You have been taken by the Mists

Author Topic: To Serve His Radiance  (Read 25197 times)

Iridni Ren

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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #100 on: October 07, 2019, 01:18:53 AM »
As surely as Pelor’s triumphant light ascended each morning, His glory must recede at nightfall soon thereafter.

The week began with Iridni meeting with Crescent and Maxine along with her fellow Kin to consecrate the two penitents to the Pelorian faith, their redemption from the vile influence of Vashan and Vecna complete. After the calamitous setback with Quinn, the priestess dreaded her failure again—that these two seeking hearts would find their thirst for holy waters unquenched.

Her own heart felt hope, however, when Zephyr arrived at the Blood o’ the Vine, for her love had long resisted her religion, and she saw his acquiescence to witnessing the ceremony almost a miracle in itself.  Moreover, he of late seemed little inclined to stir himself from his studies, whatever caused his secret errand in Paridon to maintain its grip on his psyche and place a stumbling block between the two’s path of courtship. He kissed Iridni in greeting, and for a moment he was the romantic Zephyr of old, the man who had won her cautious heart, despite her fear of his bon vivant reputation.

She then introduced Crescent and Max to him, both receiving a similar first impression of the one-time gallant: “Greetings, ladies, I am Zephyr Kontos,” he said with a low bow, before planting a kiss on the hand of each.

The three women then changed into robes befitting the occasion, and along with Asariel and Trentor, the band journeyed to the ritual site. As was to be expected in Barovia, rain doused them all as they traveled, but their spirits refused to become discouraged, maintaining the same sense of purpose and mission until they reached the previously sanctified clearing and altar. Their timing could not have been more fortuitous, the sun about to crown the horizon like the head of a newborn, and so they began with Pelorian prayers to the dawn.

Crescent led these prayers while Iridni again baptized their setting with holy water.

Sun of Mercy, shine in the fear of my heart
Where Thou blaze, my courage is mended
Illuminate my hands, Father of Light
So I may heal the suffering to Thy glory
Burn away my pride that, free of its bonds,
I may kneel before Thee and all who are poor in spirit.
Thine undying love is better than ego's cord
I am lost here where the shadows fall
But beneath the rays of Thy wings I labor
As bright dawn renews me and Thou ascend over the darkness.


Crescent prayed in Celestial, and Maxine echoed the beseeched words in Druidic. Finished with the sanctification, Iridni raised her gaze to the horizon, the rain running down her brow and into her violet eyes. Somewhere beyond the gray clouds, she knew the dawn had come, for though Pelor’s brilliant orb was obscured by these perennial mists, a growing light was illuminating the gathering of faithful—regardless of whether that faith was in a god or one another.

The ceremony began.

Many minutes passed, the sun climbing higher as what were now becoming three Pelorians made their confessions and testimonials. When Iridni pronounced Crescent and Maxine her sisters and presented them to the assembled, heaven itself swept away any doubt as to the two penitents’ redemption: brilliant beams of sunshine broke through the relentlessly overcast Barovian skies.



Iridni almost gasped both at the display of light and the reaction from Zephyr, who leapt to his feet with sudden energy, dusting the leaves and dirt from his bottom, before crowing with exultation, “Hurrah!”

Her heart, too, leaped within her at his reaction, knowing she had pleased both her god and her man. Each could be aloof with her—remote—yet that Pelor granted her miracles daily was reassurance He had not forgotten her. From Zephyr, in contrast, she needed such smaller tokens as these: a look, a word, a kiss, a smile, an uncharacteristic display in which he lost for a moment his impeccable dignity.

Although Iridni’s inner voice scolded her for thinking now of anything other than Crescent and Maxine at this critical moment of their own lives, of the victory of Pelor over Vecna and his vampiric lieutenant, she could not help her momentary selfish weakness. Yet somehow she felt Pelor’s forgiveness already…as her heart was as suddenly pure as it had been once before.

Before her implosion of the Ghastrian hag and, inadvertently, the slaying of the wretched young girl who was its spawn.

Not only had Iridni helped Crescent and Maxine heal the wounds in their souls, but the last of that small scar in her own had been healed as well.

[To be continued]



« Last Edit: October 07, 2019, 01:25:10 AM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #101 on: October 07, 2019, 05:00:55 PM »
The week ended with a funeral.

Between, Iridni felt helpless as the nascent congregation of Pelorians turned to strife. Soon after the ceremony she at last received a reply from her long-missing Bri. To her dismay, Bri was unhappy with the pace at which the younger priestess had proceeded, chastising her for not testing the two penitents more thoroughly and asserting she would soon remedy this oversight herself. She asked that Iridni keep this plan secret so that it might prove more effective.

The small Pelorian felt her stomach churn at Bri’s request. She did not wish to challenge the wisdom of her elder in the faith, but nevertheless Bri had not met Crescent nor Max, nor did she know all that they had thus far endured and how fragile their rebirth had been. Would a difficult test based in Iridni’s own deception of them set the two up for failure?

So much of her life required keeping secrets in the name of duty and trust and to protect others from danger. She did not wish that her beloved god, too, become something she venerated which must needs be obscured by shadow.

Worse, the trial was to occur in Hazlan, the land where Yunon had perished and Iridni herself had almost died while helping retrieve his remains from Ramulai. Memories of her whipping and then Marcus Weyland’s spells of wilting attacking her defenseless form returned. Hazlan was too foul a risk for outsiders to use as their testing ground.

After some consideration, she penned a reply to Bri and the others:


Quote
Dear Sisters in Faith,

I am sending copies of this to all three of you because we more or less now constitute the beginnings of a Pelorian church in these evil lands, and it is important that with all that oppose us here and work to our destruction, we strive not with one another. We must support and encourage the fledgling growth, just as when alone and cut off from my home church and brothers and sisters in Pelor, the Kinship nurtured me or I little doubt in my weakness I would not have survived.

Bri, you are likely angry with me for not complying with your request to leave Crescent uninformed of your desire to test her. Yet she has been through much and only recently learned to trust me. Doing what you asked would have been in my mind like taking someone learning to swim and who had almost drowned previously, asking her to look at a beautiful view, and then pushing her into a raging river. (I have spoken excitedly of you, and both she and Max were eager to meet you.)

Once you have met them yourself, I hope you will be persuaded of my caution. Medea often reminded me that my upbringing had spoiled me, that my security of faith and love had never been tested. She was right, but it also meant that when I began to experience Barovia, I had years of knowing that everyone was not like the people I was now meeting and that it was possible to have benevolent rulers, rather than monstrous despots. I have already seen and heard of some of what has tested these two, so in time their faith in Pelor and His followers would be strong enough to withstand whatever you might engineer. For now, however, they are like ill patients who have only recently begun to recover their health.

Respectfully and in His Bright Faith,

Iridni

She enclosed a note from Crescent to Bri, although it was the protective Max she was now more worried would lose her footing if Bri pressed Crescent to additional trials.

Hoping her message would balm the roiling waters, Iridni departed the Blood of the Vine for Vallaki, whatever brief happiness she had felt dissipating at the prospect of Loredana’s funeral. The loss of the Vicar reminded Iridni of the imperative of preserving her relationship with Bri, regardless of how the latter took her note. Despite so many reasons the two of them, Iridni and Loredana, had for being friends and allies, they had lost precious time in disagreements over what in retrospect could have only helped the forces of darkness: the best way to aid Verinne, the proper relations between the allied Kinship and the Morning Lords. Finally, the Ulcissor Clan. Although neither priestess could long withhold forgiveness from the other, their squabbles shaded this time of mourning for Iridni with an especially stinging regret.

Consequently, when Alin spoke at the service of the uselessness of the effort, yet of doing good despite the futility, Iridni considered this doctrine with her stubborn jaw locked. She refused to accept pessimism, and she refused to countenance Loredana’s trading of her life for that of a vrolock. Knowing the basis of the Morning Lord church, Iridni could understand why this trade would be acceptable to the Vicar but never to a Pelorian. Through misting eyes, Iridni observed Loredana’s embalmed form and thought of all the loss to the Light represented within. How could anyone think it worth the cost?

Briefly she also studied the grieving form of Jean behind her. She did not wish her stare to intrude upon this most private moment, yet she so wanted to know what he was thinking, whether Loredana’s death had persuaded him of the truth and value of redemption. The irony was not missing to her that in this moment when she herself struggled with those scales, Loredana’s sacrifice might have awakened a more merciful Jean.

Besides the difference inherent in their respective gods, the Vicar likewise had never experienced a home far beyond the baleful gaze of Strahd as Iridni had. Barovians by their nature and circumstance were a more resigned race from centuries of nothing but the continual victory of darkness over hope. As Alin listed all the many mutilations and other suffering Loredana had endured, the litany became more and more unbearable to the young Pelorian. She thought back to her own beating by the garda and how it had filled her almost with despair and futility. Whether it was the anguish of denial when confronted by death or re-experiencing that memory, she felt herself wanting to stand in the midst of the ceremony and shout, “No!”

In Almor human affairs were not so, and she would never believe that this life of evil supreme was inevitable and immutable.

Pelor had won back Crescent and Maxine from Vecna. Now four Pelorians grew in power and light in the very heart of Strahd’s hellish, undead reign. Alin had spoken of the light that burst from Loredana in her transfiguration before her death, a light so powerful, Iridni considered, that when multiplied, unified, and magnified it might consume away even a vampiric dark lord.




My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #102 on: November 18, 2019, 04:01:00 PM »
Dying winter rattled through the crevices of the old Lodge, long, bony fingers poking through the cracks in the mortar of the fireplace and grasping into the great room, but the fire Iridni lit slapped the intruders back and kept the rustic contours cheerful and warm, as was she.

Trentor and Asariel had departed with new Kinship recruitment announcements, leaving the priestess alone with Adeline, her cup of tea, and her thoughts. As the end of the third year since her abduction neared, Iridni was troubled for others—Lucy, Morrigan, Constanta, that newborn!—but in the sanctity of her own heart and mind she was both calm and confident.

Quiet Asariel remained steadfast and reliable and had become almost frightening in her power. Trentor…Iridni could hardly ask for a better soul than the one-eyed paladin of Ilmater. Never before had she met a man who endured suffering so routinely with saint-like mien. She would have to find the unassuming loner a suitable mate…as he clearly required a good wife to look after him.

She smiled at the sudden, happy thought and sipped her tea. She filed this need of Trentor’s away in a nook for now because a more considered conclusion pressed upon her young but preternaturally wise mind: her capture by the Mists had been a mistake. For almost three years she believed Pelor had allowed her abduction to a purpose beyond her youthful understanding, but now she was certain that the vile Anxan Madog had been the only target of the Mists. Their cruel cosmic net caught the maiden accidentally along with the reprobate priest, an innocent ichthys landed alongside a shark.

This glum realization would not deter Iridni from continuing to make the best of her predicament, but it helped clarify why Pelor refused to answer her unrelenting prayers as to her purpose in Barovia. A mistake meant she would have to give meaning to her life in the Mists herself. Likewise, she no longer believed that by fulfilling some Pelorian task she would be freed to return home. The paradise of Almor and her parents and sister were almost certainly lost to her forever.

These Mists might imprison her body, then, but they had failed to defeat or even weaken her. The small wound left in her soul by the Ghastrian hag had finally and completely healed with the redemption of Crescent and Max, the twos’ conversion to the Pelorian Light, and she knew she was a better and even purer person now than the girl who Anxan in his power-crazed lust had sought to ravish and kill.

