It was raining that day. Soft rain drizzled down from clouds that lacked the drama of what usually followed him around. It wasn’t exciting. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t miserable. It was just a dreary drizzle, as if the sky itself had expended itself already, and could no longer care to flood the world below. Meaningless and pointless, empty droplets toyed with by the capricious wind, as a small, solemn procession sent her off. No one expected to die so young. No one was resigned to their fate so easily. In a world where resurrection magic existed, who would have imagined that their story would end so swiftly? And yet, there she was, ashen like the ice she had encased herself in, so small and frail now that her vivacious soul no longer burned in her core. Nothing but coal. The faces that he saw, dressed all in solemn black, were unfamiliar. NPCs, all non-descript except for the giant of a woman with lifeless eyes and monochromatic hair. Not a single player had come except himself. Not a single one. Were they celebrating? Were they happy that the war had been won? Were they all logged out, enjoying the comforts of the real world and taking a break from this game that had taken a much harder toll on them than they had expected? Were they grieving their own lost friends, the thousands strewn across the devastated landscape as corpse eaters stripped flesh from bone? Or had they always been in it just for fun, because this was an event on the scale of an international conflict? The lid of the coffin was closed, but he could imagine it as clearly as if he was seeing it in the temple of Endra, where the burial rites were performed so that her soul may find its way to the spirit-caravan of the Merchant Goddess, travelling the vast astraverse for an eternity. The white petals framing her face, the deathless expression and the powdered skin. It would remain in him permanently. They lowered her into the grave. Still, the dreary rain fell, soaking into his white swallowtail suit, dampening his mind with white silence. Dark eyes turned about. He was still alone, the sole adventurer in a group of mourners, upon the solitary hill. He shouldn’t have been. That flaxen haired miner had saved them all, had pushed past into a realm that none of them could trespass. She had singlehandedly delivered them from the plight of those multiplying boars, had saved the entirety of the Astorean elite. The entirety of the party that had assassinated the Mad King had been present in that bloodstained conflict, where the earth devoured their blood and the flames ate their souls. Had bore witness to her valor. None of them were there to offer their condolences, to say their farewells. Because they had ‘real lives’ to attend to? Because they were wrapped up in their own bullshit? Because she wasn’t technically a citizen of Astorea? Because because because they didn’t fucking care?! Dark eyes smouldered, grief mixing with rage, hardening into a diamond edge from the pressure of the emotional kaleidoscope. She wouldn’t be recognized. Not in legends. Not in historical records. Not in the memories of many. Not when the horrific war, with its heroes and villains, would have drowned out all that had occurred before then. That bastard King was there, on the edge of death, when she had filled the chamber with gaseous ice, shattering the demon boars that threatened to slay them all. He had not spoke a single word of it. It ate at him. Took a bite every time a shovelful of dirt was tossed over the casket. This was unhealthy, this attachment. This was unhealthy, this hatred. This was unhealthy, this recklessness that was bubbling within. Bury it with fear and fire. Outrun the agony that shredded him. Feast as it as feasted. He turned and left. One step at a time, accelerating with each cycle, until he was running and running and RUNNING. Away from the lonely hill that threatened to swallow him whole, from the bonds that only twisted him into unrecognizable pieces. Away, away, away. Scream.
