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The Hope-Killer was a writhing mass of ink and metal, armored in a suggestion of a human shape. It clawed its way out of its grave, a thick miasma rolling out of its farrow and burying the rest of the tombstones in a fog that clouded every sense.
The church rocked on its foundations as a great misery reentered the world. It made Arye’s breath catch in her throat. She could feel it like an ache; its sadness and revulsion, staining the dying grass. All around her friends fell one by one into a mist so thick it felt like death, and as Arye felt it cling to her and drown her too-
“And that’s where we’ll end it.”
Gigi howled like she’d stubbed her toe, and it was entirely possible from the way she jettisoned out of her chair to scramble towards Calli.
“You can’t- this is so unethical- Gonathon can’t end like this-”
Amelia was more quiet, her expression suggesting she was already planning out her response for the next session. She leaned over to whisper into Fauna’s ear, probably already enlisting her help. Irys just sat there, adrenaline fading as her body registered the fact that she’d been sitting in one place for nearly three hours
“It’s not a TPK, Gigi.” Calli was packing everything up, Fauna beginning to help with clearing the detritus of all their snacks from the table. “I’m setting stuff up for something. Gura is finally free next week and so is her friend, so I’m planning their session to-”
Irys disconnected from their conversation as Gigi started poking more at what just happened. Ame was finally joining in to support Gigi as they barraged Calli with questions about the Hope-Killer and who the friend was. Calli shook her head with a smile, mysteriously saying that they knew who she was already, which launched Gigi into another tirade about the ‘serious ethical dilemma that was a supposed trusted friend lying and toying with the hearts of others’.
Fauna caught Irys’s eye and smiled, gaze flicking back to Ame and Gigi with an expression so clear and yet, also unreadable that Irys did not want to insert herself in what was going on over there at all.
Instead, she pulled up the spreadsheet that was their Dungeon and Dragons group’s planning calendar. With the number of people engaging in the campaign, a frankly stunning number, Kiara had the bright idea of switching people in and out of the different sessions based on availability.
It was nice, Irys thought. It allowed for a guild to form out of them all that interacted
with the world in different ways as groups formed and changed in response to guild quests (read: in response to availability).
Irys’s character, Ayre, already uncovered several conspiracies relating to her backstory. Granted, Irys was bullshitting that part up on the fly with Calli’s direction, but it was working out nonetheless as she inched closer towards uncovering the dark secret that led to the purging of the old temple of Hope.
(“That’s kinda lame,” Mumei had said upon that reveal, voice all quiet and sleepy in her character, Moom’s, persona. “House of Hope has a ring to it. Temple of Hope is kinda bland-”
“It’s fine,” Ealde Grand, Kronii’s character, an old and wizened rogue, waved it off. “Back in my day-”
Everyone at the table groaned.)
They inched closer towards the finale of Calli’s sprawling campaign every session. Irys worried for her, sometimes, but the sheer joy on her face every time a new twist appeared that made everyone at the table scream said that the days of work she no doubt put in was worth it.
“It’ll be two weeks from now for you guys,” Calli said, checking her phone and sliding her bag over her shoulder. “Next week is Bae, Kiara, Bijou, Nerissa, and I think Mumei?” Irys wished Calli luck with that group.
Calli continued, “Also someone who hasn’t been able to make the other sessions, had something really big going on. Jus’ going to be watching the game so they get some background into what we already have.” She winced. “Texts aren’t very… aren’t cutting it.”
“Do we know them?” Gigi asked curiously, voicing Irys’s own thoughts.
Calli cleared her throat, taking a long sip from a huge water bottle that had been gifted to her from Gura once they all collectively realized what an undertaking it was to run a campaign for eighteen (now nineteen) people. Her voice had been wrecked in the first couple of sessions. “You’ve probably seen them around. They’re a bit shy.”
