#sarij

Razor Lore.

The Razor pirates are a group of pirates that technically are in their third generation of by blood leadership. While most of the pirates groups united under the single banner of the Maelstrom. A ship captained by a Seawolf known only as the Razor of the Seas refused to join them and abandon the freedom of the seas. His crew was remarkable brutal and ruthless to any ship that fell under the sights of his terrible vessel. If a ship was captured, the strong of the crew were give two options, join the Razor’s crew or be tied to their ship as it was sent to the abyss with the rest of the crew.

Because of the heartless nature of the Razor’s crew, very few ever escaped to spread the word of the pirate’s ship. The almost harrowing legend of it the deeds done helped keep the Razor out of the grasp of the Levy and even the Rogue’s guild. The Razor of the Seas kept up the bloody lifestyle for some years before he was replaced by his daughter in a rather cold coup. She may have ended his reign of the group, but Siren Rahzerwyn was far from doing it for the good of the seas.

Her father was merely interested in blood to sate his desire for violence and coin to spoil his life with vices.  Siren was truly twisted by the desire of greed and bloodshed. She was raised on the very boat that carried out irreconcilable attacks on merchants, passenger liners, and coastal villages. Murder, cruelty, greed, and violence were the life lessons taught to her as she grew up. There were no morals nor what was ‘right.’ The vilest of deed was considered viable so long as you had the force to quell any protest. She slit her father’s throat while a whore tended to his needs and then slit the whore’s throat and hung them both from the mast.

In the years prior to the calamity, the Razor legend roared into reality as with Siren’s leadership the violence and raiding were more for pleasure of the deed instead of out of greed. Despite the efforts of the yellow jackets, the ship was never sunk as it raided trade routes with impunity. The loss of crew to combat was replaced just as the first Razor had; the strong were given the option to live so long as they joined the Razor.

When Siren Rahzerwyn had a drunken night with some sailor who caught her eye, she suffered the same fate as her father, a child. Unlike her father, she knew in the years to come her position of authority was at risk as soon as the boy could hold a knife. The desire to spill the seas red still drove her on and she simply did not want it to end.  She grew up as the princess of the ship, her father’s brightest jewel. Her son, however, grew up a literal nameless crew member who would not know who his mother was until he earned the title of Blutvyse, and by then she had secured her safety by means of sorcery.  His will was warped so that he could never lift his hand against his mother.

Just before the calamity, the Razor of the Seas and her son Blutvyse became the very real boogiemen of the seas. Her crew and brutality were matters of nightmares for lone ships daring to wander from protected routes. Blutvyse was a monster known for crushing throats regardless of if it was a man, woman, or child.

However, as fate would have it the bloodstained decks of the Razor’s ship were sent to the bottom of the seas by the same fires that scorched the rest of the lands. With most of the crew killed and no vessel to continue raiding. Siren went into hiding in Limsa as she attempted pull together resources to get a new ship. It was in Limsa, she started to lose grip on Blutvyse. He was still young and made friends with some arcanists while working the docks. The concept of morality was introduced to his life, and he was given a name other than the monster Blustvyse, Sarij.

The hunt for resources drove the Razor to the main land and eventually they encountered a young bandit leader known as Redhammer. For several moons Siren negotiated and manipulated what she could to gain more resources to rebuild, but the stubborn highlander proved only useful to a point and the Razor moved on toward the Shroud.

It was in Gridania where Blutvyse ceased to be and Sarij Rahzersyn broke off from his bloody history. After… exploiting the turmoil to get what resources she needed Siren abandoned her son with the conjurers as a man with morals was of new use to her crew.

For several years, there was no Razor to haunt the trade routes or sink vessels with crews tied to the decks. However, Siren was not idle. Emboldened and infuriated that her legacy was falling into obscurity and myth, as well as struck dumb by the power that had ended her reign in but a breath; the Razor of the Seas sought more power. This led her to dare a meeting with the followers of Leviathan and her eventual deal with the Whorl. To some of her crew, she sold her soul to the serpent, though those found that opinion on the floor with their intestines in quick succession.

Siren struck a deal with the followers of Leviathan, her will would be colored by Leviathan but she would be granted power far beyond her normal reach and the followers of Leviathan would leave her and her ships alone. In exchange the Razor would often offer tribute to the Whorl by spilling the blood of landwalkers who would dare trespass in his domain. With this deal the Razor horror returned to the seas, and even grew to small fleet. Siren now fancied herself a queen under her lord.

However, even with the supernatural power granted to her and ships under her command, she wanted more power, more bloodshed and more wealth. The artifact that would grant all three unfortunately was out of her grasp, but her son, Sarij possessed the conjury needed. She quickly set her sights on hunting him down to possess him once more.

Sarij had taken refuge, ironically, with the amnesia riddled Redhammer and his lover. However, after many attempts to steal Sarij away or end Redhammer and his lovers, Sarij brokered a deal with his mother to protect them.  He returned to his mother’s service to acquire what she desired; however, she had little use for him as anything other than Blutvyse after and removed him from the crew and sealed what magic he possessed.

