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Dust to Dust
Posted: 14 Feb 2006 12:34 PM |
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The letter of return was crumpled into a ball by a white-knuckled fist, hidden in the robes which covered her silvery armor. The ship had set her on the docks not an hour earlier, not of Midor, but into a surreal nightmare of some dark bard's imagining. The crowd murdered freely, without trial, without cause, at the hands of a demon who wore the Bishop's skin.
Any sense of horror was muted by shock. She stood numbly, jostled back and forth by the cheering masses. Rosen's eyes were fixed on the living pyre, screaming and smoking. Madness.
The demon-Bishop was speaking again. The words from his lips were difficult to grasp, as though distorted by water, but she willed herself to listen. More traitors, more heretics, he said. The order. Her order. Her hand, slick with a cold sweat, trailed up to the discreetly woven symbol of Midoran. It, too, was grasped with a fevered tenacity. It was the grip of a child fearful of abandonment, loving and raging. Her eyes found their way toward Vidus, who indicated struggling paladins in the crowd with a sweeping gesture, then murmured something inaudible to the High Paladin.
Her mouth was dry, mind empty. With quiet detachment, she mulled over her years of training and instruction for... justification. She came up lacking. There was none; this was impossible; this strange, barbaric city was not Midor, the people around her not its citizenry.
And if it was not Midor, then she had been sent to the wrong port. And if that was the case, it was best to leave, at least until she could pray to Midoran for guidance. Mostly unnoticed, the simply garbed figure navigated through the throng toward the gates. The silent stream flowing from her eyes was hidden from the Righteous guards by her hood, from her own mind by what was a thankfully addled mind. A small blessing, perhaps, from True Light. |
True solace is finding none, which is to say, it is everywhere.
-Gretel Ehrlich |
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