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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Apr 9, 2024 17:51:32 GMT -5
The gentlest of breezes washes the tall grass in waves of glimmering golden as they ripple between the two warriors. Were it not for the dying brays of the Wyldmare, the silence between Askr and Astrid would be almost peaceful. Instead, there is tension. A string of words pulled taut and waiting for release with Askr’s tongue the mechanism locked up and refusing to fire them. Finally, they come out, rattling like the arms of the bow upon release, trying to find their steady state once more – their normal curvature that feels natural despite having been shaped and molded by outside forces to be that way.
Astrid stands there, waves of gold tickling the fabric of her pants, trying to distract her from the intensity of the moment. Her gaze is unwavering, and yet it is sympathetic. She has been here before, in Askr’s shoes, struggling to find the right words to say what is in her heart. Overcoming the mountain that is Grief cannot be accomplished alone, and she wonders… Has Askr been on this journey without support? Is he like Zarius’ family, left behind without answers, without the whole truth? Is he left lost and wandering like she once was in the streets of Sky Peak?
The lump in her throat is hard to swallow. So few people know anything about Zarius and even fewer know about his death. The only ones who do are close to him or his family, trusted with information that could put them all in danger. Astrid hasn’t even told Cantio about it, but she knows Cantio suspects something – No, he knows something. She just can’t tell him. So if Askr knows then…
As effortlessly as Astrid wields her war hammer, it slips from her grasp and lands heavily in the field. Her eyes finally pull away from Askr to look down at her feet, and she spots the smaller, silvered battle hammer hanging neatly from her belt. She reaches down to hold it, turning it over in her hands. The sun catches each dent in its surface, each scratch covered with some effort to polish it. The leather around the shaft is worn but not weary. This hammer is well-loved.
Thinking about the day she got it, the day that she met Zarius and Cantio and Veliky, three people that she treasures, brings tears to her eyes. Zarius bought her this hammer, and then afterward, he took her on her first adventure. The leather of Astrid’s gauntlets creak as she flexes her fingers around the haft remembering that day and how it changed her life for the better. Clearly, Zarius had that effect on others too.
“Yeah,” Astrid finally says with a voice full of understanding, but the sound is crinkled, marred by sadness. “I did… I do… An’ I… I can’t say I didn’t, ‘cause I’d rather know than not.” As tears well up in her eyes, Astrid tries to push them down. But there’s been so much of that. So much pretending that things are fine when they’re not. They’re not fine, and they’re not going to be fine.
Astrid’s grip on the hammer tightens as she wrings it between both of her hands and tears finally spill over. “Th-That don’t mean I don’t wish we could get him back somehow,” she says.
Zarius said himself that she should live in the moment and accept things for what they are. But why should she? Why should anyone? Why should they sit back and let things be as they are? If she did that her whole life, then she wouldn’t be where she is today. She’d still be sitting in the streets, always wondering, never knowing, always confident in something that’s never going to happen no matter what she told herself.
No, the only change is the change that you make for yourself. Sometimes you need someone else to nudge you in that direction. Sometimes you need to be unafraid of failure because the only failure is not trying in the first place. It’s sitting back and hoping that things get better without actually doing anything to make it so.
But what can she do…? Her hammer can build and it can battle, but it can’t revive someone from the dead. So at the end of it all, the only thing left to do is accept what the fates have decided, and the only person whose fate you can change is you.
Finally, Astrid tries to pull herself together, freeing one hand to wipe the tears from her face. “S-Sorry. I… I’m sure yer hurtin’ too. Lots a’ folks are. He was…real important ta a lot a’ people.”
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Post by Askr Mimameith on Apr 9, 2024 18:52:02 GMT -5
So she does know.
It is and isn’t surprising. Askr is well aware that what happened to Zarius is supposed to be a secret, that the world at large isn’t meant to know that he’s gone, that no matter how unbearable the ache in his false heart becomes, he must continue to let it fester in private. Only a handful of people were supposed to know– only the people closest to him, to his family, the kinds of people who either deserved to know or would find out one way or another anyway. Though he’s never met Astrid Stormstone until today, though he’s not sure he’s even heard her name spoken in his presence, he can tell so easily that she must have meant something to Zarius, too.
They couldn’t be more different as people. Zarius i– was all sharp edges and mystery, his face designed to tell you nothing about what was going through his head, all his words wise and well-planned and warm in the strangest sort of way. Astrid is ball lightning, all wild whims and open doors, a face full of freckles and fists full of fury, bright and strange and unabashed. And yet, Askr can see his ghost in the way she fights, in the stances she takes– can find some semblance of what’s long gone in the playfulness of her quips, the moments of snarkiness. They’re not a thing alike, and yet, Zarius’s influence sits so plainly on Astrid’s shoulders, whether she realizes it or not.