The son of the Razor of the Seas returned to Redhammer to try to live out his life in peace, but the lack of magic stirred the darkness once more in him. After several unfortunate events, including a few attacks from a ‘bored’ mother, Sarij broke away from the men he loved to try to free them from the danger of his mother once and for all.

Sarij had no intention of living through his encounter with his mother and the three flagships of her fleet. While she still possessed sorcery over his mind to prevent ill being done with him, it did not protect her from the rancor slowly eating Sarij from within. Before the end of the battle, Blutvyse had returned and his mother was warped into a monstrosity by the very deal she made with Leviathan. Her death was ruthless and slow.

Unlike the coup that placed Siren in power, Sarij had no desire for continuing the legacy of Razor even as by blood he was the new Razor of the Seas. Instead, he divvied the loot of the fleet between the crews warned them to disappear forever before he sank the three flagships. Sarij, having broken the Razor, returned to Redhammer and Redhammer’s lovers.

Sarij rolled over from sitting to collapsing onto his chest. His face was buried deep into the pillow of guest cot hidden in the corner of the Agent’s basement. The Roegadyn simply listened to Caleb’s slow footsteps talking the highlander up to the upper level. Then, with each word he could hear sinking down from the conversation upstairs, a new jab broke what was left of the pieces in his heart into smaller fragments. Eventually, the remaining members still awake retired to their beds and the building shifted to a disturbing silence.

“No waves, no creaks… just quiet.” Sarij thought to himself as his head turned to the side to glance at the world he thought to not be able to escape from to sleep. “Oh… I did fall asleep.” The Roegadyn exhaled loudly at the fact. The distress had quite obviously robbed him of his senses of consciousness.

No longer was his mind in the cramped space his body had laid down in after speaking to Caleb. As he pulled himself to sitting once more on the bed, the Roegadyn took count of the all too familiar landscape of the very core of his mind. Floating isles of ruined white marble with sea water cascading from their edges peppered the sky around a large platform of broken and cracked white cobble under his feet and large rocks and broken masonry scattered about the floor.  Going to the edge of the platform was unneeded, Sarij knew beyond the precarious edges was blackness, the void one would see if they looked down into the waters of the deep seas on the blackest, starless nights.  In the center of it all stood the massive statue of his inner being, it was either an angel with a gruesome smile or a demon with a somber gaze. Today it seemed to be the latter. Imbedded in the center of the statue like asoldier’s blade skewering his foe was the rancor coalesced into a shard of a Tonberry blade that gleamed and seemed to throb with its ever ill intent.

“It has been a while.” A frightfully familiar girl’s voice broke Sarij’s gaze from the horror of the center of his mindscape and brought a frown to his face.

“You are dead.” The domain of his mind robbed his tongue of his accent or any slur brought by moons on the seas.

“Well, of course I am. I don’t think you have forgotten how I died in your hand back outside of Ul’dah, but I thought we established I am not Maddie.” The form of a girl in a white sundress balancing on some ruined boulders that peppered platform came into view. “Though if you are still seeing me like this, I wonder what that means.”

“What do you want this time?” Sarij ignored the girl’s question as the memories of his flight from Bronze Lake flashed to his mind. The specter before him had tormented him on the lonely journey. It accused him of almost true crimes and attempted to drive him to a miserable end in a pool of guilt and sorrow.

“I don’t want anything; you just seemed a bit lonely.” She hummed some merry little tune as she jumped from rock to rock. “But I suppose that is to be expected. He did just tell you that there will never be ‘us’ again and told you need to move on like they did.”

“He did not.” Sarij snapped back quickly.

“You sure?” Her voice warped so that the sounds spilling out from the pale lips belonged to Caleb rather than Maddie. “A lot of things have changed, the bonding ceremony being the least of them. If you stay around you will get used to it.”

“Don’t you dare use his voice, you have no right.” The Roegadyn bolted to his feet and clenched his fists as he growled at the inexplicably smiling girl. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” Her voice bounced between that of a girl and the highlander Sarij had spoken to shortly before going to sleep. “Using the voice and form of the child you let die… or the voice of one of the men who abandoned you.”

The Roegadyn’s grim snarl faded and his arms fell flat to his sides. “They did not abandon me; you cannot possibly know what happened while I was gone.” The words were almost rife with the curiosity of a question rather than the finality of a statement.

“Your right, I cannot know what they did, but I can assume it was quite the touching affair.” Her voice settled on the girl once more. “Lots of love toward each other, arguments that brought short lived anger, and of course passionate forgiveness and support that brought them all back together. However, none of it involved you. I am sure the ceremony of bonding both the public and their private affair; I assure you they had one, lacked you. It lacked any mention of you. I bet they were really quite happy without you.”

