#drnj

Another PC: Are you dying?

Sung Bae (me): I mean, isn't everyone, slowly or more quickly…

Same PC: … I mean right now.

Sung Bae (me): Oh yes, I'm bleeding rather profusely.

“Hayven! Come in, Hayven! This is Melody Blake of Cooper Mill-”

Sung Bae's tears rolled slowly down their face. They placed a candle to their East, West, North, and South at the Crossroads. "Hail, Eastron Shore. Hail, Westron Tower. Hail, Northron Wall. Hail, Southron Balefire. I call the elements and the magic. I invite your hand, Mother Moon. I-"

They stared up at the waning moon, high overhead, tears stinging their cheeks in the cold. "Mother, I don't know why it hurts still. A year dead. New friends in my life. Power in my grasp. All I could need. They weren't important. They weren't strong. They weren't wise. They were a tool of strength. So, why-"

The red-clad figure doubled over in pain, gasping into the frozen, snow-packed ground. Blood splattered the white snow in a spray as they coughed. Their heart beat loud in their ears, sounding less like drums and more like sandpaper. The pain subsided enough to think again, but they stayed bent over, head to the ground, tears falling as they wept.

"He still walks but my friend is gone! I never get them back! It isn't fair, it isn't just, and no power is enough! Mother, Mother, grant me blood. I will have blood, Mother!"

Their sobs quellled. They caught their ragged breaths. They took slow breaths. One. Two. Three.

The Damned lifted their head from the snow and sighed. "Of course, I'm being foolish. They accepted their consequences, as I must - no choice then or now for me. I've mourned my year. Imolg is passed, and we've mourned." They thought back to the previous night's ceremony, the people who all felt such pain, still held it, hadn't let go. Silly creatures.

"Holding onto this keeps me weak. Thank you, Mother, for this wisdom. I will add Asher's flame to my own and burn ever brighter. No gentle beacon, but an Inferno."

They smiled, eyes still red from weeping and blood leaking from the right. "But -he- can not be forgiven. Spill no blood, but never forgive. He chose."