I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.~~Groucho Marx
He stared in front of him, the road stretching ahead. His whole body shook as he moved forward slowly, his dented armour digging into his skin. It was not weakness, weariness, that had a hold of him. But...fear.
His sister's words rang in his ear, as he tried to bolster his courage to keep moving.
Tala ... cares for you more than you think. I may be wrong, but she took you when you fell, leaving the battle, she paid the priests, and she looked angrily at me for a moment when I called you brother.
He winced, then replied. I have not pledged to her yet.....
In her wisdom she replied softly, assuredly. Should you call her sister?
She may want more from you.
They echoed in his head. Other memories. Her hair, adorned with beads and feathers, her eyes like emerald pools. The way she held her self, confident, proud yet accepting...the way she rode, as if one with the horse..the way she kept to herself, but so willingly gave of herself...........
The way she had brought him back. His armour within slowly broke into a thousand peices, as the realization dawned on him. He loved her. How he had hidden it, excusing it as admiration, respect, friendship.....he had lied to himself all along. He shook....quivered, trembled. He had faced giants, ogres....had faced a horde of orcs, drow and goblins the very night before...never flenching, calm, collected....but this.....
What if she did not feel....what if she refused him....what if she laughed at him....what if he had a friendship for life, about to be ruined by his addled heart. But he could not make this go away....the armour around his heart was gone, and he bled the blood of pure love.
He trembled, all his duty, all his responsibility...all of the masks and walls he had hidden behind, falling away...left with....an emptiness only she could fill. What an army had not been able to do...the silent, beautiful Tala did...he faltered. He screamed inside his brain, not knowing how to proceed...his mind fought for ways to say, to show..racing through a thousand different scenarios, each one with a worse ending than the last.
Frightened as if a child, this man in plate, this giant slayer...
He slowly looked to his gauntleted hand, the ring he held shinning in the moonlight....and slowly, his mind quieted, and his heart took over.
[/i]
Swift wrote:
Permadeath is only permadeath when the PCs wallet is empty.
Zyrus Meynolt: [Party] For the record, if this somehow blows up in our faces and I die, I want a raise
<Castano>: danielnm - can you blame them?
<danielmn>: Yes,
<danielmn>: Easily.
"And in this twilight....our choices seal our fate"
I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.~~Groucho Marx
As he hesitantly shuffled down the road, his leather boots leaving their marks in the mud, he tried desperately to hang on to the calmness that had formed within his head. He closed his eyes a moment, and pictured battle...his head remained clear. He almost had a smile on his face as he rounded the copse of trees, his stride now even. But as his eyes caught the scene in front of him, his step faltered, the grin faded as his face turned slightly ashen, and his mind screamed in desperation... "RUN!"
She stood, the sun glinting off her tanned skin, within the waters, scrubbing vigorously at her leathers. His eyes almost blind from the tears that welled from the beauty of it, his insides completely blinded and desperately casting for direction, his feet slowly moved toward her of their own volition. He became weightless, the feeling of being torn from his body revisiting..the screaming in his mind fading to naught but a whisper. All sound left, save the calming of the rushing water. That, and his heart crying out for her, like a babe would cry for its bottle.
His feet still moving forward...the ring in his hand the only real anchor, he fought the daemons of his past, furiously slashing, raising his sheild to avoid the brutallity his heart had suffered in its youth. Arellethe, the songstress who had laughed at his flowers....Bethana, the devote, who had torn his heart asunder with the marriage of Tethan....Nireles, the waitress who had taken his attention and spoke wickedly behind his back....all of the pain inflicted revisiting, now that the walls that he had built with so much earnestness and effort had come falling down. He fought them all, fought the urge to turn and leave, fought himself....the only sound still the water, the falling of his boots, and the almost inaudible whisper that came from his lips....
I am ready.
Swift wrote:
Permadeath is only permadeath when the PCs wallet is empty.
Zyrus Meynolt: [Party] For the record, if this somehow blows up in our faces and I die, I want a raise
<Castano>: danielnm - can you blame them?
<danielmn>: Yes,
<danielmn>: Easily.
"And in this twilight....our choices seal our fate"