That almost-child Medea later called spoiled and dragged into Loric’s lodge had instead been conquered with the aid of Pelor by Iridni herself. The priestess had endured much hardship for the sake of others, and she was willing to face more. She had given up Ionathan because of knowing his leaving was best for him, she let herself be taken into slavery for Yunon’s sake, she had been beaten and jailed for the “criminals” of Vallaki, she had parted with much of her fortune to ransom Conner, and now…now she continued to deny her own dreams for Zephyr.

When she wished to travel with Zephyr to Paridon, he reminded her of her “duty.” Cold words she thought then, in the scales against her breaking heart’s tearful plea. In the months since, how could she not judge her beloved’s own irresponsibility toward duty, contrasted to what he had expected of her? Yet love is not love that does not love entirely, fixed, and unshaken. She loved in Zephyr his lack of responsibility—though, on lonely nights when she weakened, it had driven her nearly mad with pain—because that irresponsibility was an essential part of him.

As much as her often irritating tendency to mother those she loved was an essential part of her.

We do not love those we love in spite of their weaknesses and faults, she thought: We love them for those very imperfections; for in excess which virtue does not become a vice? And so for Zephyr all she could do was wait with Pelorian patience, telling him, Do you not know how I long for you but deprive myself of you only to please you and give you whatever you need from me—even if it be solitude? In faith, I know you cannot doubt my love, yet I would prove to you my strength as well.

Although it was not her strength alone she proved. The same god who let her cause the earth itself to move, dismiss demons and devils with a word, summon acid and lightning from the sky, and restore even life, that same god also undergirded the small and raven-haired human vessel that channeled this divine power. It was her god who let her join Max and Crescent in Pelorian matrimony without breaking down but projecting only happiness for them as her own longing went unfulfilled.

They had made a good start, these Pelorians, and they with Iridni and Bri would spread a true faith of Light to Dementlieu and beyond, rather than one based as Father Miklos’ was on a deception. With Asariel and Trentor’s help, the Kinship would also rise up to brighten Barovia, as it had for Iridni. These Dread Domains were not hers to flee but to change and improve.

Accepting the truth of her exile had not discouraged the resolute priestess; it had only set her free.



My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #103 on: December 09, 2019, 12:59:52 PM »
What is truth?

Truth is the Light. The Darkness is False.

When she dissembled then, did Iridni serve the Darkness? Few loved the Light, that much she knew. Never mind the servants of evil: most of goodwill also preferred the softening warmth of shadow and shade to the bright and sometimes blinding glare of hot light seen plain. Even she was guilty. How long would she lie to herself and deny what her own wisdom revealed to her, convincing herself instead that she could not be certain, that she was still a young woman who could not answer unfathomable mysteries or judge others with perfect scales?

So she made excuses both for them and for her own behavior, her own mendacities. For the seed of hope needed dark soil to take root.

His Light too, may blind.

She thought of this most recent man who trusted her to keep him and his friends safe. He had called her “darling” when they parted, but perhaps he did not mean anything by that. He seemed in many ways unpracticed in Common…unaware of the language’s subtleties. She remained faithful in heart and body to Zephyr…and yet she could not deny she was warmed by hearing an endearment on a male tongue after so many hours of drab report writing and tired steps of trudging the old Svalich Road alone between the two gray Barovian villages.

How had she repaid the man for his sweetness? By interrogating him. By trying to extract every last dram of information from him, even that which he most wished to keep secret from her. Yes, she would try to protect him, and yes, she had given him the best advice she knew. Still, for all her compassion toward him as yet another lonely, overwhelmed vagabond in this cruel and unforgiving world, she used all the tools she had learned—even deceit—to ply from him his secrets.

Lives, so many lives, might rest on her success.

On the road he had earlier revealed his desires, what pushed him onward in life, he, without the religious faith Iridni had to sustain her. Now she must disappoint him and say his hour had not yet come, for if he persisted in his course, she was of a certain his own death would result. He deflated before her eyes as she told him this, and she felt ridiculous and more than a little heartless…a girl of her small stature and young age warning a strapping man with far more life experience than she that the trouble he sought was too dangerous for him to contemplate. He had wanted to appear a hero in her eyes…important…and she sensed she had robbed him of that.

Truth’s cold shattering of illusion made her feel as though she bore a sphere of ice in her breast, instead of the tenderness and vulnerability that once beat there.

Later, by the light of the Lodge’s fireplace, she closed her scriptures and read over once more the message to the Kinship. Would her response be another obfuscation? “The Devil” Strahd. That was who they claimed to fight against. Was that not her own battle? When would she wage it then? Only when she had the perfect ally…with pure Pelorian hands like her own? Would it not be better to raise up any stake offered, even one rough-hewn and twisted? One cut from Gundarkite wood?

Yet how many times had she in turn been warned that without Strahd, something worse would arise? Her own experience told her that for all his undead evil, Strahd was contained, that something of a life could go on under the shadow of Castle Ravenloft. There were worse places in the Core. And for the moment, a more immediately destructive enemy pressed on her and drew her and the Kinship’s attention.

She put her pen to paper and began to print in her simple letters, her uncertain black strokes once more forming on white parchment.


« Last Edit: December 09, 2019, 03:32:53 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #104 on: December 14, 2019, 11:00:19 AM »
The two women sat in the darkness of the Wandering Billy and waited. At nightfall the over-worked miners had wandered in, bringing with them the mountain cold, but almost seeming to materialize out of the shadows like ghosts who haunted the large tavern after sunset. They would stay here drinking all night, and then somehow shuffle back to their mindless, back-breaking labors when dawn came. In between, for a while they would escape their dreary lives into drunkenness and stupor.

This high in the mountains, winter had already arrived. Iridni recalled three years ago how the snows of Mount Ghakis had been crisply pristine and so very white—when she had danced in the cold with Alistair, hoping she would not embarrass herself in her sudden, silly, and armored desire to compete with Rodica Stolojan. Why had she done that? Envy had panged her, seeing the garda and her carefree exuberance, for in those days the young priestess felt much more the Outlander, whereas Rodica had the confidence and security of a native and member of the militia wherever she went.

Only later would Iridni learn to speak Balok and come to appreciate how much a life spent entirely in Barovia meant suffering and endurance.

The snows of Krofburg now all had a gray hue about them even before they accumulated on the ground, for the never-ceasing smelters polluted their angelic fall from heaven to earth. That was what the silver had done, the silver that first revealed its presence on that same day, causing Iridni to feel as though she would be swallowed whole in the erupting ground as she ran from hillock to hillock trying to heal those caught in the cataclysm.

Both Rodica and Alistair were now only memories, but the priestess could recreate them in her mind’s eye, just as she could still picture Krofburg as it was, much like Chathold and her home’s surrounding forests as she hoped they remained. All were equally beyond her reach now, perhaps forever.

Looking across the table at Asariel, the Pelorian wondered how the woods-smelling Elf never seemed to change. She was one of life’s few constants, even Asariel’s growing power making no visible difference in the Pelorean’s color-blind, almost always hooded, friend.

They were whispering together. “Please don’t take offense, Asa, but I’m not sure I can make you understand what sort of thing might cause someone to feel guilty.”

“Hmm?”

“Let me put it this way,” the priestess struggled after a moment. “Do you…ever worry?”

“Not so much anymore. I used to worry about maybe starving to death. Or something killing me.”

The Pelorian smiled slightly, her friend’s answer confirming what she suspected. “No…I mean worry about doing the right thing. Whether you are acting as you should.”

Again a deliberate pause. “I worry someone will make me do what I don’t want to. Or trick me into doing something I don’t want to do. Is that what you mean?”

“Not exactly.”

“I don’t believe so much in a certain right or wrong but only a conflict between what some want and others want.”

“Then that is what I mean, Asa. I can’t explain why Zephyr and I are driven by guilt and react to it, when you view the world as you do. My worry is the mother of my guilt.”

“Perhaps this worry and guilt are a human condition. I don’t speak with many humans as much as with you…but you seem to have a lot of both.”

The note hidden on her person burned Iridni.

She also could remember the first time she met Constanta: bleeding to death from a blood hawk’s attack. The Pelorian had no idea of the other young woman’s importance, but bore her body back to Krofburg, not yet having the power herself to restore life to the dead or the strength to outrun or outfight a crag cat so encumbered.

Two infant children. The note said “two.” Iridni had expected Constanta to have delivered by now, recalling the Steward’s morning sickness in the Lodge and the number of months ago it occurred. Twins, however, doubled the complication and risk, the worry. If only Morrigan had trusted Iridni, perhaps she would have been able to aid them all in some way before everything had come to this. On the other hand, knowing little, the priestess was able to face Corporal Nimirovic’s interrogation without fear of having to lie in order to protect anyone.

So many things to worry about. By the grace of Pelor the Kinship was growing sufficiently strong again to deal with multiple threats: Iridni had faith in Vesta. At the present, she and Asa must focus on the critical discussion with Bellegarde. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

As sunlight came to the mountain village, the two Wayfarers walked past the slumping patrons of the bar and out into the unceasing, gray snow toward the Consortium’s stony edifice, calling to mind a tomb. How many times since coming to Barovia had the priestess entered it with so much worry in her heart?

The snow fell. The smelters belched their acrid soot into the wintry air. 




My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
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  • Posts: 4374
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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #105 on: January 04, 2020, 10:52:07 PM »


Both Bellegarde and the civil authorities in Krofburg proved unwilling to allow the Kinship to act, although Iridni was fortunate to find in the new government and militia leader, Alin Baboescu, a man who had once served together with Loric. That contact might be helpful in the days and weeks ahead. The captain would provide no cover for the Wayfarers should their mission cause any damage to persons or property, nor would he over-rule Bellegarde's profit-based decision to keep the smelters' hellish flames at full consuming brilliance. Yet it was clear also that he was a rare man of principle in the new Krofburg regime.

All the Kinship could do was wait nearby for the hearth fiend known as Mr. Ember to strike. At dawn's break, the Wayfarers shuffled from the Wandering Billy toward the Tent City and discovered that the smoke had thickened overnight, but no workers were present save one: a hulking Caliban, back-lit by the roaring flames surrounding him.

Iridni also observed an Ezrite praying and dousing himself with water. Francesca and he exchanged the pleasantries of greeting, regardless of the macabre scene unfolding.  Marry spoke to Trentor in hushed tones, "There's a man...he's holding...a torch...and standing on straw."

Tension rippled through the group as Victor exclaimed, "Hells...where'd that man come from?"

Behind them, the Bellegarde woman in charge crested the hill and drew up with a sharp stare: "Where in the hell are my smelters? Why is that idiot oiled up...for wrestling?!"

"Because he's trying to set himself on fire it appears," Fran offered.

"Light yourself on fire on someone else's property, idiot!"

The Caliban responded to the Bellegarde woman in kind: "Degrade us! Treat us like animals!...I'm going to put an end to it. All of it!"

"Now you're just putting words where they don't belong. Who gave you people medicine, numpty?!"

"No more smelters! No more silver! No more you!"

An apparent physician slithered out of the crowd toward the bellowing brute, a purposeful rag in her hand. Iridni guessed that it might be something to calm the Caliban. She wondered whether it would work if Mr. Ember was behind his madness.

