else in the world who remembers him, I do. I will, unto my final breath and beyond, I will miss him. Blessed Famula," Faith spoke in a whisper and there was no room in her hands for what she felt. "Tend his soul. It was so fragile and gentle and beautiful." Lifting her head, then, she smiled as she saw him once more, as she remembered him.

► Show Spoiler

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the color of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay

Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could

For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star
Like tears from a star

On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are
How fragile we are

Sting: Fragile

[Faith Augustin]

41st Zi'da 717
following this & this

It was nearly time, she knew. She moved, then, and she started the final ritual, the final prayers before he was taken from this place. There were incenses and oils for anointing him. There wasn't enough of him left to anoint, but she put the oils in the coffin, murmuring the ritual prayers which went with this.

"On the trial that Vri takes me," she whispered when she was finished with the formal ritual. Reaching into her domain bag, she pulled out the last thing. A blank journal. "I will regret this, what this book represents." Dipping her head, Faith struggled, for a moment, to speak but she pulled herself together and she gave herself a strict talking to, internally. This was the last thing that she could do for him. She would do it. Absolutely, unequivocally. The new life which grew inside her kicked her, sudden and sharp, causing her to wince. "This is the book that would have been my diary if you lived. In this book, I would have written my life, Aeon. And you would have been in it." A single tear fell on to the book, splashing into a tiny pool of sorrow shed from the mortal whose grief was so very raw. "Not every trial, but in it. My baby would know you, call you uncle. Our lives would unfold and, in places, they would overlap as they have since the first time we met."

She held the book up, almost like she was offering it to the Immortals themselves.

"It will never get written, this book. This diary will always be blank and I will regret that." Her voice wavered and Faith looked down at the contents of the coffin. Another tear fell, leaving a small damp stain on the lining and she felt her lower lip trembling. "I wanted you to know peace. Happiness. Love. Life." But he had been given what everyone did. One lifetime.

"But," she said and she reached into the bag. From it she pulled another book. Identical to the last. "I wanted to show you this. I made you a promise, and I mean it. I will live and in this book, I will write my life, and when I'm old and our grandchildren are reading them, they won't believe the adventures Padraig and I have had. I promise you, Fred." Putting the book back, she sighed and looked down once more. "I have to close it now. Surrounded by memories, wrapped in love, go to your rest, my friend. My brother. Rest."

As she lowered the lid, suddenly aware that the ghost she had been seeing was no longer there, Faith sobbed.

The sound it made when closed echoed around the room and she stood, straightening her back and wiping her tears.

"You've earned it." Faith whispered and then, she walked out into the cold sun light.

► Show Spoiler

Let me watch by the fire and remember my days
And it may be a trick of the firelight
But the flickering pages that trouble my sight
Is a book I'm afraid to write

It's the book of my days, it's the book of my life
And it's cut like a fruit on the blade of a knife
And it's all there to see as the section reveals
There's some sorrow in every life

If it reads like a puzzle, a wandering maze
Then I won't understand 'til the end of my days
I'm still forced to remember,
Remember the words of my life

There are promises broken and promises kept
Angry words that were spoken, when I should have wept
There's a chapter of secrets, and words to confess
If I lose everything that I possess
There's a chapter on loss and a ghost who won't die
There's a chapter on love where the ink's never dry
There are sentences served in a prison I built out of lies.

Though the pages are numbered
I can't see where they lead
For the end is a mystery no-one can read
In the book of my life

There's a chapter on fathers a chapter on sons
There are pages of conflicts that nobody won
And the battles you lost and your bitter defeat,
There's a page where we fail to meet

There are tales of good fortune that couldn't be planned
There's a chapter on god that I don't understand
There's a promise of Heaven and Hell but I'm damned if I see

Though the pages are numbered
I can't see where they lead
For the end is a mystery no-one can read
In the book of my life

Now the daylight's returning
And if one sentence is true
All these pages are burning
And all that's left is you

Though the pages are numbered
I can't see where they lead
For the end is a mystery no-one can read
In the book of my life

[Faith Augustin]

Epilogue

60th Zi'da 717

It had been twenty trials and finally, it was all sorted. He had been buried that same trial, but now the stone was in place. On Scalvoris, that went at the foot of the grave, the justification being that, if he should wake up and try to get out, he'd have something to hold on to. Faith looked at it and she smiled, happy that she had done the best for her friend. It was subtle, not over the top and certainly not something which screamed out to passers by, 'look at me!'. Fred would have hated that.

"You would, wouldn't you?" Faith said to him. He was there, just there by the headstone and she knew that, whilst it wasn't his ghost, he had crossed over, it was still something. She didn't know how she knew that, she just did. Knowing it that way meant that she didn't question it and so, Faith fussed around the last of the things she'd wanted to do. She'd dusted off the stone, tidied around the grass and then, kneeling there, she looked up at him. He was bright, glowing like she might soon not be able to look at him at all and Faith smiled.

"I think you're just here to make me feel better. But I'll be alright, I promise you." It seemed strange to her that she should be comforting him, reassuring him, but it was what she needed to do. "I've been thinking. A lot. About what's important and what isn't. I'm not alright, not yet." That was true and she knew it. However, there was something else she knew too. "But I will be. One trial, soon. I will be. Because of him. I am never facing it alone. Never."

The young man nodded and smiled and then moved over. When he was standing next to her, Faith stood up, heaving herself in a most ungainly fashion. Tiny and pregnant just didn't do anything for the concepts of grace or nimbleness, but there it was. Standing, looking at the face of the man she had called Fred in life, Faith realised that he was whole. No scars, two eyes, two hands. And he was smiling.

She reached out to touch his cheek and as she did he burst into light in front of her. She blinked her eyes to shield them and then, when she opened them again, there in front of her was a horse. Not like any horse she had ever seen, no this was white, bright and it, too, seemed to be almost glowing. The entire horse was white, even it's wings and Faith looked in some surprise. It pressed it's nose into her outstretched hand and she nodded. "Yes," the devout young woman said, accepting this weirdness as, simply, a gift from her friend. "Thank you. I'll show you home."

Off Topic

Mount approved via PSF due to fame.
200gn deducted from ledger for funeral costs etc

[Muse]

Your review is ready!

Well. I read it all. In one sitting. With a few tears in my eyes. And a long sigh. And some French fries. Whew. This is some kind of strange full-circle for Faith: her past crashing into the present and crushing her heart. This was, yes, heart-crushing, and yet the level of care that Faith expresses for her brother, her friend, is very tender. Ughhhh. I need a hug now.

Faith

Points

XP:
10 | These points cannot be used for magic.

Fame:
+25 Loving your brother, even in death

Loot

+1 Glowy Pegasus (I mean, duh)

Injuries + Overstepping

N/A

Knowledge

Skill Knowledge:
N/A

Other Knowledge:
N/A

If you've got a question or concern or if I've missed anything, don't hesitate to PM me!

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