Runelords 25.2 - Rededicate

Luna had been quiet from the moment the lamia, Lucretia, had taken her leave. She hadn’t spoken as they had moved forwards, locking Cavan in a holding cell and leaving the blinded Virgil in the room with him, proceeding to murder all of the remaining ogres one by one, freeing the fort for the Black Arrows once more. 
When her and Foxglove returned to their inn room that night, she was still quiet. She stood dispassionately after taking off her gear and storing it fastidiously in its place. Virgil had repaired her clothes, managing to still cast simplistic spells like Mending and Prestidigitation despite his blindness, but they had run out of magical healing a long time ago; her shirt covered the myriad of wounds and cuts she had sustained from the ogres, none of which bled and only served to accentuate her strangeness. She sighed and looked at the floor, looking blank. Aldern walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, “Are you ok?”
She closed her eyes and forced a sigh, “No. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I should do, or what I even can do.” She sighed again miserably, “What are we supposed to do?”
He frowned slightly in empathy before hazarding a small smile of encouragement, “Well...we’re going to go back to the fort tomorrow, and figure out a plan.” Her mood was not brightened any, and she sighed; he continued, “We’ll figure something out, you’ll see.” She sighed again, and he moved her gently to rest on the bed, sitting beside her and still smiling with encouragement.
Luna was still disheartened. She sat quietly for a while, staring away while Aldern looked at her with gentle concern, until she spoke again, “Nothing we did even had a point!” The frustration in her voice mounted with each sentiment, building in her voice as she declared, “We thought we stopped the woman in Medinipur, but we...we just inconvenienced her! She disappeared and we let her go and just let her keep doing what she was doing! Maybe she’s been killing people this whole time! We’re going to go back to Medinipur and find out that we didn’t help anything at all! Now this other lamia got away, and Sandpoint is under attack again, and nothing is better anywhere! What’s the point?!” She folded up on herself, leaning on her elbows, “Everywhere I go is just death and suffering and murder and I can’t stop any of it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, “I should never have left home…”
Sighing softly, Aldern hung his head before reaching over to place his hand on her knee. “You have helped, even if things are still happening. You’re never going to stop every bad thing, but, we stopped the flood. We stopped the ogres. We warned the mayor. ...And you helped me.” He gave her knee a gentle squeeze, “If you hadn’t left home, we wouldn’t have met. I think that was worth it, wasn’t it?”
With another sigh and a pause, she shook her head, “...Yeah…”
He looked at her patiently, before asking, “Do you want to go on a walk? It’s not raining very hard right now…”
She shook her head, “No. I...just don’t like being out when I’m hurt. I worry people will notice. I think the Arrows did…” Sighing and shaking her head once more, she turned to look up at him, “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he said, quickly and brightly.
A ghost of a grin flickered over her lips, “I meant, are you hurt still?” She looked back down, “I’m sorry I can’t make any more infusions today. I’m not a very good alchemist…” She sighed, “We really need a better alchemist now…”
“Stop that…” he said, frowning fully now. “No one is the best at everything, and you’re amazing at what you do. Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
Nodding slowly with a touch of shame, she asked again, “...Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” he asserted, but when she kept staring at him, he acquiesced, “I’m a bit injured, but I’ll be fine until morning.”
“I’m sorry…” she said. “...Can I see?” He looked away with discomfort. “Please? I...just want to see how you are...” He slumped slightly, still turned away from her, but he didn’t resist when she pulled the small, enchanted turban off his head, dispelling the illusion that kept him looking alive. Luna had long ago allowed him to just keep the hat, and he had worn it consistently since then, never taking it off even when they were intimate, though in those cases he tweaked the illusion. When she took it off, he closed his eyes and withered slightly under her gaze, his rotted complexion a source of personal embarrassment and revulsion. It also revealed the grievous wounds he had sustained from the ogres; unlike Luna, he had engaged them head-on, showing deadly accuracy with a rapier, but had taken much more aggression in turn. Virgil had cast his tailoring spells on him as well, so his clothes showed no damage or wear, but without spells to mend his flesh, ichorous, stinking fluid had leeched out of the numerous deep gashes and holes in his chest, arms and legs, staining his clothes again and marking where he had been wounded. Luna frowned sadly, lightly moving her hand over the stains and feeling the wounds beneath the cloth. “I’m sorry…” she said quietly, and he pursed his lips with discomfort. “I’ll make more as soon as I can. I don’t like making you wait.”