The Bellegarde woman continued, "What a pointless display. All you do is hurt yourself for no reason but petty spite." She yet seemed reluctant to believe the warnings of the Kinship.

The Wayfarers began to coat themselves with the cold varnishes they bore with them as Nix whispered, "Ember...he's in the torch." The druidess edged closer, "Sir, what's your name?"

"P...Petros..."

Several people began to speak at once, the Ezrites in whispers, all in growing alarm. Fran implored Petros to put down the torch. "I can't...I can't." He clutched the torch in both hands now and stared into it longingly, his body atremble.

Meanwhile, Victor assumed his position in the ritual circle he had inscribed, a whip in one hand, a holy symbol in the other.

The Kinship began to spread out, both to surround the area and to make themselves less of a target from any blast. As Nix continued to negotiate with Petros, the physician suddenly leaped at him from behind, trying to place her cloth over his nose.

"Help me!" the poor laborer managed before his mouth was muffled. Nix lunged to keep the falling torch from its fuel.  Petros used strength honed by years of hard labor to throw off the physician before the stupefying drug could take effect. His fist crunched into her face. In his blind groping, Petros lost his balance and, trying to steady himself, released the torch.

It fell on his chest with a quiet hiss.

Before any could react other than the fleeing physician, flames swaddled the screaming form of Petros and arced to the hay bales. His limbs flailed in agony, only fanning and spreading the growing conflagration. Hearing his awful shrieks, Iridni felt her own muscles contort and knew that her nightmares would have a new sound enjoined to them. All around her the air filled with the sound of wards and blessings.

The fire arose with purpose from the ashes of the Caliban and consumed away one of the smelters. Toward the woods, it also raced, feeding on the secondary escape trail prepared beforehand. With one accord, several Wayfarers moved to cut it off, hurling masses of the precious ice varnish to render useless the fuel it sought. Others followed suit against the great mass of the hearth fiend itself.

Its retreat cut off, the monster known as Mr. Ember raised itself to its full height and towered over the tiny array of figures beneath. A face formed within it and roared at them with all the power of the smelters at full blast. It spoke with the crackle of consumed wood...the clang of coals into the ash-plate.

The Ezrite Kaverin shouted over the din, "If you hunger, then come eat me!" He presented himself to the fire, and Iridni thought he looked as though his own sweat must be boiling.

In response, the mighty flame growled, "I...shall..." As it lashed out at the group before it, the hearth fiend chortled, "You have been...NOTHING...but a thorn...in my side....This mountain...will BURN. I will BECOME it. Become...EVERYTHING!"

For a moment, the creatured seemed to Iridni as though it might make good on its threat. Even in Perfidus she had never seen a flame of this size, and she knew the Wayfarers had all but exhausted their cold varnishes. She ran as she had on that first day long ago, when the silver erupted, healing those scorched the worst by the heat while hoping whatever the mad Victor was doing would work. Trentor appeared to be drawing the fiend's worst, though the single eye of the paladin never blinked, nor did his sword blows lose their purpose when Ember struck him.

The Ezrite now lashed out with an ice-covered whip, "Witness her flame, hellspawn!" Although the monster remained largely unhurt by all those flailing at it, at least the magic of the circle seemed now to hold it in place.

Then, before their eyes, the fire at last began to die down and grow smaller. For a moment its face appeared on Victor's chest and then leaping in vain from one candle to each in the mystic circle as they were all in turn snuffed out.

Mr. Ember was no more.


Spoiler: show


Screenshot courtesy of Blissey
« Last Edit: January 04, 2020, 11:15:23 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
  • Dark Power
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  • Posts: 4374
  • When all other lights go out
A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #106 on: January 12, 2020, 02:34:25 AM »
Once upon another time
Before I knew which life was mine
Before I left the child behind…
Me

I saw myself in summer nights
And stars lit up like candle lights
I’d make my wish but mostly I…
Believed


The river of time flowed, and Iridni’s small vessel drifted farther along its course and farther from the receding bank of Almor. Her home was three years of lyric memory distant. Her violet eyes saw new sights and new comrades, as the stream pushed her relentlessly forward to…she knew not where or when the river of her life would empty, but it was unnatural and morbid for one of her youth and faith to think over much of her end.

Of that she was certain.

She washed her face in the basin, her gentle fingers feeling the familiar skin as she tried to imagine how different she must look from the carefree girl whom her mother, father, and sister mourned. Regardless of whether she found her way home now, that woman-child was lost to them forever. The Mists had changed her as much as war might change a callow boy into a soldier.

Two decades. Too many seasons to deceive herself a bloom rather than a flower. When she went without sleep, the effect on her appearance was noticeable, nor did she recover as quickly from rest’s absence.

How she wanted a child of her own! The desire still rose in her whenever she for a moment forgot to repress it, regardless of Zephyr’s words to her. Zephyr…she finished drying her face and looked to the door while hanging up the small cloth. That, too, she repressed…for now.

Too much was right here at her doorstep to think about more distant journeys. She drew up the straps of her nightgown.

Adeline following dutifully behind her as her small frame passed down the stairs with a candle to the archives. She sighed at the stack of reports. The letter from Loric would be first, and she eagerly opened it in the flickering light, but her eyes, laughing and hopeful, quickly turned to disappointment. Although she could not feel anything but vicarious pleasure at her Steward’s holiday and warmth at his praise, yet she had hoped for clearer guidance. Both more reassurance and acquiescence to her plans. 

Perhaps he saw her age as meaning she ought to need less supervision, less advice—that he could rely on her to make the right judgment. If so, why did he not grant her the boon she asked, a helpmate? The challenges pressing the Kinship on all sides, the ominous year that they had entered, caused her to question whether her wisdom and power alone—as much as Pelor had increased them—were sufficient to steer her and her Kin through the growing maelstrom.

Once upon another time
Deciding nothing good in dying
So I would just keep on trying
Because...I was...free....



« Last Edit: January 12, 2020, 02:43:48 AM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #107 on: January 18, 2020, 03:12:17 PM »
Iridni closed the dossier and sighed, before drafting a reaction. Whatever she had hoped for regarding Orsolya and the Gundarakites, it was all in ruins now. She could never form an alliance with a vampire, nor in her Pelorean opinion could any Wayfarer. Had not much of the past strife in the Kinship resulted from those who wished to tune evil in hopes of producing a just and righteous harmony? Never were those illusions realized, but rather the Kin who held them fell and often were destroyed. The Light could not prevail by using the methods of Darkness.

No compromise or coordination was possible with the undead.

Were her own delay and caution to blame? Had her many demurrings of Orsolya’s demands led to such a desperate act? The young woman could not change her nature—her first instinct to protect those she cared for, rather than hazard them all for precarious aspirations and dreams. Already, she felt enough guilt in how much she had put others at risk without their full knowledge of why.

Perhaps, then, the priestess should be relieved. The ambiguity of her situation had resolved itself. Although she might wish to stand aside and allow Orsolya to take revenge on those who had betrayed the Gundarakite in life, the knowledge that the vampire wanted to turn others to her and her hellish existence, to twist them into the monster she had become—such creatures were abominations and would require the blood of innocents to survive. Her oath to the Kinship but more importantly her faith left her no choice.

As for this other matter...although less personally felt as a weight upon her conscience, the events in Degannwy could not be ignored. She remembered Vashan, and much of the same seemed to be transpiring again, beginning with what Marry had confided to her. As wise and with all the power Pelor had granted her mortal vessel, part of her wisdom was to know when she was over-matched, when allies must be found.

Yunon was no more. Medea and Famorra were beyond her reach. Although Teram was no scholar, he knew Sithicus and had discernment. If others had not sought the warrior’s counsel, help, and experience in this battle against surpassing evil, the small priestess would.

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #108 on: February 02, 2020, 01:06:44 AM »
The young priestess listened to the three hooded figures speak in turn, the putrid smell of the grave filling her small nostrils, the yellow candlelight casting flickering shadows on the mildewed stone walls. Only the dour Elven bard seemed at home in this place of death, and as always the sunny Pelorean felt uncomfortable in his cynical, pessimistic presence, although he restrained many of his unpleasant mannerisms and words out of deference—or so he said—to her. The four had talked for hours, the wax on the wicks sputtering around them, an unknown noise now and then scuttling in the darkness that their eyes could not penetrate. She longed to breathe fresh, wholesome air again. For the rest of the world, flowers bloomed, and nature gave birth to new life, new hope. Entombed, Iridni struggled to focus on the morbid task before them…a task that would end in death. Perhaps every face she rested her violet eyes upon would soon be no more, regardless of the confidence and courage they radiated at this crucible moment.

. . .

Later, exhausted, she fell upon the cot in her rented room, her gowned legs aching from the miles of travel. She would make her journey back to the Lodge on the morrow, for she could no longer resist sleep. Bereft of her armored shell, her small, tired form barely made any impression on the hard mattress.

Her fitful dreams cascaded violent, colorful images before her. Again, she saw Asariel struck down by blinding, devastating energy. And then that selfsame vision was transformed to Yue, trying to rise and pleading for Iridni to help her, as her skin began to flame and burn. Yue’s immolating shape merged with the candle of the Pelorean’s last waking hours…melting like the red wax, while Iridni reached, powerless to help her. Yue’s arms were raised for a moment in supplication before running into molten streams.

Behind her, the bard was shouting at Iridni: “What of my people? If you twissst hiss mind, we will all fade away and die!” The shouting voice grew muffled, and she found herself being buried alive, the panels of the strange, brilliant coffin so close upon her that she could not even bring her weary limbs up to push against the entrapping lid. There was no seam. Yet she still heard the fading voice, “You have killed usss all!”

For a moment among the nightmares and chaos, her mind went back to a more ordered day. She was in the tenements with Matty and Jacques. Someone else was there…but who was it? A man…a man the two young children found fascinating. Yet Iridni thought their fascination worrisome, as he talked with each, flattering them in those ways to which the young are most susceptible. Jacques was especially taken with him. The priestess must bear the man away; she felt that instinctively. She perceived his sardonic expression that negated his honeyed words as he spoke with Matty and Jacques and then in the same voice to her.

“Come!” she said, tugging gently at his elbow, mixing the urgent command in her voice with a flirting, easy mask of a smile. He complied, and she sensed he was amused at her effort to curtail his influence on the children. Then she was strolling with her slender arm entwined in his along the water. A chill blew in from the murky sea as an old and dull sailor meandered toward them.

“Do you want me to kill him?” her companion whispered abruptly to her, bending his bald head down so that a moist lip almost grazed her ear.

The priestess shook with urgency and tried again to see his face above her, her own expression now one of pleading.

“What is this stupid cretin’s life worth to you?” he hissed, the oblivious sailor still limping along the boardwalk toward the pair of apparent lovers, leering now at Iridni. The man at her side gestured with his staff. “That old fool is of no consequence to two as powerful as we, my dear. Yet would you part with something of value to save him?”

The question challenged the Pelorean for a moment, but then she knew what she must do. She released her companion’s arm and drew back, at last seeing his monstrous, deformed face. It had been carved with torture beyond human capacity to manufacture or endure.

“Kill me, Iridni,” it croaked, its eyes—sunken in the disfigured flesh—imploring her. They were abject with fear of something far more terrifying than death.

The fine jaw of the priestess trembled, her placid beauty vanished in a contortion of horror and disgust, but then she nodded. She tried to lift her leaden arms to cast, before—

Before.

She awoke to cramps and discovered that during the night the blood had come.