Huh, Irys thought to herself, slinging her own bag over her shoulder and waving absentminded goodbyes to everybody. The air outside was bitingly cold as she waited for her bus, scrolling through her phone and barely comprehending the screen. I wonder how she’ll be?
-
-
The answer was decidedly unclear when Irys asked everyone after the mysterious newcomer’s first session. Kiara was a dead end, having already known them and keeping irritatingly quiet. Mumei was a bit better, though being told that she was, quote ”Kinda cool and kinda scary. Like a snake. Oooh, a snake with arms. Quiet.” was actually incredibly unhelpful.
“This is what I get,” Irys muttered, “for joining a DND group. It’s what I deserve.”
Gigi, Fauna, and Ame were fixtures at Irys’s sessions, as they typically had the same availability as her. She was placing her dice in a careful line, ordered by color with whimsical discretion, before the front door opened. Calli’s raspy voice interspersed with lyrical ‘hmm’ing from someone else became audible, and Irys’s back straightened at the sound.
From the hallway came an elegant woman with a dark purple coat, lightly dusted with rain with an umbrella over her arm. She had a dark bag in her other hand, with a few shiny charms looped through its clasps. Her hair was long and pulled back, with orange edges, and her eyes were always smiling even as her mouth was a soft line. Irys couldn’t describe it in any other way except for ethereal.
“Hello,” the newcomer said with a shy wave.
“Ina?” Ame shot to her feet, notes falling to the ground before she dashed around the table to wrap her up in a big hug. “You’re back!”
The stranger, Ina, giggled, patting Amelia’s back elegantly. “I’m back. The bus here was a bit dice-y, but Calli helped.”
Irys blinked as everyone seemingly moved along from the pun. Gigi was the only other one who seemed to have caught it, but her eyes were more narrowed on the way Amelia was still holding Ina’s hand when they pulled apart. Fauna seemed to know her too, getting up with a bit more measured movement than Ame had done, walking over to hug Ina as well.
“It’s good to see you again,” Fauna said, smiling in that soft way of hers. “How was the exhibition?”
Huffing out a breath, Ina set her bag down by an empty chair, unpacking a few dice and a character sheet that had neat, tiny handwriting all over it. Another page was placed face down next to it. Irys caught just the hint of what seemed to be a pencil sketch.
“Tiring,” Ina said. “Lots of stuff, lots of other artists.” She brightened at the memory of something and started describing a display that used old televisions and neon lights to make a map while Calli set up.
Then the room fell silent. Gigi stopped fiddling with Ame’s dice and Fauna placed her head on her hands. Irys noticed how Ina’s eyes twinkled in the low light of the living room. How ink-like her hair was when it spilled over her shoulders, taken out of its ponytail with the edges looking like they were dipped in liquid sunset.
“Alright then,” Calli steepled her fingers in front of her, “shall we begin?”
-
-
The Hope Killer, foul and tainted, roared a great roar into the rapidly darkening sky-
“Hold up.” Gigi held up her hands, eyes wide. “That’s a player?”
Ina smiled, quiet, with her eyes meeting Ame’s over the table. Irys never knew someone else could manage the Ame-Mischief ™ eyebrow raise, but here she was.
“The Hope Killer,” Ina continued, her voice barely containing her excitement, “shifts its sword over its shoulder. It takes a step towards you all-”
“Shit,” Ame bit her knuckle, her eyes wide and looking at the others as her plans tumbled like a house of cards. “What do we-”
“And it crouches down,” Ina cleared her throat, puffing out her chest. “‘How d’you do?’”
Irys snorted as the impression of what could only be described as Mickey Mouse if he was a chainsmoker limped like a dead frog out into the air. Then, she immediately felt bug under-a-microscope shy when Ina looked at her, mouth all quirked up at the edge.
“‘Somethin’ wrong, miss?’” Chainsmoker Mickey Mouse croaked.