It aches a little, to see his influence outlive him. To see the mosaics made with his pieces when the original is nothing but dust. And yet, as much as it makes Askr’s whole body ache with that strange and nameless feeling, as much as it stirs up a storm of something he still can’t name somewhere in his ribs, he knows better than to open himself up and let it all loose.
He doesn’t know if he could piece himself back together.
“...I thought so,” he whispers carefully, trying with all the strength he has not to let his voice shake, to preserve that monotone that usually comes to him so effortlessly. “You… remind me of him. You do and you don’t. You’re– I don’t– I cannot explain.”
Askr swallows, trying to banish the tightness from his throat. It hurts to try, hurts to let it sit– there is no winning. A fixed game. One he can only lose, but one he will put off the inevitable for as long as he can. He knows what it leads to, and that had felt like hell– the ‘crying.’ The fragility, the loss of control, the inability to hold himself together long enough to demand an answer. He will not do it again. He cannot, and so he will do anything to ensure he doesn’t.
And so he turns his thoughts elsewhere.
“...get him back,” he muses quietly, the words a mere whisper. “Get him back…”
The thought isn’t enough to coax away the pain in his chest, the tightness in his throat, but it does give him pause. Resurrection, defiance of the cycle of life, making something long-gone anew; they’re concepts he’s intimately familiar with. Such had been his “mother”’s goal when she set to his creation– such had been her goal when she’d set to years upon years of research and experimentation, years of trying to find a way to bring back her actual child, all of it culminating in… a husk. A failure. Askr.
Any consideration he’d had over bringing it up dies in his throat. He shouldn’t bring up methods that are proven not to work.
Instead, he stands still, staring at the earth beneath his feet, only partially capable of watching Astrid out of the corner of his eye as she holds something silver in her hands, as she wipes the dreaded tears away from her face, as she starts to speak again– speaks of Zarius’s importance, of how much he meant to the world and the people in it, how… how much it must hurt him, too, not to have him here anymore. It’s enough to make Askr pause.
He thinks of scorched trees and earth and searing pain against his throat, of a brutal touch gentling, of the warmth of a cloak and the sweet taste of milk, of warm walls and dim light and a place he could call his, of the click of dominoes and the sway of the sea, of moonlit waters and the echo of laughter all around, the passage of seashells from one hand into the next, the sweetness of candied fruit and the warmth of the sun and of Zarius’s hand in his, and–
And he thinks of how nearly all he has left of Zarius is memory, and he’ll never make a new one again.
“...he was,” he ultimately echoes, voice strained, soft. “He was the most important person in the world. Him and Mr. Caedes and Nyr and–”
A breath, aching.
“But he’s gone. And I’m still… here.”
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Apr 9, 2024 19:30:27 GMT -5
For a moment, Astrid isn’t sure what to make of Askr’s words. She reminds him of Zarius? How? Why? The scrappy half-dwarf doesn’t think for a moment that she’s anything like the secretive fellblood. Is it in the way they fight? Well, that is what Askr mentioned before, when she used a move that she and Zarius both learned in the halls of the Fighter’s Guild. But how could they be the same when they couldn’t be anymore different?
Zarius is composed, calculated, cautious, sometimes even callous whether he means to be or not. But… he is also caring, courageous, compassionate, and charming in his own way. His influence on Astrid helped shape her into the person she is today. His love for his family is evident in just the few interactions she’s seen him have with them, and clearly, he has developed a circle of people who love him so deeply that they are all in great pain with his loss. As much as it hurts that he’s gone, isn’t that something worth leaving behind? To be so adored and celebrated, to have people miss you?
Being forgotten is a fate worse than death, isn’t it?
The thought ultimately makes Astrid’s tears spill over.
While wiping them away, trying to put on the same brave face she’s been mustering for weeks, Astrid looks at Askr and sees the strain on his face, trying to push the sadness down, to avoid feeling it because damming your emotions up must be the right thing to do right? Pushing them back and keeping the facade from cracking makes you strong. Don’t let the stone crack. Don’t let it erode.
But Askr is named for a tree – or at least Astrid thinks as much. Trees are a part of nature. They can grow from a seed lodged in the smallest, most unlikely of places, and they can shatter stone and take over structures. They can twist and wind and morph to reach the sunlight they need to grow. Trees, unlike stone, are malleable without heat and pressure. All they need is a little bit of care. And it seems that Zarius was a person like that for Askr.