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #109 on: February 17, 2020, 12:34:09 AM »
The Lodge has indeed had some banter of late, as the new members are a more playful bunch it seems than some of the past Wayfarers. Marry does not seem to mind being the butt of some of it, as his humor is unfailing no matter how much a few of the others tease him.

Trentor retrieved the small skull of the disinterred Halfing, and Iridni's thoughts returned to the foolish optimism of her letter to Loric, hardly more than a month ago. Beneath Marry's happy-go-lucky countenance, the grief he felt at losing his child and wife had settled into his soul like an accursed poison. She had chosen to overlook that, wanting to believe the best of him.

Now he was dead, paying the ultimate cost of his betrayal of the Kinship and his dark lust for power. Could she have saved him from this fate, much as she had interceded for him so that he escaped mutilation and exile? He had confided in her the unforgiving hatred that burned within him, and so she mistakenly believed she knew the extent of his wickedness, that he concealed nothing from her. She thought wise and holy words were all that were necessary to council him and hoped that her own example would be enough to persuade him of the blessedness of forgiveness and light.

It was only by Pelor's grace that her mistake had not caused her and her closest allies to walk into a snare. How she had taken his impatience with the defenders of Degannwy and his thirst for action against its adversaries as sincere!

Perhaps it had been. Perhaps Marry was opportunistic more than anything else and would have thrown in with whichever side appeared to be winning. Regardless, that possibility did not excuse the hazard she had brought upon them all by allowing Marry's presence at the Blood o' the Vine, or her continued faith in him when she first heard alternative reports of his monstrous behavior.

This, then, was her penance: that the Garda seemed to believe she had known of his evil and sheltered him even so and had only faked his execution. In isolation, she could understand that they might entertain such a suspicion, but within the context of her entire history and that of the Kinship, their paranoid demand beggared belief. Four Wayfarers stood ready with testimony that her first request after Marry's death was that the garda be informed of it.

And so Trentor toiled with his shovel to dig up the paltry remains of Marry Banbito, widower, one-time father, one-time Wayfarer, that the paladin and Iridni might transport the undeniable proof Marry was no more back to Vallaki and the Charnel House. She looked away and sobbed as Trentor slipped the skull into the burlap sack. In spite of everything, in spite of knowing he might have planned a betrayal of her similar to Hypatia's, Iridni wanted to remember him as he once had been.

The little man in a pointy hat that was too big for him, and all his Kin nicknamed him "Teapot."

« Last Edit: February 17, 2020, 09:09:23 AM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #110 on: February 27, 2020, 12:35:58 PM »

Iridni closed the door to the dark office in the Lodge’s basement and prepared to document all that she had learned this evening, but as she took quill in hand her mind would not focus. Vampires and all the usual horrible business of the Kinship seemed so insignificant to her in the lonely darkness and pain that throbbed like a long-embedded icepick in her heart. She felt as though something was dying inside her.

She knew the name of what that fatality was: hope. Could love survive without it?

What had begun in an evening of tearful joy had ended again in disappointment. She considered a moment and then put aside the fresh dossier she had begun. She wrote anew on a clean, white sheet of parchment, the black words starting as an uneven, unsteady trickle, but soon flowing like an undammed torrent, her simple printing almost becoming illegible in her rapid dictation of all that her heart wished her hand to express.

My dearest Zephyr,

I hope you recall our betrothal as clearly as I. When you made your feelings known and asked whether I might reciprocate them, I put you off for a week, telling you that—under the circumstances of your own recent heartbreak and emotional trauma—you should reflect on the sincerity of your love toward me. If after this reflection you still believed in its depth, then I might accede to your suggestion. A week later, you assured me our union was what you wanted.

I also told you that for me any such commitment would end in marriage. You did not propose formally in response to my strong hint, but neither did you say my aspiration was impossible. Rather, you said you would need time to grow used to the idea. My beloved, it has been almost a year and a half now since you professed your love, and much of that time you have spent more absent from me than when we were only Trustee and Second.

During that year and a half, I begged of you that we might adopt Mattie and Jacques together. You refused. I begged of you that I could accompany you to Paridon and assist you in your work there. You refused. And now after another long absence, you return to tell me that we cannot marry because you have never desired a family. My love, regardless of your intent, you do have a family and children in Kartakass; it is only the marriage you lack.

For that matter, I may not be capable of bearing you children. What am I to conclude, then, but that you simply do not wish to marry me?

Zephyr, as much as I care for you and as much as I have been compliant to your will, I cannot think of a single time in this last year and a half you have changed your mind to please me, even when your bending would cost you little but would have given me so much.

I long for the embrace of no other man. My affections toward you yearn as they ever did, my beloved, making this letter all the more painful to write. But you cannot continue to evade doing what is worthy and right—and treat me like someone you do love!—or admit that your feelings were transitory and that you are incapable of returning mine as they deserve to be.
 
Your broken Iridni




« Last Edit: February 27, 2020, 01:57:03 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
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  • Posts: 4374
  • When all other lights go out
A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #111 on: March 05, 2020, 11:06:47 PM »
The wisest midwives of Almor tell of the omen of a white hatchling crested with a thorn-shaped raven feather. From the moment the young dove so marked leaves her nest, she searches for a thorn tree and does not rest until she finds one. Then, singing among the savage branches, she impales herself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, she rises above her own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, sweeter than any other, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and in Elysium Pelor smiles. For the best—or so these wisest of women say—is bought only at the cost of great pain.

At last Zephyr summoned Iridni, and the young priestess obeyed with trepidation. For she knew that his once endearing violet gaze had of late avoided hers, and his displays of affection since her pleading letter were minimal—chaste and almost brotherly when bestowed upon her upturned and waiting face. Often she went over in her mind what she would say when they were next alone together, but she rehearsed only from her desire to express herself after many months of silence and solitude. Her feelings and thoughts caged so long within her heart begged for their release; they would be heard.

Otherwise, speech would feel vain to her, dry on her tongue, for she did not believe it in her power to persuade Zephyr: regardless of his place of birth and his race, his core resembled Barovia—a land that a traveler might glimpse but that wished to remain insulated and private from those outside it. Only on rare occasions had Zephyr exposed himself to the young Pelorean, and, afterward, she perceived his regret at needing to do so. In those vulnerabilities he desired intimacy, for her to accept him as he truly was, but it was thereafter safest to retreat behind the flamboyant persona he displayed and the concealment with which he covered even his skin.

Now, as the moment of her beloved’s decision arrived, Iridni wondered whether she might have done better to display greater flaws of her own. Zephyr insisted he did not deserve her, and perhaps he meant the remark as more than flattering words. Yet, if sincere, why would he have asked her to love him? Had her strength and patience in the subsequent months been unexpected? Had he, as so many other companions and acquaintances, mistaken her gentleness for frailty, when nothing in this grievous realm required greater strength from her than did restraint? If she were being penalized for unfailing obedience to Zephyr’s command to wait upon his return and her lonely, painful fortitude while he was absent, the gods must truly favor irony.

Iridni knew many faults about herself, and she was certain one quality she could never possess was to surprise.

Older than she, Zephyr must know that giving in to hate was always easier than restraint, more so in Barovia. Since her passage through the mists a thousand blows hammered this truth home to her, for she had learned that a defeated foe would either yield or perish. And then hatred, too, died, its fleeting ardor sated with the spilling of blood. Love’s steadfast passion, in contrast, demanded a strength never to show anger and to endure pain always with kindness. Her god’s own love was one of mercy, absolute and eternal, rather than justice. Might a god who loved, then, so infinitely but therefore unjustly and unfairly expect the same unending sacrifice of a mortal woman?

A god might, but surely not Zephyr?

Iridni brushed and pinned up her raven hair, then put aside her more ceremonial gown to wear the same robin’s egg shift as when she first joined the Kinship three years ago. It was in this simple dress that Zephyr had attended her when they first met, and she, a young sojourner in a strange land, had been sick and weak. She hoped it would remind her former Trustee that underneath all her covering—rather than a litigant to be reasoned with, an asset or a liability to be evaluated and judged—was still that raw and tender woman who most needed his mercy.

What Zephyr was about to do, he did to both of them. She would, therefore, afford her love no nobility, no justification, in breaking her heart.


***

Zephyr lowered his gaze with shame. “I received your letter I...I carry it with me.”

She sniffed and nodded, trying to keep her voice, her eyes, from betraying her. “You know my feelings then, Zephyr. I would know yours.”

“Everything you wrote is true.  My behavior has been shameful, unforgiveable....You don't deserve it, Iridni.

“Zephyr...you most need to forgive yourself. My forgiveness is yours for the asking.”

He shook his head. “You do not deserve to be treated this way, nor am I deserving of your endless patience. I cannot be what you need me to be, and I cannot see you so broken because of my negligence.”

“What do I need you to be? What is it you are unwilling to give?” She wiped at the side of her face, knowing she was losing the battle against her own emotions.

“You need a partner who will value and cherish you like the treasure you are.” He took her hand. “Someone who will take that step with you as an equal partner....and give you a family.”

Looking down at the vision of their conjoined hands, she sighed. “I have prepared for this moment, thinking of all I would say, but”—she shook her head—“I  know how unpersuadable you can be, Zephyr. Yet I would ask...”

When she raised her eyes, she saw Zephyr, too, was beginning to cry, unable to mask his emotion.

“Why did you wish me to love you? Did you not know me...did you not know yourself...those many months ago?” The priestess maintained an even voice through the question, but seeing her beloved in torment almost broke the remnants of her composure.

“This does not diminish my feelings, my lady. I was and am earnest with you and my love for you, but I believe I am broken, too. In a different way.”

Instinctively, she put her other hand to the side of his face as though, if it remained within her power, she would wipe away his tears.

“What was it, Zephyr? Was it going home? Discovering your twins?”

The dam broke, and Iridni felt Zephyr’s grief streaming down her hand. “I'm so terribly sorry…I am no father to them...I am...I don't know.”

She could no longer check her own as sobs racked her.

“I wish only happiness for you, Iridni.”

For both of them, she had to be strong. As much as she wanted to explode at this moment, it would destroy all the good they had created together—and might create together in the future. “Everything I wrote you in that letter is true, my love. I do not desire freedom for another. But…I can't...I can't…” Damn...why did the right words not come to her?

She felt a gentle squeeze on her hand, and Zephyr’s gesture clarified her mind. “I can't remain in uncertainty. Not knowing whether you will be here, or what you truly want me to do as I have for the past year. I don't want to be one more thing you feel guilty about. And beat yourself up over.”

“My behavior was...is unbecoming. Cruel. You are such a beautiful soul inside and out…You don't deserve it.”

“Zephyr...you are a resolute and strong man in your own way. People don't often appreciate that in those who are gentle. But I wish you would not do this to both of us.” The betraying tears crested again.

Zephyr furrowed his brow, and the back of his hand went to his eyes. “I need to let you go, my dear. It is perhaps the most painful thing I've done and I cannot imagine how...how you're feeling. But this will be better for you. You need not have to spend lonely nights waiting and wondering where I am. Dreaming of a future that you deserve, but I, in all my faults, will not grant you.”

“If you are sure this is what you want, I will not argue. Every man must choose his own path, and I can't force you into the path I alone wish for you.”
 
She brought his hand to her cheek to rub it against her tears and then kiss it before at last releasing him.