“Nothin!” Ayre squeaked, gripping tightly onto her staff. Irys was trying to not burst a blood vessel. “Just wasn’t expecting-”
“What you have going on,” Sherlock cut in, the atrocious British accent no longer sounding quite so bad. Ame looked serious, as if the discovery that the Hope Killer was not in fact a homebrewed enemy Calli cooked up to kill them didn’t faze her at all. “D’you mind answering some questions?”
And that was how Ina’s first session raced by, with what was almost a Q&A between the whole table as Calli sat back and rummaged through some papers. Ina dodged a few of the questions but answered most of the rest. Irys was sure that Ame’s wrist was aching after all the notes she’d just taken.
“I’m glad you aren’t going to kill us!” Ayre said, much more confidently than before. “Honestly, this might be a first.”
“Well,” Hope Killer, or Myser, paladin of the Grey Gates, said. “The bar is pretty low, then.” A beat. “Kind of myser-able to think about.”
Gigi’s seat tilted back as she roared with laughter, Fauna having to catch her before she went crashing to the floor. Ame chuckled, fiddling with a pencil while Calli cleared her throat to break up the long RP session they just had.
Meanwhile, Irys could only think about the way Ina smiled just before she launched that horrible pun.
Ah. She thought to herself, as Calli described their journey back to the guild hall. God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers. Of course.
Thunder crashed outside the windows, the room inside was warm and cozy as they laughed and dice clattered on the table. Irys felt like there was a crack in her foundations whenever Ina giggled. Weakness wormed into her with the heat of a blush.
She didn’t mind as much as she thought she would.
-
-
“Oh! Irys!”
Irys turned, cup of coffee tilted halfway back and already spilling searing hot liquid into her mouth.
“Oh! Irys!” This rendition held a lot more concern as Irys spluttered and gasped for breath.
“Hi, oh god help, hi Ina.” Irys coughed into the crook of her elbow. The front of her shirt was a little bit soaked. Her skin on her chin felt like it was shedding from the heat of her coffee. It was supposed to be a test sip and instead became a trial for Irys’s pride and dignity.
She was failing.
Ina was frantically dabbing at Irys’s face and shirt with a napkin, her other hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry,” her thumb brushed away a drip of coffee from Irys’s cheek. Irys felt her face immolate. “So sorry, I should have waited-”
“It’s fine!” Irys laughed, and she wasn’t lying. Her chest felt all fluttery and weird. Something was in there and working differently, taking up more space than before. “I just picked it up, it has the warning and everything-” She pointed at the side of the cup that read ‘caution: contents hot!’.
“I never really was one for warnings though.” Irys blustered with her tongue shriveling up in her mouth.
“I’ll look out for you on the road, then,” Ina teased. Her dress swished around her knees, a floaty type of fabric that Irys desperately wanted to run her fingers through. “Making all your u-turns when you shouldn’t.”
“Now that’s different!” Irys said, faux offense and warm, coiled up joy. “I follow the rules of the road! And that’s not a warning anyways.”
Ina’s face was grave as she shook her head. “You ignore one, you ignore them all.”
Irys protested, “Some things can get ignored! Like expiration dates for sodas and pasta or whatever, those don’t go bad. It’s as close as we’ll get to immortality.”
Ina blinked. “I think,” she said slowly. “I’ll look out for your cooking as well.”
She was smiling wide as Irys spluttered, coffee drying on her shirt and forgotten. It was their little bubble, a street corner outside a cafe that served their drinks with temperatures at the surface of the sun.
Warning! Warning! Blared the Irys-don’t-get-too-attached alarm.
Thank god Irys wasn’t one for warnings.
-
-
By their sixth session they’d fallen into a rhythm. Members cycled in and out, but their core group usually stayed the same. Gonathon charged the enemy no matter what, fighter confidence propelling him forward. Sherlock and Pine, Fauna’s character, were their main spellcasters and were rather flimsy as a result. Gonathon got downed more often than not trying to protect them. Myser and Ayre made a good team, Myser holding the front line while Ayre aimed well timed guiding bolts and scrambled for lay-on-hands.
