The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
—Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
❄
Lucy wipes dust from the top corners of her mirror. The tall glass used to hang on the back of her bedroom door, but her parents are anxious, now, of what might happen to their baby girl in their sleep, even if they won't say as much. So she promised to keep the door open for them more often than not, and that means moving this mirror to temporarily lean up against her dresser.
In this moment, however, Lucy hesitates, debating her need for solitude.
She closes the door.
Just for a few seconds, she tells herself, seeing as she knows exactly what she wants to do and how she needs to do it. The pretense of privacy, at least, matters to her here.
The door clicks shut, quiet.
Lucy takes a deep breath. She slowly peels off the weighted warmth of her wool sweater, a soft ivory stained with blood and soil and rot. The divine magic that restored her to life may have removed the visage of necrosis from her once-corpse, but it could not remove the stench.
It could not remove the scar.
She lets the blood-stained wool fall to the ground, discarded like remains of a sacrificial lamb. After taking a deep breath, Lucy studies her reflection.
Atop her chest—her thoracic cavity, the anatomical expert within her muses, as she always strove to be a cleric capable in both theory and practice—and descending across part of her torso are the echoes of an ancient rune. Written in Giant, ruby remains that are almost purple against her blue skin, Lucy traces the edges of Ankarna's name with her fingertips.
The name of her goddess's sister.
Lucy does not feel unholy for these marks, no. But this scar does resurrect unholy—corrupt—memories that she would prefer not to dwell on.
Scarlet light gleaming in her friends' eyes. A rogue's dagger, coming home to roost. Trying, trying and failing to catch a bloody, callused halfling hand in her own.
Lucy cannot erase this scar. No amount of cure wounds will make its raised edges push flat. But perhaps she will find some alternative to its eternal echo of violence.
For now, she tosses a sheet over the mirror. For now, what she cannot see will not be real.
For now, she will ignore the grief that burns like frostbite within and without her.
❄
Lucy sits at the back of the room. She is reluctant to call it a nave, because for all she knew Kipperlilly like snow knows the inevitability of spring freshet, she does not know how or who Kipperlilly's family worshipped.
If they worshipped at all. This ceremonial location may be one of convenience, not true faith.
Even from the back of the room, she has a clear line of sight toward the casket at the front. There are few others in attendance. Jawbone, Lucy thinks she recognizes, and an elven woman with short brown hair sitting next to him. Her eyes might be deceiving her, but she swears she catches a glimpse of a curly-haired ghost floating among the rafters.
Sitting in the first pew are two halflings, both with heads of blonde hair that from certain angles show streaks of silvery white.
Lucy didn't tell the other Rat Grinders not to come... But they don't want to think about Kipperlilly, and Lucy doesn't want to think about them. Not yet.
YOU ARE READING
Reverence
Fanfiction"Clerics have-not power over life and death," Lucy says, "but a special hand in it." Her gaze drops to her palms, tracing a lengthy life line that was once and could again be a lie. "How do we know when to exercise that guidance?" She can feel Yolan...
