Work Text:
From our last session when a player character died:
You know Alenor is there, too. Not alive, not anymore; but not dead either. He’s warmth itself. He’s the light that bathes you. He’s the hallowed grounds you walk and the clean air you breathe. He’s the hope you feel in your hearts. He’s the knowledge that darkness doesn’t have to be eternal.
When he wakes again it’s to a brightness that burns his eyes. He squints and raises an arm to shield himself. When was the last time—?
Reason catches up. He blinks the discomfort away and heaves himself into a sitting position. Flakes of white fall to the ground as he moves. Did it snow again during the night? The moon must have risen at least once since his destruction, but with an unfeeling body like his, it’s hard to tell how long he had been lying on the cold hard ground; or how long it took for him to return in the first place.
Every new cycle starts like this: he finds himself clothed in ceremonial armor, dirt beneath his fingernails and a feeling of rot on his tongue. A heap of snow and soil sits around a grave that bears his name. He has watched the engravings on it fall victim to erosion over the centuries.
Something is different this time. Not the sunlight that falls upon him like grace; fires above, this is not the first time he’s seen the sun again, but it had never been permanent.
No. It’s a lack of something on the inside. A void, but the kind you feel after cutting out a boil; a sort of relief.
Ah. He inhales the cold mountain air and lets it cleanse his thoughts for the first time since his passing. She’s gone.
He blinks the last bits of dirt and sleep from his eyes, then turns towards the brightness that had caught him so off guard moments before. Indeed, it is the sun—but at the same time, it isn’t. What filters through the fog lies West, but it sits well below the clouds. That can only mean—
He jumps into a sprint. It is a blessing that exhaustion no longer drags at his body. It never tires, despite the weight of his burial garbs. So it is mere minutes before Argynvostholt finally comes into view, behind a field of mist still, but visible nonetheless. And what draws his awe towers above the keep like a guarding spirit: the beacon, lit. Like in the days of yore, before everything had turned to ruin.
He drops to his knees at the sight. He’d given up hope—no, not hope. He’d given up the will to fight for this day. In the end, salvation had been up to a group of strangers.
“Milady,” he whispers, digging his fingers into the snow. “Please forgive them.”
The wind picks up in response. The beacon pulses. She has not forsaken him, then. A mercy that surely, he is no longer entitled to. How many lives had he taken in pursuit of revenge? He remembers his first thought upon his very first return: a spark of fury, directed at those he had let go. As if he hadn’t personally wished Ariaad a safe voyage. That hateful catalyst hadn’t been him, but whatever power had raised him from his grave. All that came after, he’d nurtured. Vindictiveness had felt too good. And the core he’d been entrusted with had rotted with him. He hadn’t let her go.
“Milady,” he says again, “if there is room for atonement—” He fights down the impulse to scream. He must face what is to come with dignity. “I will do as you ask.”
Nothing stirs this time. He sacks into himself as much as the armor allows, and finally does a tear escape him. Whatever muscles are left in his jaw tense as he bites down a wail. He watches as his regret falls in droplets down onto the snow and gathers there, freezing over and over. Sometimes, beauty and cruelty court around a fine line.
He tries to remember their faces. Wodefolk. Strangers. One with golden scales reminiscent of Her . No burning hatred shows him the progeny’s direction, now. Perhaps the curse is lifted, or perhaps he is dead. The thought sits heavy in his stomach instead of the sweet revenge that had been his only pursuit in death.
But dead he is, still. Something anchors him to this place. If not the need for revenge, then…?
He lets it go—the desire for forgiveness; the oaths he swore in life; the duty he took on after his Lady’s passing—and it fades from his mind into peace.
#
It is sometime later that Godfrey finds him. He carries his usual walking stick, which he sets like a sproutling into the snow as he kneels by his husband’s side.
“You weren’t at your grave,” he says. “I thought you’d passed on for good, Val. I was ready to go after you.”
“And I thought I’d banished you,” says Vladimir. His hand finds the back of his husband’s neck and he pulls them both close, so that their foreheads meet. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Godfrey allows the gesture. Their first touch after centuries of loathing feels as natural as when they were alive.
“Is it over, then?” says Godfrey with an air of hesitation.
Vladimir manages a shake of his head, subtle against his husband’s body. “I’m sorry.” He looks up to meet his gaze, to face him with all the vulnerability he had kept hidden since his death. “For everything.”
“You weren’t yourself.”
“You make excuses too easily, love.”
“And you’re—” Godfrey sighs, then, and gives a mournful chuckle. “Maybe you’re right. How much do you remember of yesterday’s battle?”
A day, then. A mere day since his destruction. He thinks for a while. Then, “He had her eyes.”
“His name was Alenor,” says Godfrey. “He ignored my warnings to stay away. I can’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing, in the end.”
Was . The progeny is dead, then. Bile rises in Vladimir’s throat. “He did in a day what I could not in centuries.”
“Val,” says Godfrey, gently. “These are changing times.”
He exhales, then pulls himself and Godfrey up, facing the light coming out of Argynvostholt. On this, Godfrey is right: the times have changed. The tickling of warmth on his cheeks is proof enough.
“I thought it was the hate,” he says after a while. “What kept me going. It was all I could think of. Now that it’s gone…”
“You’re not without a path, Val. It’s the direction that is yours to choose now.”
He looks at Godfrey, gives his hand a squeeze before his attention turns back to the sun-kissed keep. “There’s but one way forward,” he says.
Godfrey eyes him with perturbed patience.
“I want to meet with these strangers.”