It was downtime and they were wandering a neighboring city to the one their guild called home. It was a mess of towering buildings that aimed for the sky, a lattice of bridges connecting the higher levels together and isolating them from the much dirtier underbelly.
Ayre looked down at the dark passages and alleyways that were the ground, far far below. She could barely see the chain of fairy lights that illuminated those depths. It was like the reverse of the night sky, as Calli described it. Stars twinkling in an abyss below your feet.
“The cosmos beneath us,” Myser murmured. It had crept over to Ayre, and now leaned over the gold trimmed railing with her. It had tamed its earlier eldritch horror look and now just looked more like a tornado had run through a coat room. Myser was a tangle of dark cloaks and silvery armor pieces, white eyes like flames peering out from beneath the darkness of its cowl.
“Poetic, what mortals have wrought in their darkness is more beautiful than their golden towers.” Its armored finger pointed at the constellations below. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Quite.” Ayre brushed her fingers over what was certainly pure gold instead of just being brushed onto metal. Excess shimmered at the top of every tower. It made Ayre sick.
“I as well,” Myser said, as if it had read her thoughts. Its armor creaked as it turned, its sword an always silent mass atop its back. “A monument to greed, is it not? Reaching for the stars, keeping them for themselves?”
“I don’t like it very much,” Ayre admitted quietly. “Those should be for everyone. They shouldn’t belong to anyone.”
Myser looked at Ayre with a quiet regard. Its cloaks shuddered in the wind. “You are,” it started, “a strange one. Ayre, of the House of Hope.”
“Temple of Hope.” Ayre corrected.
Myser’s eyes dimmed then reignited in the approximation of a blink. “One of those names is better than the other.”
“So everyone tells me,” Ayre sighed. “But it's the right one. I think it matters to get it right, even if the Temple is gone.”
“...Gone?” Myser sounded odd, their rumble receding from saw blade screech to gravelly warble.
“Wiped out.” When Ayre looked up at the stars above, they were dimmed from the lights of the towers. Their majesty drained. “I don’t know how, or, or, why. Barely even know when. It’s just.” She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes until there were starbursts of white in her vision. “Rubble and ruins.”
In the silence of Ayre’s unseeing, all she could hear was the wind whistling past her ears. Then they heard the creak of Myser’s armor, the slightly grating noise of armor against marble.
When Ayre opened her eyes, Myser kneeled before her, its head bowed. Grief was in every line of their body.
“I was once a paladin of Hope,” it started. “An, offshoot, if you will. Of the Grey Gates before the Endless Journey. Of the place that comes after it all.” It took in a deep breath. The whole table was silent as Ina prepared herself too. “I awoke after a long slumber, to a betrayal and a broken oath that seared me open in righteous retribution.”
It began to unwind its cloaks. The balcony felt so contained, then, as Ayre stared. Grey skin blighted with dark veins and marks. Sickness wreathed Myser in a haze, its hair limp and dank; their eyes were no longer flames but dull pearls. It looked up at her, penitent, devotee at the altar.
“I make it again,” it said, its voice stronger, less echoey with its layers off. It was speaking in its truest voice, a voice that nobody had been able to hear for decades. “My oath, I remake it and myself with it. Ayre, of the once Temple of Hope. I, Myser, dubbed Hope Killer in death, will in new life, work in service to you. For the rebuilding of Hope, in a world that has none.”
It gestured towards the fall from the balcony, down to those that worked in dark earth for their entire lives, with nary a scrap of sun or star. “I make this oath,” it said, “to the only other person who understands its weight. Who understands the importance of Hope.”
Ayre’s mouth was dry. Irys’s heartbeat pounded in her ears. It was just her and Ina at this table. Ina with her wide eyes and honest mouth, who just told her the most poetic shit she’d ever heard in her life. And she’d come up with it on the spot while Gigi wore a mid 2000s shithead gamer shirt for boys that read ‘don’t bother me, I’m gaming’.