“I left them to protect them. They were supposed to be happy. I wasn’t supposed to come back.” Sarij hung his head and bit his lip. “They did not abandon me, they moved on like they were supposed to. I wanted them to be happy and safe.”

“Yet when their, let’s call you hero.” The little girl brightly laughed. “When their hero came home against all odds, what did they do?”

“They were happy to see me.”

“No, they put on a show for everyone else. Most everyone knows you three were close. Though almost no one knew you were their lover.” She jumped down from the rocks and strode over to the center statue. “They never admitted to anyone, dirty little secret you see. However, they gladly took your gifts. Your very legacy was handed over to them in a wooden crate filled with straw.”

“It was not a good legacy. They will make a better one out of it.” Sarij replied quietly, but did not address the other statements the specter made. “It was my choice to give them it; you cannot say it was anything else.”

“You did give it to them, but all they see is the value of the gems in gil. Not the intent you had when you stole them from the figureheads of your sinking ships. That is lost.”

Sarij turned his back on the girl and stepped slowly over to the precipice of the platform as he replied. “What of it? It is what happened. They accepted the gifts even if they did not understand or were unable to accept the intent. A lot of things have changed. I have to accept that.”

“You mean, you lost it all.” The girl giggled and corrected him with the exact words he had spilled to Caleb. “Everything you had is now gone, and just painful memories to all those involved.”

The Roegadyn eyes fell into the void as he stood there in a long silence before speaking. “Yes, I lost it all. I will not deny that.”

“I would not feel so bad, Sarij.” The voice of the girl was as chipper as ever. “You did not lose much really, considering you did not lose anything real.”

“What?” The man spun around to glare at the girl. She was drumming her fingers along the flat side of the Tonberry shard wedged in the statute’s chest.  The sorrow plaguing the man quickly burned away into fury “How dare you.”

“Believe it or not they never loved you.” Maddie tilted her head and shrugged with closed eyes.

“You are getting careless.” The anger quelled quickly into determination. “This is just as before, you speak too man unbelievable lies and fail in attempting to toy with my mind, rancor.”

“I am not even whispering a single stretch of a truth.” Maddie hopped down the statute’s platform and moved to sit on the bed. Her legs swung back and forth as she held on to the edge of the cot with both hands. “It is rather amusing to see you deceive yourself into believing they loved you.”

“Amuse yourself.” The Roegadyn crossed his arms over his chest. “It will yield nothing but you wasting both of our time.”

“Really? Think back to when you first met them.” She moved her bright gaze up to Sarij’s face. “When you first met them they were both very horny men just starting to get together. Berrod was unstable and constantly trying Caleb’s patience, be it by his words or by him doing something foolish. It is amazing they lasted more than half a moon.”

“They lasted because I was there.” Sarij defied the girl. “They just needed someone who experienced far worse to have perspective on how little the mistakes were and how they could overcome them.”

“Is that what you made yourself believe?” Maddie quirked her brow and smiled. “That is nice, but have you even thought about it? They saw each other as equal rivals at the same time they started to love each other. Rivals that had trouble even rutting without someone’s pride being hurt. Both of them wanted to be controlling everything. The belief that they had to submit to the other made them need someone else.” She lifted a hand to point to the man. “That is why they wanted you. To them you were inferior but kind enough to not notice them seeing that. You were the man they needed to submit so that their relationship between each other could become stable. You were just a book under a broken table leg to make it stable until it could be replaced. A prostitute would be better off than you; at least they get something for their time.”

“That may have been the case at first.” Sarij choked slightly as he spoke, but shook his head. “But Berrod and Caleb had to grow. They stuck with me through the miserable time of when I got YOU. When my mother returned, they fled with me. They were willing so far as to fight her for me.”

“Well, if you had some property that was extremely useful would you want to lose control of it? I mean, you would heal them without so much as expecting a thank-you. Caleb nearly killed Caden, you fixed his mistake. Berrod constant errors cost him blood, freedom, or friendship. You were there to mend every matter, even at great cost and energy. Never once did you ask anything of them other than for them to give the other a chance and not to write them off as a lost cause.”

“You are not making your case well, Maddie.” Sarij retorted with a snort. “I did those things because they were my friends and my lovers. To even ask so much of as a breath would be wrong of me. All of them were my redemption for my past and the fact they loved me as they did for so long was a blessing on top of it all.”

“Oh, if selfless giving is your belief about of love,” Maddie’s voice lowered to a snide tone paired with a confident grin. “What have they done to show their love? What have they given you? What have they offered to you without expecting repayment? What have they sacrificed for you?”

“They have been there for all my suffering with my Mother.” Sarij replied softly almost as reflex as his mind mulled over other what the girl had said.