“I’m fine. Really,” he said, trying not to let his voice sound terse. “It’s...not like it hurts.”
She looked up at him again; it had been a while since she had seen him without the illusion, and not since they had started courting. Unlike Luna, his undead complexion could not be hidden and minimized with make-up: his skin was a mottled, unnatural colour and was marked with blisters and open sores. Much of his hair had fallen out as well, and he looked sunken and sallow in both face and body. His shame was clear, and she looked at him sadly. Pulling her scarf down and leaning up, she kissed him lightly on the cheek and handed him back the turban. “I’m sorry for prying,” she said quietly.
“It’s ok. I know it’s out of concern,” he said affectionately, though it was with no small relief that he put the hat back on, restoring the illusion of health and life. “We’ll both be fine come morning.”
She leaned up against his side and took his hand in hers. He gave it a squeeze and looked over to her, though she didn’t return his gaze as she sat thoughtfully. She began to run her fingers over the edges of his claws idly. He didn’t move to pull his hand away at this, but he shifted his weight slightly and crossed his other arm across his body, signalling his discomfort. Luna glanced over at him questioningly, but he said nothing immediately. Looking away again, she continued to play with the long, deadly nails that grew from his fingertips, made invisible by the turban’s illusion. She muttered, “I’m sorry. Is it uncomfortable?”
“No, no. It’s fine!” he said, perhaps a bit too quickly. His body language suggested no change at all in his comfort, but he added, “I enjoy holding your hand.”
Smiling slightly, she said, “It’s...I don’t know. I just…” She had a tiny grin of wistful embarrassment, and said quietly, “Way back when, we’d...well, we’d give ourselves claws or tails or fins or fur. All sorts of things. Just because we could, because we were alchemists. Because it was fun. Different. It was...sexy.” She ran the tip of her finger along the edge of his index claw, then pulled back and curled her fingers over his hand. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I know you don’t like it.”
He looked at her curiously for a minute, then smiled, “Well, if you like it in that way…” He leaned over and ran his nose and chin through her hair, inhaling deeply and whispering, “I can keep them for tonight…”
She giggled, “Well, you probably were going to anyway. Seems silly to cut them off now, and then again tomorrow morning when we heal.” Aldern sighed heavily at her obliviousness, and she chuckled. Her smile faded as she fell back to her thoughts, and after a comfortably quiet moment she said, “What do we do? What...do I do? I...don’t really think I’m that helpful. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t like fighting and I don’t like danger and I don’t...like how everything is so terrible all the time. I...I just can’t. I can’t deal with it. I wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for Virgil dragging me to Sandpoint, and after that, I’m only here because...I don’t know.” She considered and said, “Because I thought I was helping, I guess. Or because you’re here. Or because...maybe because I have to be. Maybe now I have to be here even more, if there’s even going to be a tiny hope of changing anything. But…” she paused thoughtfully, unhappily, “maybe there’s no end to this. Maybe everything just is terrible everywhere, and I never noticed before because I never looked. Everything is monsters and warlords and plots and horror. This is just how everything is, and trying to stop it is pointless. And I should just go back to Columbia and never look.”
Aldern placed his other hand on hers, looking at her intently. “I really don’t believe you’re the sort to put blinders on and ignore something like this. You care too much, and you’d never be happy just letting this happen, allowing these monsters to march up and down the country. Yes, there have been a lot of terrible things lately, but you can’t possibly believe that everything is bad all of the time. So much of life is good! Nothing is ever completely hopeless...and even if someone thinks it is, they just might need someone else’s help to see it’s not.” He gave her hand a squeeze, stressing the personal meaning of that statement. He exhaled, “If people don’t try to stop things from getting worse when they go wrong, then everything will be awful, for everyone. But I don’t think the world is like that. I think it’s safe to say the others are willing to try and stop these monsters and their master, and I will help in any way I can. I also know we all will agree that we need your help too.” He ran a finger along her cheek and smiled, “You are an intelligent woman, with skills and abilities none of us can match. I know you’re kind; I know you care. And I think you have the courage too.”
Luna brought her hand up to her face to hold Aldern’s hand, obviously thinking about his words. Eventually she sighed, “...You’re right…” With a groan of mock frustration, she shoved her face into his shoulder. “Caring is stupid.”
He looked at her with a scolding smile, “You don’t mean that.”
Grinning wryly into his shirt, she said, “No, I don’t...but it totally is.” He shook his head at her silliness and smiled as she hugged him about the waist, hiding her face in his chest.
Category:Rise of the Runelords