“I accept.” Ayre said. She could feel it in her bones, the change. The freshness in the air, the vitality that rushed through Myser as its eyes fluttered closed and their veins lost their harsh contrast with their skin.
Myser took their sword from its scabbard and slammed it into the ground point down. Cracks spiderwebbed from around it. “My blade,” its head remained bowed, “for you.”
Ayre smiled, something letting loose in her chest. “I accept.” She said. She reached out her hand. “Rise, Myser.” Its hand was cold, and dwarfed her own. “A once again paladin of Hope.” Irys grinned crookedly, and Ayre mirrored her. “Though you never really stopped being one.”
Ina’s eyes glimmered and Myser pressed Ayre’s knuckles against his forehead. For a moment, it was just them and their constellations, both above and below.
“Uhh, excuse me?” Calli said, in her default gruff shopkeeper/guard voice. The guard pointed at the crack in the floor. “Sorry to interrupt, but that’ll be eighty gold, my good sir.”
“Oh no no,” Ina giggled. “It’s just Myser.”
Everyone at the table groaned.
“I think that’s a repeat,” Gigi complained.
“Hey now,” Ina chided. “There’s only so many you can make with Myser. It’s a Mys-tery I’ve made it this long.”
The groan was louder and longer this time. The tension from the scene eased. As the others described their characters running over to help haggle down the price and the session came to an end, Irys made eye contact with Ina.
Ina tilted her head. Are you good?
Irys grinned, eyes closing slightly till the world blurred into soft colors and light. Ina was an outline in her vision. This was what art exhibitions were made for. For beauty, created and already existing. She nodded.
Never better.
-
-
Ina weaved her fingers together, blowing into the hollow between her hands. The air was cold and crisp on the street corner. Their street corner, Irys thought, and nearly keeled over.
Sessions like that always left their mark. Like something had peeled away. There was a rawness underneath, soft, and Irys didn’t know how Ina was going to treat it. To treat her.
“I’m glad we were able to talk more,” Ina said, soft, with her words enveloped in white mist. “I wish I was able to join sooner.”
“I’m just glad you’re here,” Irys said automatically, instead of something cooler like her brain was planning but didn’t actually finish. Her face got really red, but Ina didn’t say anything about it. “What you did today, what you said, it was really cool. You’re really, uh, you really back up my backstory, what the fuck-”
She whispered the last bit, and Ina didn’t seem to hear. Rocking on her heels, Ina stared up at the sky. Here, the stars were still dim. The bus headlights cut through the night as it turned the corner. “I’m glad I can,” the edge of her mouth quirked, and Irys already felt herself shake beneath her confident persona (her persona being her trying not to whimper out loud as she stood reaaaaalllllly stiffly), “back up your backstory.”
Irys swallowed her weak “yours is cool too” response, as it both would dig the hole she was in that much deeper, and also because Ina was climbing aboard the bus to leave.
“Goodbye,” Ina said, voice all lyrical sweet. “See you next week?”
Quite lamely, Irys said, “Next week.” The bus closed its doors and pulled away. She watched it go. Her chest was warm and her head felt foggy. Irys felt like she could do anything in that moment, Ayre pounding alongside her heartbeat with her cleric confidence. She smiled goofily.
Behind her, Ame’s door closed as Gigi stepped out. There was a slight stain of lipstick on her cheek. “Wasn’t that your bus?”
Irys blinked. Ame didn’t wear lipstick and that was indeed her bus. “Fuck.”
-
-
She was well and truly in it, maybe. Irys fiddled with the dice Ina had gifted her a few sessions ago. Purple and red resin mixed in gorgeous swirls, a little case coming with them with an engraving of scales.
“I’m a Pisces, not a Libra, Ina,” Irys had said with a raised eyebrow. “I thought you knew me by now.”