“Nothing… they have done nothing for you except try to possess you as long as it is convenient.” She stated loudly, once again pointing at Sarij. “Who found you when you lost yourself to Rancor? Avenio. They were still at the Hot Springs enjoying the relaxing. They did not try to free you when you first were kidnapped; they just tried to steal you away against your wishes. They only thought about themselves and how they should have you and not your mother.  They went to Coerthas and left you because you were no longer useful without your magic.  When they returned, Caleb abandoned you when you admitted you killed a man.  You had to grovel at his feet for forgiveness, something you never asked of him or Berrod.”

“SHUT UP.” Sarij snarled and clenched his fists.

“NO!” The girl screeched in reply. “Then when Caleb finally enlisted help to make you ‘useful’ again to him, he ended up abandoning the entire matter without a second thought because of Berrod making a mistake. For the first time you had asked something of them, a diversion from the suffering you had experienced and it was seen as a perversion and something that made them look down at you. “

“That does not count.” Sarij growled.

“Why not? WHY NOT? They left you to clear their head about something Berrod did. They let something Berrod do matter more than trying to free you from your mother and return your magic. You were angry about it… the first time you genuinely were angry with them.”

“I do not hold it against them, it was my mistake.”

The girl laughed loudly, though the sounds that came from her throat seemed to belong to something far more twisted than the sweet laughter of a child. “Your mistake? You were not allowed to make mistakes it seems. I can tell you why they left like that.”

“Enough! I don’t want to hear another word from you.” Sarij stepped over to the girl. There was nothing but rage left in his eyes. “Leave me!”

“They left because they no longer needed you and you were trying to become an equal.” Maddie did not seem to have any intention of ceasing. “When you returned you had a spine finally, you had wants and desires. You were trying to become a leg of the table rather than just the book. They couldn’t have that.  You had your use to them and now they are finished with you. There was never an ‘US’ with them… and they never moved on because they never were with you.”

“SHUT UP!” Suddenly Sarij snapped his hand around Maddie’s neck in a fit of rage, the veins along his arm and hand bulged as his grip tightened. “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!”

“Sarij! You’re hurting me.” Maddie clawed at the fingers tightening around her throat and pled with tears in her eyes.

“YOU ARE NOT MADDIE!” The Seawolf roared. “Maddie died in my arms moons ago. You are an abomination of my twisted mind. You are not her; she would never say things like this.” The grip tightened further, and there was a jarring sound of cartilage snapping and a choked gurgling. Maddie, however, gave up fighting the grip and simply smiled before disappearing from his grip in cloud of mist.

“Well… well…” Her voice reappeared with her body a good distance from the cot. At first her head hung unnaturally forward with a crushed throat, but as she spoke the form twisted and contorted until it returned to the little girl who first appeared, but with a darker smile. “You have gone so far as to crush the throat of your only true friend. Perhaps that is the real reason they never loved you, Blutvyse.”

Sarij stared at his hand for some time, dumbfounded for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he looked   up to the girl. And while his eyes seemed empty, burned out by the deed he had just committed so easily, the Seawolf no longer seemed to be in a conflicted daze. The Roegadyn’s voice was still and quiet. “Maddie… or whatever you are, know this. How they feel toward me is meaningless, it is irrelevant. They may have never truly loved me. Every word they could have spoken could have been a lie. It does not matter.” Sarij swallowed. “All I have left now is my love for them. I will never let go of that. I could become the monster you claim; they could despise me and wish death upon me, but that does not matter.  Everything I have done has been for them. Every sacrifice, every wound taken upon myself, and every day of loneliness I have suffered has been to protect all of them. This will never change, I will never stop loving them and I will never stop protecting them. Nothing of this world will change that.”

“Hmpf.” A sour look spread over Maddie’s face before she faded away with a final few words “I am done with you.”

Sarij exhaled loudly as the specter departed. His gaze rose to the statue in the center of the room. It had changed. Now there was a crack down the entire form that twisted its visage even more than the striking contrast of the face to the rest of the form. “I just…. oh gods I feel sick.”

The man could feel the contents of his stomach rise into his throat as his perception of reality shifted wildly. The mindscape faded rapidly and suddenly he was once more laying face first on the downstairs cot. His entire body pooled sweat and soaked the sheets. Years of being at sea helped him keep from actually vomiting, but the sensation was enough to jerk him awake with a rapid beat of his heat. It was morning, and he could hear the shower next to him running.

One more step… just take one more step. Sarij repeated the mantra in his mind as he staggered along the abandoned road. The dust of Thanalan torn at his skin, caking on the sweat produced in the sweltering heat the mid day sun. Not even the land which he stood on could spare him an ounce of mercy as the jagged stones wore at the thin hide soles of his sandals. It did not matter… he deserved this pain.

Time lost meaning, though he was certain he had departed the resort some time ago. The resort… the place he had gone to after everyone died. He was trying to escape the agony of his friends perishing to the wildfire outbreak. So much for that…  Trouble followed him there… he tried to keep helping people out but… it only seemed to cause him more problems.

