Post by JMDavis ((Silver)) on Jun 18, 2009 7:12:22 GMT -5
Aren looked on, emotionless, as his friends-... no, as those he journeyed with danced and sang around the fire. They had killed a drake that had been terrorizing the nearby village only a few hours before, and had claimed its hoard for their own.
The elf brushed a strand of long, fiery red, hair from his contrastingly pale face. His bright blue eyes blinking a few times. He shifted in his armor a little to get comfortable, the heavy leathers making a soft creak as he did so, his long cape brushing against the ground. He turned his head slightly, making sure his bow was in easy reach and that he already had nine arrows placed into the ground for quick access, though he hoped nothing would come to spoil the mood below.
He turned his gaze back on the celebration below, and the icy facade broke as his eyes took on a forlorn, and distant look. As he remembered another time, another place, and another group. A time when he had been able to call those he journeyed with friends, when he could grow attached... could fall in love.
Aren bowed his head and shook it fiercely, driving the thoughts away. He wiped the moisture from his eyes, and cast his gaze upward, a lump formed in his throat as he saw the curious face of Elania, one of the ones he journeyed with.
The girl was young, by both his own advanced years and the years of a human. Having only recently completed her twentieth year. Her hair looked like spun gold as it bounced about her, her skin tanned like that of an adventurer, not the weathered appearance of those who traversed the waves or who tilled the earth. She wore simple linen robes, dyed a bright green that complemented her emerald eyes.
She was slight in build, a little shorter than most elves and almost as slim. But that only enhanced her beauty to him.
Stop that! You can't think about her like that!
She held in her one hand a bowl of Damgur Ironstem's Drake Stew. The dwarf having cleaned and cooked the dragon to perfection before plopping it in the heavily spiced broth. The other held a smaller bowl filled with water. "I thought you could use some food and... well... I didn't know what you wanted to drink." She said softly, looking down and blushing a little.
Aren forced himself not to smile as he nodded his thanks, reaching his hands out to take both bowls from her. His fingertips accidentally brushing hers. He saw her blushed deeper and took a deep breath. "My thanks, but you should return to the revelry. I'll stay here and keep watch."
Elania shook her head and moved over, sitting very close to him. "I've had enough for the night, besides, you looked lonely up here... I thought you might like some company."
Aren cleared his throat not saying anything. He let the silence drag on before she started to speak again. "Damn it Aren... I know you know how I feel about you! I've made it clear on numerous occasions!" He jerked his head up, startled. Her eyes sparkling with her tears, her breathing was hard from how she felt, from his distance.
"I... I know." He whispered, his voice almost inaudible. "But you waste your time with me. You should find someone else." He said sternly, hoping it would end the conversation as he turned his gaze from her.
She shifted in front of him, glaring hard. "There isn't anyone else! There is you, and only you!" Her voice quavered as her eyes locked with his. "Why? Why won't you return my love?" She growled, her hands balling into fists. The air humming about her as magic gathered.
Aren stared, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water for a few moments, bowing his head once more, before finally saying. "I can't put myself through that pain again... I have done so too many times. I won't do it again."
Elania looked at him, her face screwing up as confusion replaced her anger and sorrow. "What... what do you mean?"
The elf looked at her, tears sparkling in his own eyes before saying slowly. "You know that my kind, my people, outlive most creatures on this world. That only the dragons will be around to see the bones of elves crumble to dust from age."
Elania nodded her head slowly, following him so far.
Aren continued, "I have lived for well over four millennium, and in that time I have had many friends and many... many loves." His mind drifted back and so did his words as he told her of the first time he met a group of adventurers.
"I was young, then, just out of the ancestral lands of my people. I had never been to a human city, nor dwarf one, before that day. But I found myself in the streets of a city whose name is lost to the annals of history by now. I received strange looks from those on the streets, mayhaps because my head was turning every which way and my eyes were staring in wide-eyed amazement.