Zephyr seemed to sense their moment was at an end. “I can leave, if you'd like.  I can go to Port a Lucine...”

Iridni shook her head. “No...I do not want that. You have always been dear to me and always will be.”

“As you will be to me.”

Her freed hand at last found a handkerchief. “I will not make any uncomfortable scenes.” She forced herself to smile as she wiped her eyes.

“You are entitled to respond in any way you wish,” he said with sadness. “I will prepare myself for the backlash.  You are well loved, my dear.”

“We still have our work together. There is no reason for any evil to come of...this path.” She managed a rueful giggle. “As for that letter, feel free to burn it and keep one of my older letters with you.”

“I could never burn anything written by your hand, and from your heart, my dear.”

She nodded. “I appreciate you, Zephyr. No matter what, I will always remember how much I owe you. And I will still love you for who you are. Whether or not you are my husband.” She paused. “Whether or not I can call you…mine.”



« Last Edit: March 05, 2020, 11:52:21 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
  • Dark Power
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  • Posts: 4374
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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #112 on: March 06, 2020, 09:40:21 PM »
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –


After many hours Iridni awakened and remembered that today was Simona's funeral. Regardless of how miserable she felt, she must attend. At least she knew she was all cried out.

She traded the shift for her mourning clothes and traversed the small section of the slums from the Lodge to the church. How many Morning Lords had she seen buried since coming to Barovia? Belonging to a native faith all but guaranteed a memorial service, whereas her only memories of Pelorean funerals were in the Prelacy.

Sitting in the pew and surveying so many unfamiliar faces, she was as alone as she had been in three years. Regardless of how often Zephyr absented himself, she always felt connected to him wherever he might be--that she and her fate mattered to someone above all else. Perhaps it had always been an illusory dream; for now she was done with all men and their thoughtless promises.

Enduring the pain was liberating in that her uncertain mind had regained its certainty. For Zephyr's sake, the longing for her home she had suppressed as a sort of infidelity. Now, however, no bonds of affection constrained her most heartfelt wish: to return to Almor. The vision of Simona's crumpled body at the altar had but one message for her: I do not want to die in Barovia.

Poor Simona. Iridni felt a twinge of survivor's guilt that was not entirely irrational. She thought back to the Kinship open house when Simona had discussed her secret plan with Iridni, and the Pelorean had neither dissuaded her nor agreed to help her in it. Iridni thought instead of what was best for the Kinship, and she was certain still that was her proper course. Nonetheless, another choice might not have resulted in the shrouded body before her.

Quinn, Arthur, Marry, and now even Zephyr were lessons to her in how limited was her ability to influence and alter the fate of another. Perhaps she was learning, for Iridni had told Snow that the druid alone must make the choice of who her friends were to be.

As Iridni listened to Simona's many eulogies, she was approached by a white-clad novitiate who motioned to the seat next to her: "May I?"

The Pelorean nodded, thinking that company might help her stay focused on the proceedings and give them their proper respect, rather than her mind drifting again to selfish, personal troubles.

"I'm Iridni. I am not of the faith, but I knew her very well. And we shared similar beliefs," she whispered. Throughout the service thereafter, the Pelorean considered that even in death Simona was providing a teachable moment to this young acolyte (the Pelorean learned was named Liliana). For who could help but be inspired by so many achievements in service to their common god, Liliana's and Simona's?

Only one matter continued to prey on Iridni's mind: where was Savu, Simona's beloved husband and father of their child? In vain did her violet eyes pass to and fro over the congregation. As beautiful and memorable as the service all was, Savu's absence was troubling, for she well knew how both had pined for each other whenever separated and how joyful their reunions. Although she had decided against speaking once she heard Anghel Vântu say everything that was on her own mind (and aware of how terrible she must look), Iridni realized Savu needed at least a mention.

Abruptly, she stood and joined the line of those paying their final respects, recognizing Conner Cunningham in front of her, his head bereft for once of his ever-present bandana.

At last it was her turn, and she faced the gathered crowd: "Dear Anghel has spoken for me in most ways. But I will add to his gracious words a little. Simona was complex. As much as has been said about her, she had more about her and her life than we can hope to capture in this short service. For example, she was married, but regretfully her beloved husband, Savu, is unable to be here. I am certain he would be if he could."

She paused and spied the young acolyte watching her now. "The most important quality Simona possessed, however, is she brought those who served the Light together. This was her great and tireless gift. As Anghel said, this was how the Deceiver was destroyed. As we are united in grief for her now, I hope whatever our faiths and perspectives, we remain so united--as she would wish--after she is laid to rest."

Iridni turned to view Simona's remains and place a bouquet beside them. "Farewell, Sister Simona," she said before returning to her seat.

Others came forward, one by one, until the service concluded. As Tess invited everyone to refreshments, a sudden racket sounded in the entrance, and the door flew open. Savu, followed closely by an enormous wererat, burst into the temple. Ready blades quickly skewered the monster, and the mourners parted like a sea before Savu to let him approach his fallen beloved.

He ran a hand over her hair. "For those of you who remain, I assume you were among those closest to her...Simona was... Everything to me, she was the reason I strove for greatness in the garda, the reason I gave chances time and time again to those who needed them."

Iridni watched the tableau of the grieving husband with his unresponsive wife and discovered to her dismay she was not cried out after all.

"She was the reason I strode into the mists day after day, growing stronger, the reason I gathered all the wealth I now have. To build a life for her that was worthy of her. But, she never lost sight of who she was, no matter what I showered upon her, wealth, jewelery, equipment, rare flowers... She always saw herself as a protector, someone who fought for all of you."

Kerdic was placing golem skulls by Simona's body as Savu spoke.

"I am... Destroyed by this loss, the man I was goes to the grave with Simona...."

The Pelorean watched, listened, and felt her shoulders shaking. And not all of her grief at this tragic spectacle was for Simona and Savu. She turned to leave, clutching her wet handkerchief. "I must go. I hope the service was meaningful for you, Liliana," she whispered.



« Last Edit: March 06, 2020, 10:23:34 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #113 on: March 27, 2020, 03:00:35 AM »
As so often of late, Iridni found herself thinking about family. Soon after she arrived in Barovia and Medea brought her to the Lodge, what had most attracted her to the Wayfarers was this place was called a Kinship, and those kind souls she met then told her she was among family. Although she had never completely in the years since lost her longing to return home to her true family, suppressing it for a time out of a desire for unreserved fidelity to Zephyr, the Lodge and its hearty inhabitants had provided her with something akin to that which she had lost and most needed. Likewise, the Code’s eternal struggle against darkness in which the strong and true must protect the weak and innocent—while not clothed in the divine and poetic dogma of Pelor—accorded with her own most devout and filial beliefs.

Now the recent conversation with Asariel over their respective sisters explained the direction of Iridni’s thoughts easily enough, yet it was not her younger sibling she pictured in her mind’s eye but her father. Regardless of her warm relationship with Bishop Ren and immense respect for him, Iridni had always assumed she would grow to be more like her mother, and that her own life would resemble that of the woman who gave birth to her. Looking back, she knew that her instinctive (and sometimes resented) nurturing of those around her was her mother’s example manifesting itself in Aeresa Ren’s eldest daughter.

The religious work of her father growing up seemed so important and beyond her, his words always so wise. Although faith and her time in Barovia had expanded the powers that Pelor placed at her disposal beyond any of her predecessors in the line of Ren (even his), her growing understanding only confirmed the lessons he had poured into her mind and heart: “You learn more from adversity, my child, than ease.”

When she knew not the right answers or was at a loss as to the best path to take, when she could not equal the grace with which Bishop Ren guided his contented flock, she recalled that much of her wisdom was an excessive gift from her god’s hand. Her father had passed sufficient years in thoughtful worship and simple living until he had acquired the more natural and earned wisdom of age.

Imitating either of the paragons that were her mother and father would have been difficult, but to satisfy the standard both had set for Iridni while imprisoned in a place so foreign to them she felt was merciless. Perhaps if she had not been so young when they were separated from her, she could have better clung to their receding influence and not come to rely on guidance from these more broken people of the Mists.

She might, for example, have been able to council her first fatherly substitute, Yunon, to restrain his irascibility. Instead of always believing that as her elder his judgment must surpass her own, she could have remembered how her mother used strong gentleness to calm the rare moments of anger of Bishop Ren. Had Iridni not stood by helpless when Yunon lost patience with the Kinship, perhaps he would never have, on another moment of impetuosity, gone to duel and perish in Hazlan.

She knew she had made that calming effort with Medea, her adopted “mother,” many times, all of them a failure, culminating in what she still recalled with a twinge of regret. She had tried to persuade Medea to return the Rod of Azalin Rex through personal appeal, and—when that failed—forced the issue via the Erudites, which ultimately led to Medea’s expulsion from their mutual family. Her duty to the many and the Light had not lessened the feeling that she had betrayed her patroness and a woman who had more than once saved her life, including staying the fangs of the Deathsinger from Iridni’s defenseless throat.

Now, Zephyr.

Their respective roles over the years were too complex to bear easy analysis, and perhaps she did not even want to think too much about what it might all mean. Yet she was certain that their romance had been of his choosing and nothing she had ever sought. If she knew most to express love through obedience, self-sacrifice, and loyalty, then she concluded Zephyr’s own path had taught him that evidencing sexual desire for her was how best to show his affection and respond to her devotion. She could not judge him for this difference because his examples had doubtless been less holy than her own in the Prelacy.

Lovers always loved each other as they wished to be loved, rather than how those they loved most wished.

That much she had come to understand. What the priestess had not yet resolved in her mind was loyalty and whether it was vice masquerading as virtue. For were not personal loyalty and favoritism two sides of the same coin? In setting Zephyr’s will so often above her own had she evidenced loyalty to a self-admittedly flawed man while betraying her own conscience and ideals?

To be sure, she had believed that on the matters of the Kinship they valued the same principles. Zephyr’s view of the meaning of life and the best way to spend it might have been vastly different from her own, but to her that had only made their relationship more interesting and fraught with possibility. Each might learn something from the other. In their work, however, he spoke with authority, and she absorbed each lesson he taught her. She also became ever more grateful to him for the praise and honors he bestowed upon her, until finally she gave in and accepted his misplaced promise of love.

In allowing Zephyr to influence her and sway her mind time and again, should her decisions taste of sweet loyalty or insipid favoritism?

Pelor’s only response was silence, and Iridni’s father was too far away to answer her.


« Last Edit: March 27, 2020, 04:07:21 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #114 on: March 31, 2020, 11:41:28 AM »
As winter blanketed Barovia, Iridni’s soul passed through the storm of conflict and once more found the peace of an Elysium bay. Although opposing Zephyr had been turbulent and wrenching for her, the calmness she now felt confirmed for her that her course remained true, her single polarity of direction regained.

The sting of this bracing wind she thought her long-time trustee had needed as well: too long had she stood as his shield, enabling his dilatory nature and protecting him from the criticism of so many Kin that she had endured on his behalf. Certainly, he resented his intercessor no longer subduing her own mind to his past authority and from love’s devotion, but regardless of how he wished to lecture her and grasp for the reins over her he once held, he had renounced all former claims to her governance. He was no longer her superior, nor—by his own choosing—was she betrothed to him.

His habit of manner with her would die hard, but without her acting as both his mother and his servant Zephyr might regain the confidence and verve that she had so admired. At least the insolence he perceived in her disagreement had for the moment sparked him from his lethargy. Though he might believe otherwise, hers was not the fury of a woman scorned, but the asserting conscience of a woman set free and awakened.