“Aye, yer still here,” Astrid repeats, the solemn notes leaving her voice in favor of a reassuring wind. “Ya don’t have ta be. Ya could choose ta lay down an’ just let life keep trouncin’ over ya. But yer here. Yer tryin’. An’... ya don’t have ta pretend it’s okay. ‘Cause it ain’t. An’ it hurts. An’ that’s alright because that hurt means that yer alive ta still feel it.” Taking a deep breath, Astrid swallows the lump in her throat.
Her eyes drift down to the hammer in her hands, and she turns it over slowly while she continues. “Zarius… made a lot a’ choices that did a lot a’ stuff fer other folks. He chose ta show me some real kindness. He chose ta help folks. An’ he chose… ta go out on his terms so he wouldn’t hurt no one else. The worst thin’ either a’ us could do is ta throw that away an’ give up bein’ happy. Maybe it’ll take a while fer us ta feel like we can be again, but the fact that we’re tryin’ is all that really matters. Zarius helped me get into a spot where I could choose who I wanna be an’ what I wanna do. I choose ta keep doin’ right by people. I choose ta do stuff in his memory an’ try ta make him proud.”
Astrid looks at Askr. “I’m sure he’d be proud a’ you fer choosin’ ta keep goin’ too.”
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Post by Askr Mimameith on May 18, 2024 16:08:25 GMT -5
The wind is loud.
It washes over them both in gentle swathes, bitterly cold even through the filter of sunlight, all the warmth of the world long since gone. Even through the protective layers of Askr’s clothing, through wool and cotton and linen, the chill bites at him, through him, making a home in the cavities between his bones, the very skin-deep cold he’s grown to expect from his ventures out into the Frost Gale. He wonders for a moment if somehow, by some terrible miracle, the weather has gone and changed from the warm winds of the plains to the blizzards of the north and he’s simply yet to notice, but the light hangs gold above him, and no snow falls against his shoulders.
It makes very little sense, how reality and feeling can be so very different. Askr has come to expect it all the same, though– come to know that the world has no patience for the laws it set in place, that the body abides by no monarch. The world doesn’t make any sense at all. That’s why monsters wear human faces and people cut from violent cloth can be so kind, why tiny girls can wield big hammers and have even bigger hearts, why foolish constructs can watch and wait for a mother that couldn’t love them, and why someone who fought so very hard for everything he had can die in an instant.
The world is kind and cruel and cold and beautiful and so, so illogical, and Askr still cannot decide if he hates it or not.
(He does wish, sometimes, that he’d stayed where he was.
Maybe things would have been different.)
“...going on is the only option,” he whispers, voice still shaky, as softly and quietly as he’s speaking. And it’s true– what else is there left to do, now? There’s no point in rotting, no point in revenge, no point in any of it; the only way left is forward, even if he’s dragging himself along through and toward inanity. “There’s nothing else to do.”
Despite the definitive way he speaks, the quiet assertiveness of it, Askr cannot help but curl inward, arms rising to wrap around himself in some attempt at holding himself together. It doesn’t do a thing to assuage the chill, doesn’t do a thing to ease the growing hollowness flowering in his chest. All it does is make hot tears spring to life in his eyes, and leave him helpless to stop any of it as they finally start spilling down his cheeks.
“...I don’t want him to be proud of me,” he only barely whispers, voice cracking, broken, a mere mimicry of his usual monotone. “I want him to– to be here–”
A small, shuddering gasp– a gloved arm rising to furiously rub at damp lashes.
“...I… I just want the world to– to give him back.”
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on May 18, 2024 22:38:42 GMT -5
Astrid knows of the world’s harsh cold. The chilled breaths that winter sent through the mountains each year always reminded her that yet another year passed since being left alone. But if she were to always focus on the frost threatening her fingers and toes, then maybe she would have given in to them. Where would that put her now? Surely not where she is now, and surely not here without the help of the very person that she and Askr now mourn.
So when his broken voice admits what they both want, Astrid struggles to hold back her tears. “I… I know…” she says, collapsing onto her knees to sit beside him where they can bask in their sorrow together. “I do too… I wish it weren’t like this. I wish I could take everyone’s hurt an’ bundle it up an’ toss it aside… But I dunno what ta do, so we just… gotta keep pushin’ forward.”
But she doesn't know where to start or how to start it. She's seen people revived from the dead before, but there was still something left of them to revive, and it was soon after they died. With Zarius, there's simply... nothing... So what could they possibly do? She doesn't know. She doesn't know...
Hesitantly, Astrid raises a hand and gently sets it against Askr's back, trying to be a comforting presence without invading his space. "If... If ya ever hear a' somethin' ta do ta fix it, I'm happy ta help. Even if it seems kinda crazy... I don't care. He's one a' the first people ta really care about me, an' I want him back too."
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