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To Live Again pt.1 - the Weeping Monk / Lancelot

The first colors of dawn were creeping through the sky as you gazed into the flames of your small fire. Though you were supposed to be keeping watch, the world was cold, the fire warm, and your thoughts taking precedence in your mind over the silence of the woods. In the silence, you recall the events of the previous days. Not long ago, you had been in your village, it was a  normal day, uneventful at best and boring at worse, until it wasn't. You get flashes of it through your mind at times - the fire. The houses on the outskirts of the small village went ablaze first, the screams were distant, until they weren't. Figures, of human and beast alike, rushed through the village in a frenzy. Though all struggled to escape the raging fires, some did not succeed, perishing in the blaze. Most, however, were not so lucky. Sure, there was a brief respite, a brief sense of safety, for a moment, but as embers blazed, orange gave way to red as the paladins cut down survivors left and right. But even those cut down quickly were luckier than some, whose bodies - mangled - were fated to hang from the crosses, the symbol, not too holy to your kind, rather the words and warning of the prophets of some cruel merciless god, a tyrant over men and fey alike, spreading only fear and loss in his wake.

It all happened so fast. At first you watched, as if in a whole other world, shock perhaps seizing control of your body. You stood petrified, you remember, until a loose arrow whizzed by your face, startling you close to death and effectively removing you from your spectator's position. You ducked and dodged away from both fists and steel. You were no fighter, at least not to this extent, all you could hope was that some way, some how, you could escape the massacre happening around you. But there was blood, so much blood. the smell overwhelming, the iron tang in your mouth near nauseating. And the screams. the never ending, ceaseless sounds, echoing within the flames. It all melted together, the sounds, sights, tastes - all of it - into a dizzying display of death. It should come as no surprise, your inability to remember the whole event in detail, however you do remember this: The hand, wrapping around your arm, as the other found its way to your (y/h/c) hair gripping tightly, stinging your scalp. You remember the harsh dig of fingers into your arm suddenly disappearing, and the hissing sound of metal being drawn from a scabbard. You remember the cool steel of the blade pressed against your throat, just enough to draw a thin, stinging line of crimson blood. And oh how you wish your memories ended there, alas they do not. 

You close your eyes tightly and try to forget, to focus of the forest around you, the fire, the sounds of the birds waking, the feel of your dirty nails digging now ruthlessly into your palm (no doubt leaving harsh crescent indents), but the memories break through anyway. You remember, as a tear unbidden runs down your (y/s/c) face, how your closest friend, your (y/b/f) ran to you. How they pushed both you and the paladin holding you down. How the Paladin forgot you, enraged. How you tried and failed to stand in the slick of blood and bodies. How the Paladin cut down your friend and left without a glance back. How you called their name, screaming your voice hoarse. How their blood quickly coated your hands, how droplets sprayed into your face as you held their dying form. How as you stood and began to run, (y/b/f) could not follow. You remember, almost worse of all, how you ran past their house on the outskirts of town, a near parallel to all the times you ran around it together as children. But (y/b/f) would never run around the house again, would never run to safety, and would never run into your arms delivering you one of their hugs that you so longed to feel the comfort of. 

You were lucky one could suppose, in the worst sense of the word. Lucky - if one could discount the loss of their possessions. Their home. Their family. Of course discounting all of that, you were lucky that the monk was not there. You were lucky that the one who cries could not stop your escape, or the escape of those few others who managed to evade that sea of red. You were lucky to be alive one could suppose, in the worst sense of the word. You weren't dead there was that, but with nothing left to live for, the simple word 'alive' looses all meaning. And truly, you had little left to live for.