"I managed to find myself in an inn soon, and the sights, sounds and smells were so unlike an elf one, where there is quiet music playing in the background, and patrons act refined and civilized, where the perfumes of a thousand flowers fill the air. The human one, on the other hand, was loud, the music playing wantonly as men and woman laughed and sang along, words slurred by drink or narcotics. The smells were of cheap perfume and ale, of vomit and piss, of last night's dinner served up in a new dressing, of dozens of sweaty bodies packed together tightly in a small room.
"Then my eye was drawn to a group who stood out. Though they behaved in a manner much like the others it was more subdued. They talked quietly amongst one another, some casting eyes at an empty chair while another, an old human man who was balding, though had a thick and short beard, cast his eyes about the room before they finally alighted on me.
"It was a swirl of motion as he moved toward me and moved me along to the table. Where all sorts of questions were fired at me: How good are you at fighting? Are you a good tracker? How good are you with that bow? Do you know any ranger magic? It continued on like that for a long time, with me either answering in the affirmative or negative.
"And then, I signed a charter, and was a member of the Band of the Bull. From that day forward I enjoyed many laughs with them, as well as many tears. When Lok'loren, the man who had first introduced me, perished at the cold grasp of a lich. When Baleron, a dwarven priest, fell to the claws of a fierce demon."
Aren stopped for a moment, choking slightly, before continuing on, Elania listening with rapt attention. "We were not going to replace them. We couldn't, and so our band grew smaller and smaller. Until it was myself, Lil, a barbarian woman from the north, and Malcom, a spry rogue.
"We decided to part ways that day, or mostly. Malcom journeyed off to seek his own fortunes, probably winding up face down in an alley for cheating someone at cards. But Lil and I... we had grown fond of one another, and that fondness grew into love.
"She had been my first love, but not my last... After she died I spent many years in grief, looking upon her grave with such depression... we had never had children, she and I. As was the case with the others I had fallen for and married."
Aren's eyes took on a far off look, tears spilling from his eyes as he recalled each woman he had fallen in love with over the years, his fondness turning bitter as he recalled all the graves he had visited. He looked upon Elania and said softly, "this is why I do not reciprocate the feelings I have for you... this is why I distance myself from the revelry below. I know that, unless I once more live amongst elves, I will have to standby and watch as all those I call friend wither and die.
"I will go on, forever it seems, outliving all around me unless battle, sickness, or disaster claims me. Even now, talking to you so long, I am feeling the wall I have so painfully erected around my heart begin to shatter. And I cannot allow that Elania." The elf stared into her tear filled eyes, and he felt more of that wall crumble as his resolve was shaken to it's core. "I wish that you can understand." He murmured, hesitating before kissing her lips lightly.
Elania shivered at the feel of his lips, and shut her eyes tight when he pulled away. "I... I don't think I fully do. But I can understand you wish to be alone." She rose slowly, casting a wistful glance at him. "Aren Boughstrider, I dearly hope you find the happiness you so long seek." She turned and slowly made her way back to camp.
Aren watched on and whispered under his breath, "I hope you find the same, Elania Borol."
~~
Aren fell against the grave marker sobbing heavily, the elf's chest heaving with his sorrow. He beat at the stone, screaming his denial and his sorrow. The tears the stone left causing blood to mingle with his tears staining the stone a ruddy hue, the liquid drifting lazily into the carved letters of the marker:
Here Lies Elania Boughstrider;
Loving Wife, Powerful Sorceress, and Devotee to Ferros the Wizard of the Cosmos;
May she unlock the eternal mysteries within the Halls of Ferros.
Damgur placed a gentle hand on the elf's shoulder, the dwarf was the last living companion of Aren's last group. After the talk with Elania the wall he had made broke. And he found himself becoming a good friend of them all.
And now he was once more in the depression that had befallen him. And he cursed himself, his folly. His stupidity.