“Well… don’t you seem down Sarij.”  An oddly cheerful voice froze the wilted Roegadyn mid-slow stagger. That voice… it could not be. His bloodshot and weary eyes closed as he scooted slowly to face the source of the cheer. “Why are you keeping your eyes closed, you are going to run into something. Though by the looks of it you might need to, might get some rest.”

Sarij slowly opened his eyes, the tired mess around his eyes pulling apart as the eyelids rose. At the instant he spotted the source of the voice, the lids drew widely apart. The dry chapped lips separated as his jaw dropped. “MADDIE! You are alive! How… how is this possible? I… I… “

“You dug a grave and put me in it?” The young blond woman finished his words as he stuttered with fact he was the last to see her… in a coffin. “I guess I should be dead.”

“But you are ALIVE! I have been beating myself up for a long time over the…” Sarij rambled only to be cut off by the woman.

“First of all… no you haven’t.” She spoke resolutely, an accusing glare painted over her face. “Second of all… I am dead, because of you.”

The words felt like rocks hitting his chest. He collapsed down onto his knees in front of the woman standing in the brush next to the road. The pain he fled from back at resort surged back to life. After a few moments of breathing heavily, his desperate eyes returned to look at cold face. He pleaded. “There was…. Nothing… nothing I could do. The wildfire… I couldn’t.”

“Yeah, yeah… You couldn’t save any of us in time.” A snarky remark punctuated the stuttering babbling of the Sea Wolf. “So… after you buried us, where did you go? Some would consider that you went to party.”

“I… had to get… away. Give myself a chance to recover and grieve. “

The young woman stepped from the brush, her steps making naught a sound. The sudden strike of her palm cross Sarij’s face shattering the pitiful pleading the Roegadyn offered his dead friend. “A chance to recover? A CHANCE TO RECOVER? Just since a mason recovers from a wall by building another!  As for grieving you have not shed a tear for us…. You only have felt miserable for yourself.”

“No..” Sarij could only whimper his denial to the woman in a near-inaudible whisper.

“Yet…. You have saved everyone you have helped there.” The pale fingers reach down gently to cradle the skin just struck moments ago. Sarij’s eyes brighten for a moment… she was right… he had saved some people. His mouth spread to speak, but was stilled once more by Maddie. “You saved people… if they could satisfy your desire. You did not save them for their sake… but to tickle the darker parts of your mind. The children of Ul’dah, you failed… no, you did not even try, but for a chance to spend a night of carnal pleasure, you bend the aether to your beck and call.”

Any light left in the Roegadyn drained into the endless hollowness of his heart as Maddie’s fingers pulled away. The heavy head slumped forward; there were no longer any white streaks in the onyx, the rest had faded away in the trying journey. Sarij failed to speak and just stared in shame at the dust blowing between his knees.

“You sought this pleasure so long; you started to forget those it cost.” Maddie almost seemed to glide as she stepped around the large Roe, once more her white sandal clad feet not stirring a single sound as they landed. “But, you tried too hard… spreading yourself out too much. Lust driving you to break what pathetic morals you barely clung to and then you discovered what happens to scum like you.”

“What.” Sarij words drip from his mouth as though weighed down in reluctance and shame. “What did I discover?”

“That feeling… the feeling you know Caleb and Berrod share. That explainable… desire and acceptance Corin conveyed to you at just a mere thought of Avenio.” She leaned down to whisper in the slumped man’s ear. “It is a feeling… that someone like you will never feel. Such feelings are for those who have any shred of decency to their name…. and not lies and deceptions.

“No… no…. go away! GO AWAY.” Sarij built up to a shout, snapping his neck to look at Maddie. No one was there just the dust settling in on the hard dirt of the road. He remained on his knees for what seemed to hours before pushing himself to his feet and resuming his stagger toward Ul’dah.

---

“Hershal… he will know what to do, probably will even have something shake this feeling.” Sarij grimaced as he spoke aloud to no one other than himself. Delusions… and now dehydration, had he thought even for a second… he would have at least brought a flask. With a violent shake he cast his mind from the past. “Just need to get to his lab over this hill.”

Over the edge of the large hill an odd flickering glow contrasted with the dying light of the evening. It was warm and almost inviting for the wayward traveler, a beacon in the otherwise dark cold monochromatic hills of Thanalan. As the Roegadyn forced one foot ahead of the other, the sound of crackling and popping filled his ears, with a weak smile he let his tired mind be taken to the thought of laying down next to a warm hearth.

“You even allow yourself to be deceived without even any effort.” A familiar voice brushes over his ear; he quickly turns to it, but sees nothing. However, a heavy dread roots itself deep in his chest. A fear of Maddie returning or perhaps it was a fear of what waited up at the top of the hill.

Heat… flames… and shouts three things that are rarely a sign of anything pleasant. Sarij’s dread crept deep into his heart as horror as the scene before him came into view. Hershal’s laboratory lay in smolders, some of the walls still flickering with tall flames. The Brass Blades dragged a charred beyond reorganization corpse from the under some fallen masonry.  Without breath or words, the Roegadyn collapsed to his knees.

