The Fallen One

[Inwintersshadow]

The Fallen One


Snow falls in thick flakes descending through the trees like forlorn angels come to mourn their sister, who’d strayed to a mortal demesne; for her love of the wild lands and its creatures and in defending them from harm was herself slain. Delicately the flakes cover the ravaged beauty of the fallen one – a ranger of Mielikki.

Isendur stands off to the side respectfully and watches for threats. Threats like the owlbears and the worgs they have had to deal with this night. Owlbears like the one poor Karin had been slain by and whom they in turn slew. Without the elf that until recently he had been at odds she would still be lost to them, her fate unknown. Corgrym had grudgingly come to respect the stranger elf, now owing him more than any in the past he’d called friend. It was a debt he intended to repay.

She got in a few good shots he thought and a fine strike with her scimitar against that monster. “Good Girl” Corgrym rumbles softly, his eyes dark and dead like a doll’s; his face frozen emotionless as a marionette’s. The human’s movements recall to the watching elf’s mind a puppet whose strings had been cut and then artlessly retied. The snow falls thickly on the three coating them in a shroud of angel wings, the dead and the living alike.

The big man deftly touches a braid of her hair minding to himself how she wore them so proudly into life’s battles. His features remain like stone; the eyes like glass beads stay cold and still. But his dark skin, gift of a Turmish grandmother is paler now than it was mere moments ago - when they found where Karin had made her last stand. So many things he had wanted for them both…

“Corgrym. Corgrym we must go…. before more scavengers arrive to molest her.” The man nods mechanically to the elf and donning his helm rises heavily to his feet. Then gently he picks the young ranger’s remains up in his arms lifting her easily. Clumsily he follows after Isendur; lost in thoughts of what might have been; if he had fashioned the key he’d promised her sooner. A key to his home and to his heart, which dangled now from a simple silver chain draped around his neck beneath his armor.

The two men walk back to the Black Road without further incident following it all the way to Dagger Falls. There they retain a wagon to carry the young woman’s remains back secure from predators to her teacher; Endyana and her friends back in Hadreth’s Glen. There would be a funeral soon, the location of which Corgrym hoped the Ranger leader would not object to. But that battle was for the morrow, he had not the stomach for thinking right now, as breathing itself seemed a useless chore to him. Thoughts of anything now but her face - before and after this tragedy seem trifles as he drives her wagon to the Glen. The sadness those images bring will trouble the man’s sleep for many years.

One thought though, bee-like, thrusts itself repeatedly into Corgrym’s consciousness. There is a regret he cannot overcome, a cowardice he can never forgive himself for: He had never told Karin he loved her in all their patrols together, in all the meals they had shared, in all those lost moments he had taken for granted. And now, now that it is too late he realizes he will never know how she felt about him either. And that is the cruelest punishment of all…

[Twiggy]

Awww *sniff*

[Mizbiz]

[rudy2688]

No idea Corgrym felt that way about her...

...so sad...