"What will ye do now, lad?" Damgur asked softly, gazing at his old friend.
Aren took a few shuddering breaths before standing. slowly and shakily. Thunder boomed above, and he brushed a lock of hair from his face. A dark day for a sorrowful burden. "Something I should have done a long time ago... I now know why my people rarely leave our woods, Damgur."
The elf turned to regard the dwarf, it felt like only a few years ago that the dwarf's hair had been black as pitch. And the realization hit him, it had been over seventy years ago, that night at the camp. Seventy years ago that he had come out of his shell. That he had allowed himself to be wounded once more. And now, Damgur's hair was as white as the snows of the north, and one of his eyes had turned to match, the other yellowed with a disease that would claim it as it had the first one.
He clapped his friend on the shoulder, and said softly. "I am going to return to my people once more, my friend. To find solace that there this... this curse I bear is common. That those who die before me have spent hundreds of millennium living before me."
Damgur nodded his head slowly, "I know how ye feel lad... though I can nay express the same grief ye feel. Me kind lives only a quarter as long as ye elves do. I think I, and me children, me children's children, by the Dark, the children who come after twelve others will have turned to dust before ye die of old age."
Aren nodded his head, taking the grief that laid upon his shoulders with the rest he felt today. "I have lived the forty lifetimes of man, I have seen friends in the prime of life grow old, wither, and die. Watched lovers slowly slip from youth into mid age, and into death. I have had my taste of the life of man, and have decided that I no longer wish to remain in a world where people live so short a life to me, yet one so long to them."
Damgur smirked, "ye have to wonder if they get more outta it than we do."
Aren squeezed his friend's shoulder. "I'm sure of it." He clapped his friend once more on the shoulder, watching as the dwarf pulled a scroll from his pocket and read the words from it, slowly vanishing in a shimmer of light.
Aren took on last look at the grave of Elania before turning and walking away. Allowing the heavy rain to wash across him, in hopes that it would wash away his guilt, that it would wash him clean of his sorrow. Though it did not. The fog closed in around him, and he thought he heard the wind moan softly into his ears. "This is the price, of immortality."
The elf brushed a strand of long, fiery red, hair from his contrastingly pale face. His bright blue eyes blinking a few times. He shifted in his armor a little to get comfortable, the heavy leathers making a soft creak as he did so, his long cape brushing against the ground. He turned his head slightly, making sure his bow was in easy reach and that he already had nine arrows placed into the ground for quick access, though he hoped nothing would come to spoil the mood below.
He turned his gaze back on the celebration below, and the icy facade broke as his eyes took on a forlorn, and distant look. As he remembered another time, another place, and another group. A time when he had been able to call those he journeyed with friends, when he could grow attached... could fall in love.
Aren bowed his head and shook it fiercely, driving the thoughts away. He wiped the moisture from his eyes, and cast his gaze upward, a lump formed in his throat as he saw the curious face of Elania, one of the ones he journeyed with.
The girl was young, by both his own advanced years and the years of a human. Having only recently completed her twentieth year. Her hair looked like spun gold as it bounced about her, her skin tanned like that of an adventurer, not the weathered appearance of those who traversed the waves or who tilled the earth. She wore simple linen robes, dyed a bright green that complemented her emerald eyes.
She was slight in build, a little shorter than most elves and almost as slim. But that only enhanced her beauty to him.
Stop that! You can't think about her like that!
She held in her one hand a bowl of Damgur Ironstem's Drake Stew. The dwarf having cleaned and cooked the dragon to perfection before plopping it in the heavily spiced broth. The other held a smaller bowl filled with water. "I thought you could use some food and... well... I didn't know what you wanted to drink." She said softly, looking down and blushing a little.
Aren forced himself not to smile as he nodded his thanks, reaching his hands out to take both bowls from her. His fingertips accidentally brushing hers. He saw her blushed deeper and took a deep breath. "My thanks, but you should return to the revelry. I'll stay here and keep watch."
