Evensong X: Goodbye

[Killthorne]

Tendays had passed and I had met Butterfly here in the Mouth of Song. Still unsure of her own strengths, still blindly obsessed with the one she calls her Heart, my former lover Sheyreiza, I tried to help her see what was destroying her slowly. No matter how much my words revealed truths to her, she seemed still despondent to acknowledging it. I wanted to keep her there, but I knew that would have made me no better than a slaver. One night passed, and she was gone again. I tried not to worry but revelations of what the heart and mind were capable of in my new skin tugged at the back of my daily thoughts.

I began acclimating myself to my new home, and in the process, the meeting of a surface elf by the name of Lunden. Lunden, to me, was inspiration for much of my newer reflections on my purpose, on my potential. And the night Butterfly listened to me, he arrived shortly thereafter to reaffirm my own resignations to letting her choose her own path. His lessons in fighting and self-drive fueled me further but it was a matter of practice and focus.

One night, after meeting Tsabrak, another resident of the Mouth of Song, I walked the woods in silence, scouting like I did back in the caverns and tunnels of Below, making sure the lands around the Mouth of Song were clear of threats. The night air was brisk and cold, the sounds of the forest limited to the distant, constant howling of wolves, and there was naught that stirred. I returned after an hour or so, content in my finding of nothing, and found Butterfly at the base of the hill leading up. I was glad to see her again, and a helpless smile stretched across my lips.

" Butterfly?" I stated in Espruar, my surprise and happiness of seeing her noticeable. " How are you this morning?"

She turned her head and smiled. " Gryn.. nau... Orthea'xiad. I am fine." She sighed ever so softly. " New armor?" She questioned in the same tongue as I was using, as her eyes scanned the deerskin leathers I had the ladysmith craft while I still was in the Promenade, for travelling less so conspicuously as looking like a drow.

Grinning, I replied abit excitedly, nearly interrupting her last question. " You can call me either or.." I looked down at myself and the armor I wore," uh.. not really. This was made back in the Promenade for me." My eyes carried themselves back to her.

" It looks good on you." Strange conversation this was starting out as, I thought to myself. I took notice of her new attire and commented the same.

" A new outfit?" I inquired curiously, patiently hoping to see to the bottom of this sudden change in Butterfly's mood.

She looked down at herself with a plain look. " In a way, yes. I came to tell you that I'll be gone for awhile." She looked back up to me, still plain-faced.

My brow creased with worry. " Oh? Why is that?"

" I have to go on a journey." Her words were cold as the air around me. Hollow to me, and seeping past my skin to my heart.

" To where?" I asked politely.

" It is needed," she avoided my question, digging into a pouch at her hip, " where is not important."

"Yes." I replied with a tiny spark of defiance. " It is to me." I nodded to her my concern, my need to know.

Her eyes glanced to me, and then to the side, and then she whispered, " You don't want to know."

I sighed softly, and my mind began going over the possibilities. I knew her son was somewhere, and that she wanted to see him again. One of two possible places that she would go looking for him slipped by my lips in question. " Lonelywood?"

She shrugged, and I felt as if I were being shrugged off more than my question. My eyes burned at her with discernment. She stepped towards me and held out her hand, closed around an object.

" I need to give this to you." She spoke softly.

" You are going alone?" I kept on with my confusion and inquiry, and then glanced down at her open palm. It was her amulet of Eilistraee, much like the one Sheyreiza wore.

" Nau. I will be with others." Her words chilled my insides, and I frowned. Anger and then sadness passed over my expression as I looked upon her. She was giving up. She was choosing the path of the Spider Queen. She was treading down a road of darkness. " It's not needed by me."

" It is.." I swallowed hard at the lump at the base of my throat. " You have no idea."

" Please, take it and put it to good use." She asked of me, still calm and seemingly void of the emotions I was experiencing. I shook my head at her.

" I cannot."

" I cannot take it." She affirmed. " And I cannot hold it."

I swallowed another lump in my throat and she pressed it into my hands. A flare of anger broke the icy chill that was clawing at my heart. I grit my teeth in protest.

She whispered again, " I wish things had gone different--" I looked away from her, my anger and disappointment rising.

" I am sorry." I said to her as she continued her explanation that fell dead on my ears.

" -- that the paths lead to other places." Her voice futile against my thoughts, in the attempt to have me resign so easily.

" I am sorry you feel this way." I looked away still, interrupting her. In the corner of my eye, she nodded to me, her eyes becoming glossy with wetness.

" So am I." She touched my shoulder and tried further to get through but my anger was already there. " Gryndal. Please... remember who I was and sing for that Inthara." No! I screamed inside myself at her. My eyes narrowed as I still looked away from her. I could not look at her. I could not bear the thought of losing her to the Spider Queen. All of my past conversations with her had not made any mark on her.. and I felt the fool now.

Her eyes glistened with heavier amounts of tears now, and I turned to her, my voice became rigid at the feelings of anger and loss inside me. I would not let her walk away from me and her soul without knowing my discontent and the truth.

