Tale of the Fallen Heroine

[Water Lily]

[Starting off as a story given to the Vistani, the Kartakan bard, Creseida, would be quick to spread it around Barovia when she can, her tone always holding bottomless sorrow as she recants it.]

Tale of the Fallen Heroine

There are few things more enjoyable than the sound of a laughing babe. Echoing across a small meadow in spring, there were only two figures found within, a mother and her child. Barely a few months old, he was propped in a pile of blankets and cushions. Smiling with all the love a mother could give, she gently caressed her babe’s face with a wildflower, her laughter entwining with his as his small hands clutched at the stem. The mother would stand and walk a mere few feet away to pick more flowers, looking over them carefully and leaving her son alone for only the briefest of moments.

Suddenly, a thick fog rolled in through the treeline, choking all light and sound. The mother quickly turned towards her babe as the mists spilled between them, reaching for him. However, her hands caught only empty air and the blankets. The babe was gone, as was her sight in the blindingly thick fog. Calling out his name, she waited for any hint of sound that would lead her to him. Her hands blindly felt the area around where he was supposed to be in the event he merely rolled off the cushions.

Seconds turned to minutes and minutes hours as she searched for him. Tears poured down her face and neck, and her voice was hoarse from screaming for her lost child. She begged and pleaded with whatever had taken him, anguish filling her. The panicked pleas were answered only with silence. Sobbing, she stumbled through the mist-cloaked woods, the only sound accompanying her being her own wails and the crunching of leaves and twigs beneath each step.

Finally, the fog broke for the lone mother as she exited the forest, happening upon her home. Friends and family were wandering outside, rushing to her and checking to make sure she was alright. She had wandered alone, in the forest, for days without food or water, searching only for her missing child. Recanting this tale, they were overcome with sympathetic agony and melancholy, holding the mother closely as they tried to comfort her. She had begun to waste away, refusing food and water, and only sleeping when she had collapsed onto the ground.

Her family was at a loss with what they should do, how to help her cope with the forced separation. They watched her go out every day and night to search for her child in the woods, returning only in the arms of a hunter after she had fallen to the earthy floor in exhaustion. She refused to stop searching, the tragic quest taking a toll on her very spirit. As weeks passed, she began to change. Losing her voice, unless it was the child’s name on her lips, the light of life faded from her somber gaze. She grew irritable, spurning any attempts of affection or comfort from those around her. The will to live was nearly severed, held on only by the thin hope she would one day find him again.

It was with many tears and heartbreaking sorrow that they turned her away. There was not even a sliver of hatred in their hearts, however she was a danger now. Sick as she had become,  they could no longer shelter nor protect her, especially from herself. Banished and mourned for, the mother fled back to the woods where she remained, still searching for her lost babe. The mists would come and go, though it did little to hinder her will, every step taken carefully. The meadow was searched every day as she scoured the forest. She memorized nearly every leaf and blade of grass in the woodlands. The fauna avoided her, yet the flora seemed to try and embrace her, to give her rest from her tireless quest.

An eternity seemed to pass during her hopeless search before she stumbled upon another soul. A grown man, he had been hunting for her specifically, tracking her steps. She did not answer when he first called out to her by name, thinking it a trick of the mists. When he continued calling and reached out for her, she snapped and attacked the man. He did not retaliate.

Strangely enough, there was a sense of love and relief in his eyes, though she did not see it. She only saw an obstacle in her quest, one that had to be removed. Leaving him on the ground, beaten and bleeding, she wandered away and continued her moans and wails.

Time did not seem to pass long before she saw him again, mostly healed. He reached out for her, only to find her claws slashing across his skin. Once again, the mother threw herself on him, beating the man with an unnatural strength. Now, there were tears in his eyes as he sobbed for her, though his cries fell on deafened ears. There was only one sound she wished to hear, and he did not give it to her. The stranger was left on the ground to die a second time.

The third and final time she saw him, he held many scars from her attacks, though it did not faze him at all. The man stood there, facing her, with determination and hope in his eyes, but most of all love. Unlike her family members, there was neither pity nor sorrow, so great was this stranger’s faith in her. As she stepped forward to attack him once again, he opened his mouth and began to serenade the mother with a powerful lament.

It was a tragic tale of a child abandoned by his mother, growing up without the light of her love and only lonely darkness for company. Heartbroken,the child searched all his life to find the reason she had given him up, only to stumble upon the truth; she had never stopped searching for him, as he had never stopped searching for her, risking everything for their reunion once more.

Pouring his very soul into the melody, she could only stand there in shock, tears pouring down her face anew. Decades had passed without her even realizing it, the mother noticing how similar the man’s eyes are to hers. He had her nose, her cheekbones. The dimples on either side of his smile once mirrored her own during a happier time.

As he sang, his soul reached out to hers in a way no one else’s had and as she rushed forward, instead of attacking him, she embraced her son with a sob, tears flowing freely from both of their eyes. They had finally found one another despite all odds, though she had very nearly killed him in the process. Her love for her child, and his for his mother, had changed her, breathed life back into her. For the first time since that fateful day in the meadow, she smiled and they left the forest to return to her family.