Elania shook her head and moved over, sitting very close to him. "I've had enough for the night, besides, you looked lonely up here... I thought you might like some company."
Aren cleared his throat not saying anything. He let the silence drag on before she started to speak again. "Damn it Aren... I know you know how I feel about you! I've made it clear on numerous occasions!" He jerked his head up, startled. Her eyes sparkling with her tears, her breathing was hard from how she felt, from his distance.
"I... I know." He whispered, his voice almost inaudible. "But you waste your time with me. You should find someone else." He said sternly, hoping it would end the conversation as he turned his gaze from her.
She shifted in front of him, glaring hard. "There isn't anyone else! There is you, and only you!" Her voice quavered as her eyes locked with his. "Why? Why won't you return my love?" She growled, her hands balling into fists. The air humming about her as magic gathered.
Aren stared, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water for a few moments, bowing his head once more, before finally saying. "I can't put myself through that pain again... I have done so too many times. I won't do it again."
Elania looked at him, her face screwing up as confusion replaced her anger and sorrow. "What... what do you mean?"
The elf looked at her, tears sparkling in his own eyes before saying slowly. "You know that my kind, my people, outlive most creatures on this world. That only the dragons will be around to see the bones of elves crumble to dust from age."
Elania nodded her head slowly, following him so far.
Aren continued, "I have lived for well over four millennium, and in that time I have had many friends and many... many loves." His mind drifted back and so did his words as he told her of the first time he met a group of adventurers.
"I was young, then, just out of the ancestral lands of my people. I had never been to a human city, nor dwarf one, before that day. But I found myself in the streets of a city whose name is lost to the annals of history by now. I received strange looks from those on the streets, mayhaps because my head was turning every which way and my eyes were staring in wide-eyed amazement.
"I managed to find myself in an inn soon, and the sights, sounds and smells were so unlike an elf one, where there is quiet music playing in the background, and patrons act refined and civilized, where the perfumes of a thousand flowers fill the air. The human one, on the other hand, was loud, the music playing wantonly as men and woman laughed and sang along, words slurred by drink or narcotics. The smells were of cheap perfume and ale, of vomit and piss, of last night's dinner served up in a new dressing, of dozens of sweaty bodies packed together tightly in a small room.
"Then my eye was drawn to a group who stood out. Though they behaved in a manner much like the others it was more subdued. They talked quietly amongst one another, some casting eyes at an empty chair while another, an old human man who was balding, though had a thick and short beard, cast his eyes about the room before they finally alighted on me.
"It was a swirl of motion as he moved toward me and moved me along to the table. Where all sorts of questions were fired at me: How good are you at fighting? Are you a good tracker? How good are you with that bow? Do you know any ranger magic? It continued on like that for a long time, with me either answering in the affirmative or negative.
"And then, I signed a charter, and was a member of the Band of the Bull. From that day forward I enjoyed many laughs with them, as well as many tears. When Lok'loren, the man who had first introduced me, perished at the cold grasp of a lich. When Baleron, a dwarven priest, fell to the claws of a fierce demon."
Aren stopped for a moment, choking slightly, before continuing on, Elania listening with rapt attention. "We were not going to replace them. We couldn't, and so our band grew smaller and smaller. Until it was myself, Lil, a barbarian woman from the north, and Malcom, a spry rogue.
"We decided to part ways that day, or mostly. Malcom journeyed off to seek his own fortunes, probably winding up face down in an alley for cheating someone at cards. But Lil and I... we had grown fond of one another, and that fondness grew into love.
"She had been my first love, but not my last... After she died I spent many years in grief, looking upon her grave with such depression... we had never had children, she and I. As was the case with the others I had fallen for and married."