Ina had done her chiming laugh that always made Irys a little bit weak in the knees. “It’s for balance, silly. Hope and dark. Ayre and Myser, obviously.” She lifted another case, with the same engraving. “We match!”
Mouth falling open in an ‘o’, Irys could see out of the corner of her eye Gigi and Ame staring at her with knowing expressions. She flipped them off. “We do!” Her smile was too tender but Irys didn’t know how to dull that part of herself, how to make it smaller. The way Ina smiled back, however, told her that there was no need for that.
They were her lucky dice and they were nailing every roll. They were in a dungeon of a minister who had ties to the campaign’s BBEG, with slimy cobblestones and chains dangling on every corner. They wouldn’t have found it if it weren’t for Ayre’s critical success on a perception check on a bookshelf.
“Geez, what does this guy do in his free time?” Ayre asked, poking at a hook sticking out of a wall. She then wrinkled her nose. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
A trap or two was triggered, since absolutely none of them were capable of dealing with that. Any possible trapped items were placed in Sherlock’s bag of holding to bring back to the guild.
“I don’t think he’s here,” Gonathon said. He was sticking close to Pine and Sherlock, eyes watching every shadow in every corner. “Would’ve shown up by now right-?”
“A scent,” Calli said. Everyone’s eyes went to her. She was staring at the mini map, of the long passageway their minis were currently heading down towards a large room at the end. “You catch a strange smell in the air. Iron and ash. Incense. Ayre, you recognize it. The herbs, the sweetness. This is home.”
“Ayre walks faster,” Irys said automatically. “No, she starts running.”
“I- Myser follows!” Ina jumped in. Her brow was furrowed as she inspected her character sheet, running through every spell, attack, and item once, then twice.
“You all enter the chamber,” Calli took away the piece of paper that was covering the map and began placing in physical pieces and enemies. “And are thrown in head first into a fight for your lives.”
It was immediately obvious that this was a skewed battle. Ame had Sherlock run around the room looking for something to turn the tide. Gonathon was trying very hard to keep him alive but would have gone down if it weren’t for Pine’s support as well.
Calli described the room as holding the spoils of the Temple of Hope. Braziers and altars and ceremonial artifacts had been brazenly stolen and kept in this dark and damp chamber away from the sun to gather dust. Defaced tapestries and wall hangings grew mold in their corners.
Ayre threw herself into the fight, keeping some spell slots for healing but absolutely burning through the rest as she threw guiding bolt after guiding bolt and ignited spirit guardians around herself. Myser helped, misty stepping around the room to bowl through every ranged enemy the minister threw at them.
“It was you, wasn’ it?” Ayre asked, heaving for breath. She was on her last legs, enemies having gotten a few lucky hits in along with a few heavy hitters from their leader. Everyone was scattered around the room, there was nobody near her.
Calli bit her lip. Her expression was tight, the one she made when she had to make a hard DM decision. One that might not be liked.
“It was,” he said. His beard was greying, his teeth were bared, and his eyes were wide with an odd sense of contentment. “I thought I’d gotten all of you.” He spat on the floor, next to where Ayre had gotten knocked down from a shockwave. “Like rats, you survived, huh?”
“I don’t know what you tried to do,” Ayre said through a mouthful of blood. “Or why, but it won’t work. There will always be-”
“Hope?” The minister raised his hand, palm out towards her. With how many hit points she had left, a stubbed toe could take her out. Distantly, Ayre noticed Myser trying to get to her, no longer capable of misty step. Everyone else too, scrambling towards her. “Everything crumbles in the face of death, my dear. Nothing lasts.”
Irys sat there. There was nothing much she could do. Every round, when it reached her turn, she’d do her death saving throw. Pass, pass, fail.
“The chances are good,” Gigi was saying. She was perched on her chair, one hand on Fauna’s shoulder with her other holding Ame’s. Ina had just been silent. Her expression was taut. She wouldn’t stop staring at her character sheet like there was a combination of items and skills that would solve everything.