Working with Roland again after so much time also felt both familiar and proper. In the paladin’s case, too, she had allowed personal feelings to dull her judgment, so that rather than blame Alistar for his own choices, she had transferred her first love’s decisions to the influence of his friend. Inwardly she had been jealous that Roland could move Alistar when she could not.

Over time, however, she had gradually forgiven what should never have been a grievance in the first place. Their aims aligned, and this Roland seemed more cautious and thoughtful than she remembered when he, too, was in the Kinship. Regardless, the twin evils before them required she see him only as he was now, a surpassing warrior of resolution and light perhaps capable of destroying both a new devil and an ancient vampire.

Her prayer book said, A pure heart wills but one thing. For the first time in many months and after much pain, the rhythm of Iridni’s Pelorean heart sounded in her ears both steady and pure.


« Last Edit: March 31, 2020, 12:37:44 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

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A Radiance Everlasting
« Reply #115 on: April 04, 2020, 05:02:58 PM »

The small priestess awoke alone in a dark room. Something was different and wrong. As her violet eyes tried in vain to pierce the ebony cloak shrouding her, Iridni remembered and knew what was different. Her Kinship amulet—which she placed with care by her bedside each night—was no longer emitting its faint blue glow of comfort.

She leaned over from the inn bed to reach to the floor and her worn pack. The first light source she found was Zephyr’s ring. Reflect and guide, never deny, the heart will lead you true.

Oh my Zephyr, she thought. Look at what being guided by one’s heart has done for you. She thought of how both Blue and Mihail had broken her recent love’s heart and left him crying against her. Most of all she thought of his two daughters growing up without a father in Kartakass. The proper guide could be only one’s soul, for the soul was wisdom’s seat, whereas the heart was prone to very much foolishness.

What of her? Following her soul’s compass had caused her two heartbreaks of late as well, but she had held fast to her integrity. Though she was bereft of her amulet, the light that burned within her had not flickered or failed. She felt the confidence of Pelor’s grace more abundantly than at any time since passing through the Mists.

Iridni Ren was a Wayfarer no more. And yet the Lodge was not the first home she had lost, nor was her separation from those she loved there as complete as it was from her first family. In the near darkness she confessed to herself that what she would most miss was Adeline.

***   

She thought back to her letter to Loric:

Quote
I pray fervently that the present generation of Kin will make the right decision and defend our Code as is proper, choosing our principles over flattery and personality. Regardless of the outcome, however, you, Loric, must either sanction it or otherwise make your wishes known as to where the Kinship goes in the aftermath. The result must be a Kinship result, not seen as only either a personal victory for myself or for Tess. As our founder and compass, you must ratify and reaffirm what is at our core as a Kinship.

In the end, Loric had done all she asked of him, and her soul’s faith in her long-time Steward had not been misguided—as much as his pronouncement had sliced through her heart upon hearing it. In a flash of clarity, she saw all that had happened necessitated her departure so that the Kinship might heal and that the newer Wayfarers learn to take responsibility and lead. As long as she kept the minutes, as long as she wrote reports, as long as she called meetings and interviewed prospects, no one else would see the need.

Moreover, the vote on Tess was also a referendum on Iridni. For if the priestess could not persuade the others to uphold the Code, then she had failed to lead by example—either by not instilling in her companions the meaning of the principles to which they had all affixed their oaths, or that some had grown resentful enough of her that they saw it as a personal choice between Iridni and Tess…and chose the latter. These were not the same Wayfarers who, informed by her revulsion over the gross breach of the Code, had summarily expelled one of their number for merely proposing the murder of Mathieu Laurier.

She had not, in the end, been able even to rally Zephyr to her.

From across time, her father’s words again comforted Iridni: “Everyone is needed, but no one is essential.” Her departure and the blossoming of other Kin would affirm the wisdom of Bishop Ren.

Spring had arrived, and with its promise of new life, she could never be completely despondent. Conner had spoken of having her preside over his bonding, and the prospect gave her great joy. As Iridni had confessed to Lucy, she most looked forward to no longer having to be the “nag,” to no longer enduring claims she was grossly ignorant of the needs of other Kin, and to no longer overhearing the whispers of those who called her spiteful while feigning warmth to her face. Three years and numerous Wayfarers had taught the young priestess that most—from some perverse trait in mortal nature—wish to make their own mistakes and despise those who would interfere in their capacity to do so.

In this conflict the heart was at war with the soul, just as for a time Zephyr and she had warred.

***   

In the darkness outside the Lodge door, she accepted the glowing ring and looked into Zephyr’s face lit by it. “Does this signify more than a gift?” Her quiet words were like the last frail snowflakes of a long winter as they whispered and danced on the evening wind between them.

“You are…stronger without me.” He placed a soft hand over her face and kissed her upturned forehead. “But I hope you will remember me. And the love I will always bear for you.”

“And I for you.” She nodded and studied the fine lines around his eyes that glittered with starlight and his lips that had so often pressed against her own. She had also taken in the nooks and crannies of her beloved Lodge before passing outside for the first time without possessing a key that would grant her return.

“Farewell for now, my oldest friend,” she said, palming the ring so that the light between them was extinguished as suddenly as a blown out candle, and she was left only with her study of his face at the moment when he professed his love.

She walked away then, with certain steps and without looking back.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2020, 05:07:12 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

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« Reply #116 on: April 09, 2020, 12:49:13 PM »

And the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not overcome or comprehend it.

Iridni sipped her vanilla-orange tea, imported from Har'Akir, and chewed with bliss the sweet, almond-flavored biscuit. She gazed at the blazing fire and could not help but compare her current situation with so many times spent in similar repose in the Kinship Lodge. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she had returned and that, when she opened them, Adeline would once again nestle at her feet.

It was not so. Whereas her long-time home had been rustic, with massive wooden beams and the ruggedness of hand-hewn furniture, the finest leather upholstery and delicate fabrics furnished this luxuriant suite in the Governor's Hotel; the very air intoxicated her dainty nose with the pleasure of perfume and fragrance. Whereas squalor and slums surrounded the priestess’s former dwelling, she now rested on an over-stuffed divan high above the well-ordered city streets, and, had she chosen, she could have looked down on the expansive boulevards of thriving shops and people of finery far below her.

This, then, was the lifestyle Zephyr aspired to but—unless he found love in arms far wealthier than her own—was unlikely to achieve. For all her Pelorean belief in self-denial to meet the needs of others, she had to concede such an existence tempted one. Four times she could count passing into these upper stories as the guest of another, and on each occasion she marveled that such secure and convenient lives could be experienced in a realm of fear and hardship. Perhaps it was her own recent loss and tearing away from so much she had grown to love, but never before had she felt such a keen appreciation of self-reliance: of having the wealth to do as one chose without dependence on the malleable favor and affection of others.

The priestess sighed then and finished her tea. Riches did not make one happy. For though the small Elf hosting Iridni spoke of having millions of solars, she also said she was too busy ever to enjoy them. And she fretted how she might make more. In a way it was reassuring to have Iridni’s Pelorean prejudices confirmed.

***   

The rugged hand of the smith’s closed over her yielding softness and began a caress. Iridni watched as though her own hand belonged to that of another.

“You know what I said earlier about my freedom?”

“Mhm.” A male voice answered.

“I have loved Zephyr with all my heart for two years….I am all romanced out for now.”



My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
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« Reply #117 on: April 14, 2020, 04:02:33 PM »
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

Less than a week in Port-a-Lucine re-acclimated Iridni to the awareness that—for all the facade of refinement fabricked over its social structure and mores—Dementlieu in bones, blood, and flesh was no more wholesome than the undead monster’s Barovia…a pretentious and wealthy courtesan who splurged on swank parfum to disguise the tell-tale odors of her sordid evening traffic.

Tess had questioned Iridni during their final interview whether Vallaki was not the home of the Kinship and, consequently, whether Wayfarers had any justification for travelling elsewhere when the needs were so great of the Gray City itself. Passing from her new-yet-old-and-familiar room in the Tenements to the neglected, hollow-eyed children and starving, rail-thin beggars of the Quartier Ouvrir, Iridni knew with certainty her quiet answer.

Nor was poverty the only monster that prayed on the weak and innocent here. Already the young priestess had learned of three threats worthy of the Kinship’s attention. And war was again coming.

Ill-suited to these trials with her inability to understand Mordentish, she would do what she could, but—as she said to a gendarme’s inquiry—she was “a young, unimportant woman with few connections,” a lowly provincial in a cosmopolitan society in which rank and station counted all and good intentions naught.

Despite Zephyr’s cautions, she felt no concern for her personal safety as she prayed each night at the side of her solitary cot, the evening air pregnant with the cries of drunken anger and brutal violence, for her god strengthened her more than her greatest aspirations. Moreover, the fewer ties and responsibilities she had, the less she could be harmed through indirect means. She thought of all the mischief, for example, Marry had made for her. Future misguided Wayfarers who mixed themselves up with the machinations of devilish wizards would not be hers to look after or intercede for. And yet she worried about Asariel and, of course, Zephyr, who never seemed aware of his own risks and vulnerabilities. What was this foolishness about a song he owed to that cold and ominous Drow?

Neither of her longtime companions had a god watching over them and offering a glorious, eternal Elysium for their steadfast service.

Yes, she thought, perhaps her abrupt independence evidenced why Pelor denied her a helpmate and children of her own. For having a personal love and a makeshift family to devote herself to had made her less able to care unreservedly for all these others, including the kidnapped Aubin. Although his opulent existence would be incomprehensible to one of “her” street urchins, wealth made even a five-year-old a target. The young heir of the Tremblays was caught in a nightmare as dreadful as any Iridni observed in her daily travels through the diseased and impoverished streets of the Ouvrir. The image of that bloody servant girl bludgeoned to death in Aubin’s lavish room haunted Iridni’s recent dreams and grieved her that a babe so innocent and young witnessed the carnage.

Naturally, Aubin’s abduction brought also to Iridni’s mind the hidden Krofburg twins, likewise in constant danger because of callous, greedy men and their vain struggle for power and gold. This looming militancy would, as always, allow men to dress up and demonstrate their bravery and martial prowess while displacing civilian women from their homes and comfort and endangering their precious children. In their need the victims might overlook that she who offered them aid spoke only Common, dressed often in indelicate armor rather than tightly starched pants, and cared not a fig for politics.

The priestess’s mother bequeathed her violet eyes and the persistence that some would say bordered on stubbornness, but Bishop Ren had passed to his raven-haired daughter the wisdom when at last letting go to do so with an open hand. True, Iridni had felt an hour of remorseful nausea for all her fruitless time waiting for Zephyr’s return and attending what he had told her was her duty during his absence, yet she could promise herself only greater personal integrity to her own Pelorean compass in the future. No good could come of either clinging to the past or regretting it. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Nor might benefit arise of her fearing an inevitable accounting that her faith and work could not co-exist with the diabolic rulers of these many dark lands. As surely as Pelor’s light dawned each morning, a day of reckoning between good and evil approached. If she were offered a chance to return to her true home in the Prelacy and again abandon this place of need, to let this cup pass untasted from her lips, would she weaken and seize it? That was a question for which the young priestess presently had no answer, but neither did her circumstances require one.



