Chapter 25
Angeline weakly pushes herself away from her regurgitated morning meal, and stumbles a half-dozen steps towards the massive front entryway of the Blue Fortress compound before collapsing onto the soft, wet grass. Her mind was still swimming. Still trying to deny the absolute shock it had just received…
Hilda shuffles wearily over to her friend’s side, sinks to her knees, and slowly stretches herself out to lay on the thankfully-cool surface of the field. “G-Goddess… that’s… the last time… I try to… to open a Gate…”
The golden-follicled arcanist languidly stares through the stalks of grass as the other mage’s words feel muffled in her ears. This… was a dream. A terrible nightmare. This was not reality. Annnny moment now, she would wake up in her cot, and laugh at the absurdity of it all. Annnnnnnny minute. And… now. Or… now. Damnit. Come on. Wake up. Wake up. Goddess DAMN YOU! WAKE UP!
Numbly raising a hand to set atop her junior’s shoulder, the pudgy femme slowly runs her digits back and forth to comfort the clearly troubled younger girl. “I’m so sorry, Angie… from what Samuel told me, he had probably managed to kill the thing well before we even received the missive…”
Trying to shake her head at the false image of her comrade as the dream-being continues to rub her back, the blue-eyed caster feels the tears trailing across her skin and falling into the grass… but she’s far too exhausted to make a move to otherwise conceal or wipe them away.
“We’re… going to have to do a Common-Table discussion… so all the facts will come out there…” the black-haired woman issues a soft sigh as she nuzzles her cheek against the cool morning dew. “We’ll need you to attend, Ange… you’ll have to give them some background… and the bloody Knights are gonna shite a bloody brick tryin’ to keep this a secret… that’ll be fun t’ see, anyways…”
Angeline’s lips start to quiver, and she finds the strength to roll her face deeper into the grasses as her body trembles with the effort of holding back her sobs. NO. This is just a dream, damnit! There’s not going to be an inquiry! T-there’s just… i-it’s not going to happen!
Hilda slowly pulls herself up to her knees, then sits in silence for a while with her hand pressed firmly against her pained friend’s back. “He, uhm… Sammy really did try, sweetie. He had a good time of it over there. You made the right decision, okay? I’m sure he knows that, too. Even if you dragged him here a month ago, things would have still ended up the same, right? Only, his entire home-town would be gone. All of his friends and family would be dead right now. This is for the best, honey… it really, really is. An’ we’re gonna set up a messaging post for him t’ talk to all his friends and fam’ly… an’ he can go and visit them whenever he passes by…”
The golden-follicled arcanist sniffles a few times, then coughs as she tries to weakly swallow the annoying obstruction in her throat. Her superior’s words were all too soothing. Logical. Encouraging. And probably true, to a certain extent. Had she taken Samuel up on his offer that final night she had spent in his home, then Serenity Valley would have been the site of a massacre. Cute little Katherine, stupidly-alluring Sarah, the sweet Lenora, the hilarious drunkard Lucas… they’d have all died. Sure as shite, their lives would have been devastated. Well… that was still the same, really. With Sa… Finnigan gone from their sides, they were going to feel his loss more assuredly than when he had suddenly disappeared for what he called ‘business’-reasons. Sure… they might have a few letters returned to them, and perhaps a few one-night-visits over the coming decades… but for all intents and purposes… he was dead to them now…
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Aegis and Order: First Light
Fantasy"It’s shoulders were wide and powerful. At four metres in height, it was almost as large across as it was tall. The arms of the hulking beast hung nearly all the way to the ground, and were thick with rope-like muscles that bulged with even the sl...