When Irys rolled, it almost fell off the table. The table collectively held its breath as Irys looked at it. “You jinxed me.” Irys’s chest felt weird. She tried for a smile and it was a shaky thing. “Look at what you did Gigi, you jinxed me!”
“Critical fail,” Calli said. The breath escaped everyone in a slow, slow, gasp. Death rattle. “Ayre, your chest rises and falls once, one more time. It’s cold-”
“I’m smiling,” Irys interrupted. Her eyes burned a little. Her fingers were holding onto her character sheet so tightly it was wrinkling. It was a mess of pencil and glittery pen, with a few grease marks and soda spills marring its surface. The items section and the level section had been written, erased, and rewritten so many times that she’d just slapped a post it note on it to swap out every so often.
It was hers. It was Ayre’s. It was. “I go out smiling.”
Calli blinked, her eyes softening. “Yeah. Of course you do.”
-
-
The days after were weird. The group chat was a mess as people asked what had happened and what could be done. It was the first death in the guild.
Irys didn’t show up to the next session, or the next. She couldn’t stop staring at the blank character sheet Calli had handed her.
“If you want.” She had said, expression mournful. She looked sorry, as if it was her fault. “To make a new character.”
Irys had breathed in deep and let it out slowly in a great exclamation of escaping air. “Yeah.” It was devastatingly blank. “Of course.”
Ayre’s sheet was tucked in the journal Ame had gotten everyone by the fourth session. When they realized that they were pretty much a permanent subsection of the guild with the way they always met up on the same dates. Irys had only doodled in it, the occasional note tucked beside a drawing of a monster Calli had described or a guard’s goofy haircut.
Her phone buzzed atop the journal, a weight that was keeping it stubbornly shut before Irys inevitably opened it up again to stare at Ayre’s sheet. Irys tapped on the dark screen.
Ina: Next session? Usual time? Important.
It was a little weird, how Irys felt upon seeing the message. It wasn’t in the group chat, it was just a personal message from Ina. Her goofy profile picture, a messy drawing of Myser done by Gigi, was all Irys could stare at.
She typed and retyped her response. She didn’t really know what it could be about. Maybe it was just a session to help brainstorm her next character or something. Maybe they just wanted her there to see the final fight with the BBEG, a planning and logical nightmare that was no longer just Calli’s business, but everybody’s.
Irys’s heartbeat was in her ears. Her teeth dug into her lower lip. From the journal, the very edge of Ayre’s character sheet stuck out, the slightest glimpse of pink glittery pen.
Irys: ofc
-
-
Irys slid into her usual chair slowly. It was an odd feeling. Calli was setting up like usual while Amelia, Gigi, and Fauna were a tangle of limbs atop two seats put together. Ina was sitting quietly, staring at her character sheet with the same determination as from that final fight only a few weeks ago.
“So,” Calli said, when the nerves in Irys’s stomach were suitably disturbing the rest of the organs in her chest. “We return to the guild hall, with all the items in place. Above you, everyone lingers, nobody going out on a single quest or errand. Their energies are concentrated and controlled into this very room, this very basement.”
Irys blinked. The butterflies in her stomach had the capacity to get larger, apparently. “Is this-”
“I drew the circle,” Fauna, no, Pine said firmly. Chalk was smeared on her hands and face, her knees were bruised from the rough floor. “Should be good.”
“I’ve got the focus,” Sherlock said. He adjusted a crystal one final time, wispy energies drifting to it from the ceiling.
“It’s just us,” Gonathon said. He held Ayre’s limp form in his arms. Her skin was cold and dull, the same shade as Myser’s had been before its oath. Preserved.
Carefully, he placed Ayre down in the center of Pine’s circle. He brushed her hair back from her face before stepping to the edge of the room, out of the rune.