Aren's eyes took on a far off look, tears spilling from his eyes as he recalled each woman he had fallen in love with over the years, his fondness turning bitter as he recalled all the graves he had visited. He looked upon Elania and said softly, "this is why I do not reciprocate the feelings I have for you... this is why I distance myself from the revelry below. I know that, unless I once more live amongst elves, I will have to standby and watch as all those I call friend wither and die.
"I will go on, forever it seems, outliving all around me unless battle, sickness, or disaster claims me. Even now, talking to you so long, I am feeling the wall I have so painfully erected around my heart begin to shatter. And I cannot allow that Elania." The elf stared into her tear filled eyes, and he felt more of that wall crumble as his resolve was shaken to it's core. "I wish that you can understand." He murmured, hesitating before kissing her lips lightly.
Elania shivered at the feel of his lips, and shut her eyes tight when he pulled away. "I... I don't think I fully do. But I can understand you wish to be alone." She rose slowly, casting a wistful glance at him. "Aren Boughstrider, I dearly hope you find the happiness you so long seek." She turned and slowly made her way back to camp.
Aren watched on and whispered under his breath, "I hope you find the same, Elania Borol."
~~
Aren fell against the grave marker sobbing heavily, the elf's chest heaving with his sorrow. He beat at the stone, screaming his denial and his sorrow. The tears the stone left causing blood to mingle with his tears staining the stone a ruddy hue, the liquid drifting lazily into the carved letters of the marker:
Here Lies Elania Boughstrider;
Loving Wife, Powerful Sorceress, and Devotee to Ferros the Wizard of the Cosmos;
May she unlock the eternal mysteries within the Halls of Ferros.
Damgur placed a gentle hand on the elf's shoulder, the dwarf was the last living companion of Aren's last group. After the talk with Elania the wall he had made broke. And he found himself becoming a good friend of them all.
And now he was once more in the depression that had befallen him. And he cursed himself, his folly. His stupidity.
"What will ye do now, lad?" Damgur asked softly, gazing at his old friend.
Aren took a few shuddering breaths before standing. slowly and shakily. Thunder boomed above, and he brushed a lock of hair from his face. A dark day for a sorrowful burden. "Something I should have done a long time ago... I now know why my people rarely leave our woods, Damgur."
The elf turned to regard the dwarf, it felt like only a few years ago that the dwarf's hair had been black as pitch. And the realization hit him, it had been over seventy years ago, that night at the camp. Seventy years ago that he had come out of his shell. That he had allowed himself to be wounded once more. And now, Damgur's hair was as white as the snows of the north, and one of his eyes had turned to match, the other yellowed with a disease that would claim it as it had the first one.
He clapped his friend on the shoulder, and said softly. "I am going to return to my people once more, my friend. To find solace that there this... this curse I bear is common. That those who die before me have spent hundreds of millennium living before me."
Damgur nodded his head slowly, "I know how ye feel lad... though I can nay express the same grief ye feel. Me kind lives only a quarter as long as ye elves do. I think I, and me children, me children's children, by the Dark, the children who come after twelve others will have turned to dust before ye die of old age."
Aren nodded his head, taking the grief that laid upon his shoulders with the rest he felt today. "I have lived the forty lifetimes of man, I have seen friends in the prime of life grow old, wither, and die. Watched lovers slowly slip from youth into mid age, and into death. I have had my taste of the life of man, and have decided that I no longer wish to remain in a world where people live so short a life to me, yet one so long to them."
Damgur smirked, "ye have to wonder if they get more outta it than we do."
Aren squeezed his friend's shoulder. "I'm sure of it." He clapped his friend once more on the shoulder, watching as the dwarf pulled a scroll from his pocket and read the words from it, slowly vanishing in a shimmer of light.
Aren took on last look at the grave of Elania before turning and walking away. Allowing the heavy rain to wash across him, in hopes that it would wash away his guilt, that it would wash him clean of his sorrow. Though it did not. The fog closed in around him, and he thought he heard the wind moan softly into his ears. "This is the price, of immortality."
