Tag: emberfall

emberfallen:

“You are going to live. Breathe deeply, and relax.”

Despite the lingering bitterness of Thanelor’s potion on her
tongue, pain eclipsed her awareness of self in the seconds that followed as the
mender removed the dryad’s spear that had pierced her gut. Black spots swarmed her
vision and–

Lie still, little
ember; no harm will befall you here.

Losing consciousness was pleasant if only because she beheld
Caliastrasza’s fleeting gaze behind her eyes. She almost regretted coming to
before she could feel its sunny warmth.

Remember,
scale-daughter, that life is a circle. Its balance must always be upheld, or
the rest of the world will crumble. For what is life without death?

That question of balance Avada always found difficult to
uphold. The actions she’d been forced to take weighed more heavily upon her
than the sedative that seemed to press her limbs into the bed. Yet as
Felo’thore, and then Xenus, fell to the druids before her, the question became
nonexistent. Perhaps there was never a question at all.

“I t-tried to reason with th-them,” she insisted mostly to
herself as the priest knit her wounds back together. “They thought we would hurt
them like the L-lllegion. They’d gone m-mad.” Tears pricked her eyes as a
sudden fear did her heart. Shock and blood loss slurred her words and clenched
her jaw. “W-where are Felo’thore and M-miss Everdusk? I have to see them,” she rasped
quietly, struggling to lift her head against the weight of the sedative. “I
have to tell them I’m sorry.”

Thanelor barely glanced away from his work, still focusing on
mending the hole in her belly. “Just relax. The best thing you can do for
yourself, and by extension your friends, is to recover.”

She grew quiet, her sluggish brain recognizing how exhausted
she was even beyond the medication.

When she’d later been left alone with strict instructions to
sleep, Avada wept. She wept for her friends and for the druids she’d killed.
She wept because

what was life without death?

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@brothersemberfell @sakialyn for mentions, though I dunno if Thanelor has a blog!