" It does not matter." I snapped at her. " What matters is now! What you plan."

" If one person remembers who I was, it will matter." She again, shrugged all of my words, all of my feelings off ignorantly. " My path is set and the strand spun." The mention of the absolute and excuses of the spider's tool infuriated me. You give up that easy? I snarled in my mind at the one I called friend before me.

" You can cut that strand at anytime." I looked at her firm, as she glanced up the hill and back down at me, tears rolling down her cheek. " If you desire that bitch, then so be it. She cares nothing for her people. Only turmoil. Chaos. Conflict."

" I will not be coming here again. Please, remember me as I was." She again threw my words away without thought. I could not hide my anger, nor stand to be ignored any longer.

" I will not." I spat and turned heel on her, and went up the hill. Sadly, I hoped that she would follow me, but those hopes were miniscule at best. She had chosen her Heart and decided to follow her Heart's path into the webs of deceit and evil. I could not stop her.

Confusion as to why one would follow a goddess such as Lolth, why a friend would ignore the warnings, the advice, the care and choose such, went wild over my mind. I was hurt, for the first time in a long time, but it felt strangely a deeper cut to my core, being of this new soul and skin.

" I just do not understand." I spoke aloud to the brightening sky that revealed morning was near. My knees became weak and I sat on the edge of a bluff overlooking the Moonwoods.

" Is it really so hard to believe?" A familiar voice caught my attention and I looked over to see Lunden, standing there. " She chose the darkness." So hard to believe? No, not hard to believe. Hard to let go of my friend, and let her foolishly give her soul up to the Abyss, I wanted to say, but my thoughts were jumbled.

" I tried." I spoke, frowning at the surface elf as he walked up to me. " I tried so hard to show her... difference."

" I know." He replied sympathetically, placing a hand on my shoulder." Sometimes that is not enough, my young friend."

I sighed heavily, my sadness overcoming the anger that filled my heart. " She does not deserve this. She has kindness to her."

" No one deserves her fate." Lunden affirmed.

" This is just wrong." I shook my head. I wanted to disbelieve everything that had just happened. I wanted Butterfly to choose the right path, and not fall headlong into a love that was damning her soul.

" She will have to do some terrible thing to regain Lolth's favor," Lunden spoke on realistically, assumedly to quell my illusions of disbelief, " And when she does, it will destroy all the kindness in her." I nodded knowingly, the reasons for me not remembering her for the way she was despite her pleas, was knowing that she could very well end up being an enemy I must face. I would not fall prey to past reminiscience of a former personality and kind soul I once knew. " It is wrong, but it is her choice to make."

The light of morning rose over the Nether Mountains to the east and blurred my vision. I squinted at the light looking over the forest below, thoughtful and full of realization at my loss. " I know. And that is what is so wrong."

Lunden reminded me calmly, " If we deny that, we become no better than the spider bitch's followers."

" Yes," I resigned softly, looking at the grass at my feet, " I know."

" Practice your sword my young friend." Lunden stated rather off-course, to change my mood. " I fear we will have many of our brethren to kill. Let us at least make their deaths swift." I looked to him and nodded slightly, the dreadful feeling of knowing Sheyreiza and Inthara becoming my enemies became clear and present. " Find comfort in this though. The maiden weeps as you do, and she will always be there for you." I nodded slowly, still in a state of sad awareness, anger. Lunden gripped my shoulder tightly with rough affection. " I must go."

" Farewell," my voice found little strength," and safe journies." He was shortly out of sight as he went down the hill, and I arose to my feet, brushing my backside off of dirt and grass. Tears found their ways to my eyes, as past memories of being with Sheyreiza and Inthara played out in my mind. I could not forget them as they were, but they would be no longer what I would remember. I rubbed at my eyelids and brushed away the wetness before they fell and I shut my eyes tightly to prevent my sadness from overcoming.

Sighing, I opened my eyes to the stinging morning light ever brighter, and decided to cure the pain within my heart with the artistry of music I produced from the reed pipe I had stowed away in my pack. I played softly, the same melancholy and simple tune I had practiced over and over. The notes came out rather weakly, as my sadness made my breaths hard to control, but I cared not for my performance. I was alone.



The wind brushed up against me lightly as I played. Strangely though, in the soft breeze, I heard a song in tune with my own melody. No words heard, but a melody on the wind, joining me in my sadness. I keened my ear to the wind, and continued to play for abit, and then let the song fade in volume from the pipe at my lips.

I looked all around me for the source of the one playing in tune with my own song, but there was no one there. The harmony on the wind continued on for moment and lifted, a crescendo that eerily reflected my heart's own tune, and then trailed off into the noise of the wind itself.


I smiled, and squinted upwards at the bright sky. Perhaps I was not alone at all.

[Mikayla]

Made me cry.

[Zakharra]

Thanks Kill. It was a sweet story. I didn't know that it affected him like that. It made me cry to.