“Seems like you are becoming more like your mother and grandfather… without even trying.” Maddie returned sitting next to the tormented man. She rolled a red flower between her fingers until the petals fell off one at a time.

“I am not…. Like them.” Sarij retorted, fighting back howls of sorrow, likely only able to keep any control due to shock and anger.

“Oh… that is right. They leave trails of blood by gutting those they run across.” Maddie remarked in acknowledgement and tossed the ruined flower into the wind. “You just leave a trail of blood by selfishly leaving your friends to suffer until they perish.”

At the young blond woman’s words, Sarij flung his fist in anger at the source of the offending words. The green fury stopped mere hairs from the pale face. Maddie just smartly smirked, but Sarij’s face melted into disbelief and horror over what he almost just did. With a scoff and a chuckle the young woman spoke again, “Though… you seem to be well on your way, to become the third Rahzer of the Seas.”

“Shut up… Maddie.”

“I wonder if they are going to give him a good funeral…. Or is he just going to get an unmarked grave and get forgotten the next day.”

Sarij raised his head once more to look at Maddie, but once more she vanished from sight. Figures. He sat on the top of the hill, watching the men haul the body into a cart and drive away.  Numbness began to dull the pain of his journey. The young woman was right though, he was paving a path of blood by intention or not…. A path that needed to end where it started else none could rest. Once the corpse wagon faded into the darkness, in an almost mechanical motion he forced himself to stagger down the road once more.

---

It took several more hours in the cold night air, over the hard dirt roads, and past lively camps outside the towering walls of the jewel of the desert for Sarij to almost lifelessly trudge to the place he dug the graves for each of his friends. Most had been adorned by wreathes of flowers and even a few had crude markers with the name of the perished under the loose rock. However, the one at the Roegadyn’s feet lacked anything, given a few dust or rain storms and no one would be able to tell anything was laid to rest there.

“Wonder how long people will keep leaving flowers….. How long will people keep coming to visit?” A hauntingly familiar voice pierced Sarij’s heart. “Some have already been forgotten… some never were remembered in the first place, but you left them all here, your legacy of blood. A legacy you hide from your own eyes in deceptions of your own suffering.”

Sarij swallowed as the voice spoke. He knew grave at his feet belonged to the voice.

“You are nothing be a being of selfish desire. You allow your friends to suffer and perish just so that you can carry on indulging yourself in any wish.”  Maddie appeared in front of Sarij, her sandaled feet on the grave. Anger poured from her eyes. “And now you travel here to seek redemption, but there are none left here to offer you any.”

“I don’t… know what to do Maddie.” Sarij weakly spoke and raised his gaze from the stones to the fury before his eyes. “I just don’t know what I can do to change.”

“You know what needs to be done; you can pay for your selfishness and bring peace to the trail of blood you are leaving.” The young girl reached out and placed something in Sarij’s hand. “You will know what to do.”

Slowly the Sea Wolf glanced down at his hand, unsure what to expect. Fear once more pushed away the numbness. In his hand lay a jagged shard of the knife used to pierce Corin’s heart, a streak of dried red still coating its side. A terrible flash of the moment that he plunged the knife deep into the highlander’s chest filled his mind followed by the frightening desire to repeat it over and over until the blue haired man perished. Then a different feeling... this time the relief of his own blood being spilled and all pain and guilt fading from his life, and then he only felt emptiness.

“You… can never be redeemed.” Maddie hissed quietly as the Roegadyn stood there frozen. “However, you can finally give justice to all those you have left to rot.” Her pale fingers pushed the hand with the shard toward the ragged cloth covering Sarij’s chest. “You can finally have peace, and those you have forgotten can have it too.”

Sarij’s fingers wrapped around the shard tightly for a moment and his eyes clenched with breathing deep as he pushed the edge against his chest. Then his hand slacked and the shard fell to the stones at his feet without so much of a clatter. The brown pools peered at the young lady before him as he opened his eyes. “You are not Maddie. Maddie never believed in the justice you want me to give. She wanted to grow up to be like me?”

A cold laughter rang from the pale woman’s lips. “Be you? An amoral healer who only would help those he could possibly get something in return. Someone who forgets his own friends as soon as suffering comes to him. WHY WOULD I WISH TO BE YOU?”

“You are not her.” Sarij spoke, oddly calm and collected. “She wished to be me, not as I actually am. I am flawed and broken, but in her eyes I was something far different. She wished to be what she saw… not what I am. She saw me give rapists, murders, and thieves a second chance. That was the justice she believed in, she believed that no one should be forgotten and lost for what they have done. You are not her.”

The young woman’s expression turned to a violent rage. The soft features warped to a twisted abomination of fury. She shouted inches from Sarij’s face. “BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I SAID IS TRUE! YOU ARE SCUM. RAGE CAN ONLY SPEAK THE TRUTH AT ITS UGLIEST.”