My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
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« Reply #118 on: April 19, 2020, 08:14:27 PM »
Kneeling at dawn and upon reaching the end of her simple prayers, Iridni felt Pelor once more speak to her through the surging of His omnipotent blessings into her small and trembling body. She maintained her bowed head as this single means of divine contact reassured her anew that her god was pleased with her and her increasingly isolated efforts to serve the Light. Her compact physical vessel seemed almost inconsequential and so very temporal compared with the eternal holy energies that overwhelmed and enraptured her. When her god had finished with her, she rose from her knees refreshed, renewed, and ever stronger.

Meroippi had asked her if she wanted for friends and allies, and in truth she seldom did. Outside the Kinship more folk seemed to warm to her company now than when duty and the Code had constrained her conduct. Only her doctrinaire beliefs seemed always to push others away—her uncompromising convictions that inevitably made intimacy and its acknowledgement of human imperfection in both others and herself difficult. A Pelorean must forgive frailty, she knew, yet she feared to show it and to forgive herself overmuch until tolerance of her own weaknesses transformed them first into habit and then practice.

She took stock of what she saw as her remaining vices. She liked gossip, but listening to that was minor. Much worse was her offering of unsolicited opinions, she knew, often without softening them with Pelorean mercy and tact.

She thought of Loric and how seldom he had ever allowed himself a moment of ego in presiding over the Kinship, listening to ten words for each he spoke. She knew that to talk ill of another Wayfarer, even one dismissed for cause, would invite her former Steward’s ire, but in all their time together she could remember only twice he had taken personal affront for himself. True, many were more willing to be harsh toward and confrontational with a young Outlander woman than an elderly male with the gravitas of Loric. To her knowledge, however, her old friend had no god strengthening him as she did against worldly opinion and judgment. She could and would do better.

She thought then of Jean and how she always seemed to irritate him by her presence. She laughed too much for his tastes, she knew, but what he had seen of life had convinced him only of its seriousness. All life for the weaponmaster and instructor was a losing struggle against death. So that was another example of her insensitivity toward others. She would practice, in the future, thinking of her most painful memories—her failure to revive the fallen Yunon, Zephyr’s heartbreaking confession, Loric’s sudden dismissal of her—when Jean and others told her of their own hardships and disappointments for which she had no other means to empathize. To know the Light was to find joy in the darkest of moments, but she would manifest the Light’s joy henceforth in ways excepting mirth.

As the blessings of her god grew ever more bountiful, she must make herself in gratitude ever more worthy of them. Self must decrease as spirit increased until the last of self vanished beneath the spirit of the infinite.

She pulled out the parchment of her unfinished poem. The pedestrian doggerel sounded hardly worthy of a devoted servant of Pelor, and self-expression seemed at this moment so self-indulgent. Worse, might her words to some ears be hurtful, rather than healing? 

After a brief consideration, she bent her raven-haired head over the parchment, dipped her quill, and began to work again with the intent of completion. Whether anyone else would ever see her effort she did not yet know, but this woman who would serve Pelor in all things, both body and soul, had still not mastered her latent desire to be (as a woman) understood.




My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
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« Reply #119 on: April 26, 2020, 07:46:56 PM »
She found herself again in the Governor’s Hotel, this time alone in a suite for the moment all her own. She even had a private bath—the first ever in her twenty-year life, for at the Lodge the bathing facilities had always been communal. She drew water, removed her priestly robes, and sank into the immediate pleasure of the expansive tub. Before beginning to wash herself, she pinned her black hair up with her last diamond-studded gift from Emma.

By rights, this should be Emma’s room, but the young mother was gone, her two-year-old who Iridni had helped her bear now an orphan. Iridni had known with a certain gasp of horror the moment that Emma’s ashes began to float skyward—just like Yunon!—that her troubled friend was lost to her forever, that the Ezrites would not be able to save her.

The Pelorean allowed herself a good long cry, the warm, encompassing embrace of the hot water offering some comfort in her otherwise solitary grief, the fragrance of the lemon soap cleaning away the smell of burning flesh that seemed to cling to her own porcelain skin. She thought of the shattered Vayn across the hall and how he blamed himself for what had happened. Might he, might anyone, have done anything differently?

The ravens. She remembered how Vayn had wondered about the ravens, and in a brightening beam the gifted wisdom of her god revealed to her that the ravens had not been foes but sent as omens. That was why they had shattered the stained glass of the cathedral and attacked only the intoning Ezrites, but not the Pelorean. The ravens were trying to stop the ritual before it consumed Emma. They had perished defending her, and their deaths had broken the miraculous protection that had kept Emma safe for so long against so many perils.

Iridni sank lower into her sudsy bath until the water crested just below her chin, and she closed her amethyst eyes tightly so as to shut out the world as much as she might. Marcus Weyland knew far more than she could ever hope to, and Marcus said that even in death no one escaped this place. But the Pelorean had to hope…for Emma…for herself.

Elysium was eternal, whereas this prison and all the many dark prisons adjoining it were not. Whether the Light’s victory occurred in Iridni’s own lifetime, or a thousand lifetimes after all the Pelorean did and all those she had ever known and cared for passed away, the moment would come when the Light would consume all the blocking, choking Mists, and all the innocent captives would be set free. Perhaps Emma already had learned more than both Marcus and Iridni of that hour and day. Perhaps Emma was already free.

Iridni raised her small form a bit to scrub the back of her neck under her pinned-up hair and thought of the passion and love Emma had inspired in three men, all of them so very different: Walter, Jakob…Vayn. Emma had caused one of the most dreadful and fearsome men Iridni had ever had to deal with not only to father her child but to give up everything else he valued for her. Walter, too, had died it seemed for Emma’s sake. And Vayn—though he had only recently and finally admitted it in words—his many deeds on her behalf had long betrayed his deep love for Emma before he was willing to confess it.

When Emma had sought her final audience with Iridni, apologizing and asking unneeded forgiveness, the Pelorean had as always thought only of how blessed she, Iridni, had been compared with the woman before her, who even at that moment gnawed at her lip in anxiety and divulged that Vayn had taken away her bullets as a precaution. Whereas three years ago Emma had fallen in with the wretched and vile Red Vardo, the kindness of the Kinship had sheltered Iridni. The priestess had never been forced to give herself to and sleep by the side of a man who was her only source of protection…while having to wonder whether he might slit her throat during her slumber. Nor had the priestess borne a child secretly in the dead of night for fear one of her many mortal enemies would finally locate her, unsure whether the child’s father lived or might even have become a monster.

Only a few hours before, Iridni had watched in abject horror as Emma’s pustule-covered skin had erupted, cracked, and fallen away from the bones of her fire-consumed body, the heat from her immolation so intense that one of the nearby Ezrites had perished as well. In considering their relative lives, to envy anything of Emma’s at this moment seemed to Iridni obscene.

Her gaze swept around the comfort of the well-appointed room, as she continued for a few more minutes to soak. Regardless of her guilt at feeling any emotion now other than over-whelming sadness, she could not help but sense that something in herself was lacking.

Tess had told her that why she, Tess, had turned against Iridni after their early alliance was that she felt Iridni never showed her true self: that she did only whatever Loric and Zephyr wanted. To some extent this charge was true in that Iridni believed when one made an oath or a promise, she was no longer free to do her own will. Servitude and self-denial, however, were essential to her true Pelorean core, so the difference between what she felt obligated to do and what she chose to do little mattered in the end.
 
Unfortunately, Iridni was coming to realize that this comportment destined her always to love rather than be loved, for the smiling face of a princess and not the calloused hands of a serving girl inflame a man’s heart. Emma had been effervescent, whereas Iridni was limpid. (Nor are men willing long to be led from below, as the Wayfarers had proved, preferring even a bold tyrant’s occasional lash to an ignoble servant’s constant supplication.)

As for her own loves, perhaps had the young priestess worked at separating Ionathan from Bri rather than pushing the two together her present might have been different. Ionathan—in all his coarse ugliness—had understood Iridni better than Alistair and Zephyr and had seemed still to accept her for who she was: a dull servant of a brightly shining god. Zephyr…Zephyr in the end had required a lover more like Emma, for his romantic past was filled with trouble and dangerous passion. He had seen into the undiscovered but plain country of Iridni’s heart, and the view was not persuasive or intriguing enough to build his life there or change his long-time predilections.

She stood up and dried herself off, luxuriating briefly in the pleasant excess of the thick plushness of the over-sized towel against her refreshed skin. She wished she had some chocolate and thought it likely the hotel would provide it if she asked. As she began to dress, her motions caused one of the hairpins to prick against her scalp. The moment's distractions were forgotten.

She would have to speak with Vayn about what he wanted done with this room because she knew she would not renew it when the time came. A Pelorean’s proper place in Port-a-Lucine was in the Tenements. Although Emma had providently ensured that little Janos would be cared for, too many orphans remained alone and unloved, and this looming war would produce many more.



My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
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Radium Divinum
« Reply #120 on: May 06, 2020, 06:53:56 PM »
Iridni sought out Vayn to return the key to him and discovered her friend on the promenade in the company of many of the currently significant citizens of Port-a-Lucine. The flamboyantly dressed figures were in a spirited mood, and as usual the small Pelorean felt out of place listening to all their unintelligible back and forth in the Mordentish tongue. Vayn tried to intercede on her behalf, encouraging the others to switch to Common, but she thought that would be an imposition. Moreover, Emma’s death still oppressed her, and she was grateful for the excuse not to have to either participate in the playful banter or undermine any joy of others with her grim sobriety.

She was surprised, in fact, at how much Vayn seemed as he always did: amiable and fully engaged in the moment. If the exorcism’s horrific failure weighed on him, he did not betray his preoccupation.

He received the key easily, indicating little disappointment at Iridni’s decision, and one of the others who overheard their conversation spoke to him quickly about whether she might acquire the key for her own use. Vayn obliged so that she departed with immediate gratitude to secure the prized room.

“You’re still welcome to take a bath at my place anytime you like, Iridni. I won’t look.”

Ah…the tub was the most difficult indulgence to part with; her long-time ally knew her well. She remembered when the two had bathed together in the frigid stream at the Vistani Camp, trying to cleanse their bodies of the stench of the flooded sewers. She would sorely miss washing herself in the perfumed privacy and comfort of the Governor’s Hotel.

Even so, keys symbolized responsibility, and ever since Loric had taken her key to the Lodge from her, Iridni appreciated how freeing the act of relinquishing a key could be. A guest at the Kinship did not have to clean, cook, make tea, or answer the door when someone knocked…but could sit undisturbed by the fire and never leave off petting Adeline. And not having a key to a luxury hotel suite freed her from meticulously recording when the expensive rent was due and ensuring she paid it on the dot or lose her lodging.

“I do need to speak to you in private about a matter,” Iridni whispered in Vayn’s ear. She still had not grown used to his fresh beard, which made him seem so much older.

“How private?”

“So that no one can possibly overhear us.”

“Then I suppose we should go to your room in the Tenements.”

They walked away to what Iridni worried might be the sound of suggestive jeering, judging by the manner and the merry expression the onlookers had as they watched the two, and again she was struck that none seemed sensitive to Vayn’s great and recent loss. Yet she could not be sure even that they were speaking of her, for she recognized only that they said Vayn’s name in a teasing tone while eyeing the young woman at his side. She scolded herself for her insecurities. The last thing Iridni wanted, however, in a society where convention and decorum trumped substance and compassion was to appear to be trying to take advantage of Emma’s death and attach herself to a suddenly available and emotionally vulnerable man.

