to be

[Journeysend]

She made her way up the small track from the road to the gate entrance in the frigid morning light; a bleak and listless day, side stepping murky puddles, occassionally slipping on the thin film of mud that washed across the stones, steadying herself on a lean staff.
Long grass flailed wildly from the slight rise at the side where the track met the wall and, although she wore a small hooded cloak to shield herself from the obvious torrent above, there was little she could do about this foray from beneath. Her legs were getting colder and increasingly chapped as the wind raked across them, she knew she should have worn some hose.

Reaching the gate she paused to gather herself beneath the lolling sprawl of a sullen willow. One hand resting on the frame she sniffed a breath of soggy air.
What a way to begin the Eve of a New Year. But it must be this way, today. It couldn't go on. She had made up her mind not to come back next year, this was to be the last, it had to be, until things were better. A fresh start in a fresh year. At least that is what she hoped.

Mind a wandering mess and jumble she pushed forard and stepped in and followed the small gravel path that wound its way close to the main building, through beds of flowers bowed low under the weight of the deluge.
She found him around the back as usual, her feet knew the way without any guidance after 87 weeks. Her 87th time.
As she rounded the corner of the old stone work she knew he would be just off to the left facing mostly Westward, toward the large rose bushes and the cops of trees beyond the back wall. No matter how many times, she was never fully prepared for the sight.
Pulling up short a step or two behind him, incapable of taking those last few, not today, not just yet. She thought she might be unable to continue if it meant addressing that stoney countenance once more.
Fighting an urge to let her hands move across the weedy stuble that relentlessly sprung up between their meetings, mocking her with it's ability to grow, she spoke.

"Hello sweetheart." her voice caught and she looked at the floor, chin against chest, for a moment.

The lay of the trees and the bushes brought the horizon in very close she had always thought, hiding it away from the quick and the bustling world. Today, with The colour drained clouds hanging low, abnormally so, it were as if a bubble had decended upon the area for these few moments, shutting them in completely. A hush was all around her, all sound muted against the wet cushion of grass or soaking into the dripping trees, it made her voice seem loud and unnatural.

Raising her head she continued once more, wetly, in thick unwilling tones.

"I've come to say goodbye." there. It was said.

"I can't come and see you anymore. Not for a while. A long time." she rubbed her brow in agitation with her free hand, then straightend and sniffed abruptly, noisily, her manner becoming more brusque and business like.

"I've come at least once a week for nearly two years, I've tended and I've nurtured". Lips trembling and eyes squeezed tight shut. "But I can't do it anymore."

The wail escaped, there it was before them loud and bare, and she had promised herself it wouldn't happen. She cast around her, mouth opened searching for something more. With a sucking gasp of sound as a sob escaped the tears began to flow freely down wind stung cheeks.

"I can't come here and think of you, remember you as you were, as we were, of what we were going to become. Its too hard, I can't, I won't!"

Dropping hands loosely to her sides, staff forgotten, she stood alone in the rain, head tilted back, wet hair blowing across slack features of a face utterly defeated.

"I need some time to forget. To..." she struggled with the words. "Not to forget you! Never forget, but..."

Confused silence.

Almost pleading. "I need to forget so I can be me again. Its been so long that I don't even know who that is right now. But all the time I'm coming here thats never going to change. Seeing you like this, reminding myself over and over..." she trailed off once more.

Walking quickly around her face screwed up as she gazed at where he lay.

"I still love you." the last sylable dragged out pitifully.

She sank slowly to her knees and rested a cheek against the cold surface and wept freely, body shaking.

After a time it stopped raining and thin rays of moistend light peaked from between the grey as if embarrassed at their intrusion, but still she knelt on muddy knees, draped across one side of the head stone.

"I always will."

Eventually she rose to her feet, she could feel the coolness of the rain and the burrowing cold of the wind ease under the warmth of sunlight.

"Goodbye."

Slivers of morning sun, gaining in strength, bathed the cemetry from between the heavy boughs of the willow tree. One came to rest upon a faint figure, no more than an outline, watching her depart. Smiling it offered a slow wave as it gradually disappeared leaving nothing but a whisper amongst the sway of grass.

"I love you too beautiful."

[Grayle]

After a time it stopped raining and thin rays of moistend light peaked from between the grey as if embarrassed at their intrusion, but still she knelt on muddy knees, draped across one side of the head stone.

Wow, what great technique. In addition to having one of the coolest names ever to grace the Dasarian campaign.

"Journeyman of the Dark Lyric"

Please write more.