“That may be the case… but rage will never be stilled by more blood. Justice can never be wrought by anger alone.” The Roegadyn’s tired eyes brighten to a new strength. “You were correct, I do know what must be done, but you do not. Be gone.”

The haunting presence howled once more into the darkness before fading for a third time. Sarij exhaled loudly in relief. The words it spoke struck deeply into the Sea Wolf, but the memory of who Maddie truly was kept him above the well of guilt. His journey was far from over…. He reached for a discarded shovel and began to remove the rocks over Maddie’s grave.

---

The last of his gil, the last of his physical wealth, both spent on where they belonged. Often the refugees would bequeath their final possessions to Sarij, a form of thanks to the Roegadyn for caring them for the last moments of their life. Most of the gil returned to the camps in the form of food, shelter, clothes, and medicine, but occasionally there would be some left for him. This time there was nothing left for him.

Two massive tombstones now sat upon a hill outside of Drybone. The first bore the name of Hershal, Sarij’s alchemist mentor who had just perished. His tale etched in the cloud marble. The names of those he helped listed all the way to where stone met soil. The second was for Maddie, her own tale also forever written in the stone.  The list ended with: “You save the lives of others… even after death. May your spirit find rest for eternity. Death does not deserve you, but neither did this world, yet both have had you. You will never be forgotten.” –Sarij.

A sack of bushes, most poisonous and the rest useless, not to mention the assortment of dead, dry beetles some of which were dung beetles, these were the gifts that Berrod Armstrong had sent Sarij. The towering Sea Wolf could not help the loud chuckles resounding from him. The soil around the gate of Ul’Dah would make better use of this mess than he could.

“Perhaps, I should not have encouraged Berrod so.”  He remarked with a smile as he dumped the contents of the burlap sack behind some rubble, hopefully no one else would try to experiment on the medicinal purposes of the poison and dung beetles. With a final few shakes he could still not lose his smile, Berrod may be rather uninformed about what plants are actually useful, but the guy was something else.  It was nice to meet someone to go drinking and watching the arena matches with instead of alone, and the letter the Highlander sent him seemed to indicate the man was finally sorting things in his life.

“Sarij! SARIJ!” A desperate yell snapped the Roegadyn from his content musing.  A Hyur child ran toward him, his feet almost slipping out from under him as he slid to a stop before him. The refugee panted loudly, gasping for air as though he had been running for a distance. Sarij recognized the boy at once and kneeled down to him.

“Jacob, what is going on? You almost fell over on your face.” He chuckled and patted the boy’s shoulder. “I already had to patch you up from your scuffle with that Highlander kid. I don’t think your mother would like to see you having to visit me twice in a week.”

Ordinarily, Sarij’s chiding would have invoked a pout and defiant retort from the boy, but the moment he could breathe once more , Jacob looked up to the Sea Wolf with desperation in his eyes. “It is Maddie! She needs your help! I tried to convince them to find you, but they wouldn’t listen!”

The smile on the Roegadyn faded, replaced with a crease of concern.  He stood up and helped the boy back to standing. “Who wouldn’t go looking for me?’ Sarij inquired of the boy as they walked toward the refugee camps. Jacob continued to urge the man to step faster, and that there was no time to explain. Not a single question Sarij posed was answered.

“Is that….” He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun while peering down at the camps. “Wait… that is Hershal… and those are the alchemist guild’s banners. “ The eased breathing quickened in pace with each detail entering his sight, conjurers, guards… and erected tents too colorful for the refugees. “What is going on!” Sarij’s pace transformed into a sprint to the border of the unusual commotion, Jacob continued to follow but trailed by a great distance.

“Sarji slow down!” A new voice greeted him at the edge of the camp. Hershal, his mentor and friend in the Alchemist guild, waved him down and stopped him from running right into the camp. “I figured I would see you here before long. The refugee camp….”

Sarij snapped a question to the Highlander, cutting his words off suddenly. “What is going on here Hershal? I have never seen this many guards or conjurers visit the camp, even when a fight breaks out and the guards are summoned to stop it!”

“I was saying….”

“Spit it out!”

Hershal clenched his notebook, frustration at Sarij’s impatience spelled out on his face. “There has been a Wildfire outbreak in the camps. The last caravan must have brought it with it. The conditions in the camps are perfect for it….”

The alchemist’s explanation continued, but Sarij’s attention fell upon the workers in the camps. Some were moving sickly refugees, and others were doling out food and medicine. Wildfire outbreaks… common in refugee camps were named not for the particular illness, but for its behavior. Just like a single spark igniting dry, frail grasses and brush into a massive but short-lived inferno, a Wildfire outbreak quickly infects the weak and old of refugee camps. The outbreak is brief but lethal, and Hershal was right, the camps were perfect for it. “No… No…” Sarij watched as some workers wrapped some of lifeless refugees in linen. “Hershal, what can I do to help?”