Aside from the hazard to her reputation, Iridni had endured such a romance of consolation once and had no desire to repeat the experience.
 
*** 

Alone with Vayn in her shabby yet tidy lodging, Iridni began by asking him how he was feeling.

“Well enough. I’m busy planning Emma’s memorial. I’ve saved a bit of her ashes and will keep them with me until I die.”

This was Vayn—always looking forward, always practical and favoring action over what he saw as useless emotion and hand-wringing.

“That’s good. I did something similar with Yunon’s and made sure what remained of him was duly honored.”

She sat on the sparse cot with Vayn now at her feet, leaned her small frame forward, and lowered her voice. “As you can tell from the snoring in the next room, these walls are paper thin. Do you think anyone will hear us, though, if I speak so softly?” Her face was close enough that his whiskers almost grazed her.

He judged her position. “Perhaps your side of the conversation, if they put their ear right against the wall. But not anything I say.”

“In that case…” she slid down the rest of the way off her bed with a soft thump until she was sitting beside him, hip to hip, on the floor in the dimly lit room. “I wanted to ask you about whether you are receiving reports from—“

[Redacted]

At last Vayn whispered, “Who did you learn all this from?”

“I can’t betray my source, Vayn. But I assumed that if you had heard, you would have mentioned it to me. You know…at least asked me about it.” After a moment in which she almost said more, the Pelorean continued: “They’re not very careful about this kind of information and who hears it because it’s worthless.” Rumors and gossip spread easily, she thought, but truth sometimes comes only at the price of someone’s life.

***

A crest of light began to slice away the night, and the street clamor of occasional violence faded to be replaced by the sad voices of beggars and the boisterous play of urchins. Vayn stood at Iridni’s threshold, eager to depart the Ouvrier and face the promise of his day’s activities.

“Please let me know anything I can do to help with your plans regarding Emma.” Her violet eyes worried over the outline of the wiry man silhouetted against the dawn.

“I will, Iridni,” he replied, springing from the tenement stoop.

It was the last time she would ever see him alive.



My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
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Radium Divinum
« Reply #121 on: May 10, 2020, 12:30:46 AM »
A Rose of Gold

Behold her brave beloved, stealing up the stairs,
Forsaking grieving maid and dying smile she wears.
Recall how first she met him, dashing suitor bold--
Her dress's hues now faded, dulled from blue and gold.

Don't talk to her of love that's gone, she won't understand;
She feigns she does not hear, though certainly she can.
From mourning of the day, 'til evening's stars grow dim,
Her violet eyes as lost as children seeking him.

She waits and waits for he who might have made her whole--
A wind that blew away and took apart her soul.
Their final shared embrace, they said their last goodbye,
For he can't bear to see a child or flower die!

We'll leave alone this maiden with her yellow rose,
Her wooer free from her, his doors and windows closed.
I wonder if you'll ever love the way I do--
And would your love break me, as mine has broken you?





My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
  • Dark Power
  • ******
  • Posts: 4374
  • When all other lights go out
Radium Divinum
« Reply #122 on: May 28, 2020, 09:07:53 PM »
A raven-haired young woman slumped across one of the desks in the Port-a-Lucine library, her writing implement slipping from her small hand as she relaxed into unconsciousness. She had worked for several hours on two elegies. Also, in the sheaf of parchments near her, one showed many corrections to the inornate, Mordentish printing, despite the simplicity of expression:

Quote
Je passe la journey a la plage. C'est tres jolly. Le temps est agreeablay. Du soleil mais pas trop chaud nu froid. J'aime voir les vagues scintiller. Ils me font rire de joy. J'aytudee eaglement mon Mordentish. Ensuite, j'aycris cet mots pour le professeur Gray. Alors je nu souris non plus.

An accompanying sheet in the same characters bore as a hand-printed title, "Monsieur Gray's translation":

Quote
I spend the journey at the beach. It's very jolly. The weather is agreed. Sun but not too hot naked cold. I like to see the waves sparkle. They make me laugh with joy. I eagerly study my Mordentish. Next, I write this words for Professor Gray. So I don't smile either.

In the latter's margin:

Quote
Must pronounce "journée" more clearly. "Naked cold?" Should be "not too hot or cold." Will ask about this next time.

A multi-volume study of the Mordentish language and Yue's comparative dictionary of the six principle languages of the Core surrounded the scattered papers...as well as the sleeping priestess's face. 
« Last Edit: May 29, 2020, 07:32:26 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
  • Dark Power
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  • Posts: 4374
  • When all other lights go out
Radium Divinum
« Reply #123 on: June 01, 2020, 03:30:46 PM »
The small, simple vessel bobbed up and down on the vast blueness of the bay that extended like an unknowable void in every direction around the craft and its gathered band. The ship seemed infinitesimal—a dot on the indomitable azure sea—and the two urns of ashes the two mighty men each held in his arms smaller yet.

Lexington lofted the first, while Audric gingerly pried the lid from the other. At the gesture, Iridni weakened and leaned against Asariel for support.

“We all come from the light,” Lexington was saying. “And one day will return to it. Like drops of water return to the sea.”

Iridni felt Asariel’s gentle hand stroking the side of her head. “Amen,” the Pelorean quietly exhaled.

“Farewell, brother.” Lexington poured Vayn's ashes over the side, the breeze catching them for a moment so that they floated in the air a tick longer before wafting down to their long awaited rest on the indifferent water. And then Emma’s dust in pursuit of Vayn's billowed from the outstretched gauntlet of the silent Audric.

Around her Iridni heard quiet, reverent voices and soft crying. “Farewell…Vayn…Emma. May you find guidance toward the Light that shines beyond this wretched place,” she whispered, watching as flower after vibrant flower followed the last remnants of the man and woman from the hands of those mourning on deck to the slow, rolling waves.

Disappearing. Gone. The surface of the water unbroken.

Iridni’s violet eyes came to rest on crude initials that some previous passenger or perhaps a sailor had carved into the ship’s railing. All want to leave some mark behind, the Pelorean mused. Emma had Janos, and, with Audric’s tutelage, the boy would know something of his mother. Iridni hoped he might know as well of Vayn, who helped bring the boy into the world and had loved the mother and looked after the child long after the true father met his grim fate.

The young priestess then raised her gaze across the water toward the coast of Dementlieu. Was it not ironic when so many wished for a legacy—to be remembered—that so many children in Port-a-Lucine went about as orphans? The same vain graffiti that marked this ship defaced the walls of the Ouvrier. Slogans, profanities, obscenities, but what might a society expect of those it left in uneducated squalor and whose very language emphasized social disparity, never letting one forget one’s place, one’s inferiority?

Painting a wall with a call to arms was easy, as was inciting others to violence; raising a child took years of commitment and a compassion for the downtrodden that street life did not inculcate. Above all, it took self-sacrifice. All the Ouvrier seemed to grow and breed was envy and hatred toward those better off, rather than a kindness toward those in the same floundering ship navigating a similarly infinite sea of troubles.

The crew turned The Tranquil Swan to the shoreline and the City of Lights.

The Pelorean needed a holiday—a Barovian holiday as peculiar as that phrase seemed, especially with winter coming on. In Barovia, the weather might always be gray, but life itself was so much more black and white. Additionally, Iridni realized that Asariel had stayed this long in Port-a-Lucine only to help keep her grieving friend company, despising the place herself.

Iridni had paid her tenement room well in advance. A few days’ away from the intrigue of Port-a-Lucine would refresh her and provide an opportunity for the solitary meditation she craved. Although she enjoyed the developing friendship with Vereta, Hart seemed largely vanished, and no one else in Port was likely to miss her.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2020, 03:45:57 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.

Iridni Ren

  • L'injustice à la fin produit l'indépendance.
  • Dark Power
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  • Posts: 4374
  • When all other lights go out
Radium Divinum
« Reply #124 on: June 09, 2020, 10:15:09 PM »
Not too many years before Anxan’s attempted assault of Iridni and her abduction by the Mists, her younger sister, Winona, had begun loitering about in similar sky-colored clothing as she...and even to braid her unruly hair after Iridni’s, as well as assume some of Iridni’s mannerisms and way of speaking. This vexed the older sibling, and their shared mother attempted to placate her whinging daughter: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, my darling.”

“But, Mama, you and Papa have always scolded me for hungering so much after the approval of others! Now I am to overlook this…this annoyance…as a compliment?”

The more mature Ren smiled then with compassion upon her bewildered, wide-eyed 14-year-old, her hand reaching out instinctively to smooth all those out-of-place locks of raven hair. “Yes..girl…but imitation is still only the sweetest taste of a fruit you must always consider sour.”


And yet the priestess sought praise as guilty a pleasure as her indulgence in long, luxuriant baths and fine, delicate chocolates. She longed for appreciation, but suspected both her desire of it and those willing to provide it were corrupters of her soul, reinforcing her worst weaknesses rather than encouraging her finest strengths. Virtue must be her own reward, and the best deeds were those she performed only so that Pelor’s Light itself might shine, while she remained ever in her obscurity.

Laboring almost in complete isolation now since departing the Lodge, she arose even earlier than was required of Peloreans to greet the Sun so that she had time beforehand to study her Mordentish. She might finally be progressing in comprehension and mastery, though the words never quite rolled off her tongue as she wished. She likewise feared that she sounded as though she were blowing her small nose in her attempts to articulate the ngh so common in this infernal language. She noted that native speakers of the upper class greatly enjoyed how much they could exaggerate this pronunciation into almost a grunt, and her mischievous side pushed her to test whether she could get away with making her own ngh thoroughly ridiculous.

What a pea brain she was!

She knew that she was thinking of her mother’s advice about flattery because of Nargul. “You stink really good,” the massive brute had told her—along with his customary remarks about how much he appreciated the view of her from behind. He conspired with Asareal about her in secret, but surely he knew Asareal told Iridni everything, and so this was his way of sounding the Pelorean’s inclinations indirectly.

In the weeks since Zephyr had relinquished his claim to the priestess, already four men had professed their affection. Regardless of how much their honeyed words were a sort of balm to her raw ache, she had resolved that never again would verbal pyrotechnics or protestations of unending personal dedication pry open her heart.

She would henceforth love a man for what he was and what he believed—that he was as dedicated as she was to the cause of Light. If he returned her affection and devotion, all the better, but though Nargul criticized such a constrained love as hers for lacking passion, she wished to serve beside her helpmate, serve something greater than each of them, rather than be a false idol—or worse, snare—to him.
 
In her way, she had thought this mutual understanding true in her relationship with Zephyr. It was why she could yield to him when he told her they could not adopt Mattie and Jacques—that their work must come first. Yet in the end her beloved’s base actions shouted so loudly as to drown out all his elevated, whispered words.

Perhaps she herself had failed Zephyr in not proselytizing more and letting him remain in his godless state, but she had convinced herself that the first and easier task was to win him personally through unconditional love and only then through her own example convince him of the goodness of a life dedicated to the Sun Father.

Iridni would not repeat this mistake for it had cost her dearly, in hurt and time. Not, however, as much as the arranged marriage of Raymonde Tremblay had cost the unfortunate Souragne bardess!


« Last Edit: June 17, 2020, 01:12:10 PM by Iridni Ren »

My windows cracked, but they can be replaced.
Your arm will tire throwing stones my way.