[Journeysend]

"Lochwar take me. Lochwar guide me. Lochwar..."

she could almost see the figure of her husband knealing before the icons nailed across the South wall, could hear his whispered mutter echo across the bare planks and screwed her eyes tight against the flood. Enough tears had been shed this day, enough anguish, her emotion had a new master that kept it under lock and key, down deep in the dark places. The distress had been huge, almost too much to bare, but there was nothing left to hurt.

In the gloom of early evening shadow she sat in the bare room and could think nothing more. The previous months had been about thought, today had been of action and, at the climax, there was no more course, she already knew what would follow.

A sack sat at her feet bearing some clothing and coin, a few days rations; enough to reach Caer. Next to it, shaft leaning against her thigh, rested his hammer; dormant for now.

There had always been a purpous that led, there had always been a guide, now it was only herself. Decisions she must make; had made, action she must undertake. Nobody was left to do anything for her, at first a daunting prospect, but resolution had been hard won and burned a sullen hole inside.

She had prepared the house before leaving that morning and now everything was ready, with no ceremony she slung the pack and hefted the hammer. Stooping in to the fireplace and removing a brand with smouldering end she touched it to the pitch smeared walls and watched as small flame danced to life, gaining size and momentum, until the intensity of its resolve forced a retreat out of the door.

Her life was no more. What had once been was gone with no return; stolen. But as flames raged higher along the South wall, licking the gauntlet, the grasping, siezing fist, scorching the red mounting black, she could feel herself being released.

Abruptly twisting on her heal she strode away to the crack and snap of tortured beam. Walking past the paddock with its long grass throwing shadow in the firelight, she remembered a time of running through it, could hear her own squeals of glee under his champing verility. She allowed that to be the image, that would be her return. Once things were done.

[Evelond Formos]

After a time it stopped raining and thin rays of moistend light peaked from between the grey as if embarrassed at their intrusion, but still she knelt on muddy knees, draped across one side of the head stone.

Wow, what great technique. In addition to having one of the coolest names ever to grace the Dasarian campaign.

"Journeyman of the Dark Lyric"

Please write more.

Wasn't there someone like that in Das 1?

[Journeysend]

Little Monkey Man wrote:

Wasn't there someone like that in Das 1?

yes. me.
Journeyman is gone. Buried with his tamborine inserted up his...

[Journeysend]

To know that which you are and to live it to the full measure of its worth, until the bitter sap run dry. To exist in the most visceral form pulsing and sweating from a beginning to an end. Purpose, without thought or reason from its birth to the here after...

She could see him there, as the flames touched lightly across skin pinking in the heat. She could see the pain as they held her, twisting and crying out, in front to watch. The memory of that stuck to her but it was always the sound of his voice that accompanied the images, from a less desperate time, the rhythmic chant as he knelt calmly before the South wall of their home in prayer. No matter how she tried she could not shut that out.

He had ended; before her helpless self, in agony, he had ceased. Surrounded by those he had known. Surrounded by his friends, by his flock, that bayed for his blood through days of torture and eventual ruin and she had been forced to watch every moment. He had pleaded to his God, for strength at first, then for mercy and eventually to take him into the arms he had defended with unfaltering, life long commitment, but Lochwar had not listened.

And she beheld mighty Lochwar's children run amuck, on trotters with their weeping snouts snuffling each other's behinds in sycophantic fervour, piggy eyes red and wild with malice and glee. It sickened her to the core.

She knew not why the lies had come one day upon them, but come they had with the whisper or heresy. Within weeks the congregation had turned sour, their suspicion no more than that, and word had been sent to the temple in the larger town away from their village. Somebody had arrived to investigate. Someone came to see and it was with relief they had been welcomed, with foolish thoughts that all would be well again. With farcical swiftness, shocking for its unashamed blatancy, a matter of days later it was over.

When it was done they left her in front of the gruesome roast and went away. Eventually the rope that bound his body to the stake gave out and he slumped down into the embers before her. From then on a blur, activity, she had to act quickly for they would certainly return by morning. With the stench in her nose as she bore him on to the only place she could think of: to a friend, a friend still, at the church of Peralia some miles from the village. There amongst the grateful he was allowed rest.

That was then, the rawness, the bewilderment, had now ebbed and gone and in its place a far greater motivation had germinated.

"I offer you my final prayer." Her step was strong along the track through the night time trees. "Know that it is I who foresake thee now." She slammed her fist into her chest and fumbled at a thin chain around her neck pulling forth a small stone. "And when the time comes, know that it is I who brings you your gift of retribution."

As her words faded she slowly kissed the stone and let it fall back down gently into her tunic, safely out of sight. "I thank you for giving me a reason to be."