“Sarij… just stay out of the way.” The alchemist shook his head after catching a glimpse of what Sarij was watching. “There are more than enough healers here; we are doing the best we can. However, there is nothing that can be done for some of the refugees. Whatever the strain is… it is very virulent.”

The Roegadyn opened his mouth in protest, but a tugging of his hand pulled him from his intentions. Jacob finally had caught up to the towering man. “Maddie is in the blue tent over there! Please Sarij!”

“Alright, Jacob.” He let the child pull him away from the alchemist, but Sarij’s brown eyes caught a sight of the Highlander looking as if he wished to say something, but stopped himself.

The alchemist guild was renowned for keeping things orderly and marked inside their walls, and in situations such as an outbreak that tenacious organization was present as well. Sarij and Jacob swiftly strode by tent after tent. Green ribbons were pinned to tents having recovering patients, yellow for those being treated, and red for those critical.

“No… No…. No…” Sarij quietly repeated over and over as Jacob stopped at atent. Above the flap covering the entrance of the tent was a black ribbon. A black ribbon. He turned to Jacob and knelt down. “Go on back to your mother.”

“You are going to help Maddie, right?”

“Of course!”  The Roegadyn did his best to smile as he pushed back the cloth to step into the tent.

---

“Your streak is fading, Sa—“A fit of coughing interrupted the young woman laying on the bed. Her skin was very nearly gray.  Despite the violent coughing and pallid appearance, the woman smiled and weakly raised a hand to point at the white streak in Sarij’s hair.

“I guess someone will just have to play a prank on me on while I sleep.” He was able to hold his smile as he took a seat next to the woman.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”  She winces in pain as she tries to laugh.  “I take it… Jacob went against my request of not finding you. Didn’t want you to see me like this, and I know… what the black ribbon means.”

Sarij simply stayed silent, reaching over to clasp the small hand with both of his large green hands, between the interlocked fingers a pale unsteady green light radiated weakly. Maddie exhaled as the soothing magic numbed the pain. Nothing was said between the two of them

Outside Hershal nabbed Jacob as he was running through the camp, likely running back to his mother as Sarij instructed him. “Slow down there kid, where did the green guy go?” The boy pointed at Maddie’s tent before yanking free of the alchemist and disappearing once more into the chaos of the refugee camp. “Oh, Sarij… why did you have to stop by today.” He murmured as he pushed the fabric back leading into the tent.

Inside of the medical tent was silent. Maddie lay there on the cot lifeless and cold, her skin gray and eyes closed. Sarij still sat next to her, his face buried into the side of the cot, both of his hand still holding on to the woman’s fragile and small hand. The waning light of the magic still lingered between the fingers.

“She is gone, Sarij.” Hershal broke the silence after a few moments of looking at his student. “You are wasting your strength.” He remarked with slightly more matter-of-fact that he intended.  The highlander bit his lip expecting a shout of anger from the Roegadyn.

“I… know.” Sarij spoke softly, his voice muffled by the cot. “I just… “

“Come on… I found some things you can help with.”

 The Wildfire outbreak was as swift as a expected, and as expected a good portion of the refugees perished by the fast acting disease. In a horrible truth, just like a brush fire reduced the chance for a second fire in the same area for time, the Wildfire outbreak reduced the density of refugees and killed off the sickly. The dark silver lining of the event hardly lit up shadow following Sarij. He had spent his entire day digging graves. Unlike the visiting healers, guards, and guild members, he knew every name of every individual about to be buried. The Roegadyn sat next to the open graves resting his chin on his knees as he watched the last threads of day fall beneath the horizon.

“You are probably the only person that would have spent the time digging these graves.” A voice matching Hershal called from behind him. The highlander watched his feet as he stepped over to the Sea Wolf. “If it was up to the Brass they would have probably just made a mass grave.”

“None of them will have a gravestone though.” Sarij turned to the sound of a man sitting next to him. “I am probably going to be the only one who remembers who they are. I couldn’t save any of them… and now they are going be in unmarked graves and eventually I will even forget who was buried where.”

“Sarij… I know you saw the refugees as your family, but you can’t blame yourself.” Hershal sighed and grasped the Sea Wolf’s shoulder. “There are going to be some extra people around the refugee camps for a few weeks because of the outbreak. You need to take a break from this all.”

“A break?”

“More like a break where you don’t have dozens of people relying on you… only having to take care of yourself.” Hersal prodded the Roegadyn. “I am telling you, as a friend that you need to, but I can also order you to as your mentor.”

Sarij looked around at the dozens of holes and the coffins in stacks behind him. Mentally, he called out every single name of the victims in the wooden boxes. Memories of them flooded back. G’Koi Tia wanted to become a member of the guard to protect merchants, something his family could have used on their trip. Jason Err was working on convincing the Weaver’s guild to give him a chance. Lady Hori’at once was a dancer.  The list went on and on…. Ending with Madelyn… Maddie, who wanted to grow up to help out the refugees just like Sarij.