“Come back,” Myser said. There was a book in its hands, a spell book of some kind. It wasn’t reading it at all. “Come back. Come back.” Ayre.
“You feel,” Calli said, “A burst of warmth in the room. Sweet air. The crystal glows as the energy is amplified and the ruin shines as well with a soft pink. The spirit is here. You have your chance.”
Sherlock came forward first. He placed over Ayre’s body a clean tapestry, taken from the minister’s dungeon. Gonathon had cleaned and repaired it, the gold embroidery as vibrant as it had been when it hung in the temple. Sherlock had placed a small charm on it to prevent it from ever getting damaged again.
“Where you came from,” he murmured. “Renewed. It won’t leave. It won’t die. Neither can-” his jaw tensed. “Neither can you.”
His hand brushed by Pine’s when he left and she stepped forward. Her offering was a bundle of pink and white flowers, tied together with soft thread.
“These flowers,” she began. “Grow near graves. They persist through every season. They rebloom every morning. I cannot think of something more like you; to go through what nobody else can, to lose everything like you to cold darkness, and yet to come back the same. Just as soft. Just as loving.” She bowed her head and placed the flowers on Ayre’s unmoving chest. “The sun is waiting, and we are too.”
Myser stepped forward. Its body was draped in its cloaks and armor, though instead of flowing dark blues and blacks, purple and pink were interspersed with the armor, peeking through the hinges and set into the breastplate. Its hands were empty.
“I know not what to give,” it said quietly. “I have nothing, and I already gave you my oath. I have nothing,” Myser repeated. It bent down, pressing its forehead to Ayre’s breastbone. Its hands were clasped in prayer. “All I have is myself. If you will take it. You took my sword, but I feel you and I have had enough with blades, with death and ruin. Take me, if you will. All I have is myself, take me.”
There was silence. The energy slowly left the room, the runes dimming and the crystal crackling into stardust. Everyone stood there in silence, unsure. Myser’s shoulders heaved in slow waves. They did not quite remember the physicality of crying.
“I accept,” Ayre breathed. Her eyes opened, soft pink meeting Myser’s flames. She reached out to cup its cheek. It leaned into the touch, sharp cheekbone pressing into her palm and chapped lips ghosting over her wrist. “If I have not already taken you, then I take you now. Always and forever.”
“I would have it no other way,” Myser said hoarsely.
-
-
“That was.” Irys breathed in cool air. It was their street corner and the bus had yet to arrive. Ayre’s character sheet was tucked lovingly into its typical place in her bag.
“Dungeons And Dragons,” Ina nodded sagely. “Serious business.”
“Yeah.”
Irys looked at Ina. Ina looked at Irys. The lights from the bus were distant but growing brighter. For a moment, the stars were visible from where they stood. Far above them, and dim, but they were there. They were everybody’s.
“You’ll get on the bus with me this time, right?”
Irys rolled her eyes. The stillness of the night melted just a little bit when she stepped closer to Ina to bump her shoulder with her own. “That was one time.”
“Mm.” Ina inspected her in the dark. The streetlamps made them both look foggy. Outlines and colors and shadows. Every edge was softened and Irys only melted further when Ina touched her hand gently.
“I’ll drag you with me then,” Ina decided. Her hand was warm. It was the same size as Irys’s. Their fingers wound together. Irys smiled when she realized that her racing heartbeat had an echo. “So you don’t forget.”
“I’ll go with you,” Irys said, closing her eyes and lifting her chin with a hmmph. “I don’t need you to drag me, I am perfectly capabl-”
When Irys opened her eyes again, the bus was here. The door was open. The burning imprint of Ina’s lips were still on her cheek, still touching the edge of her lips.
“You’ll go with me?” Ina confirmed, one foot already on the step. Her cheeks were red, like Irys’s.
Too late! Too late! blared the Irys-don’t-get-too-attached alarm.
Irys squeezed Ina’s hand and climbed aboard the bus. “Anywhere.”