Full Circle

[Devrah Windslasher ~]

Devrah stood, her back to the jagged stones of the mountainside. The wind whipped some loose strands of dark red hair around her face, but she didn't care. Her dark green eyes stared straight ahead, at nothing. There was a piece of paper in her hand, but she wasn't looking at it. She didn't need to look at it. She had already memorized what it said.


Devrah,
I am gone. I cannot say when if or when I will be back.
I hope you understand one day. I hope you can heal by yourself as I was unable to heal you. I will always love you, and I hope your trust for me is such that you will keep your own love strong as well. I am certain we will meet again.
Kamik.

Her eyes burned from the tears she wanted to shed. Her jaw was sore from clenching it so hard. Her bottom lip bled from biting it. Mostly, though, the pain was in her gut, a wrenching, throbbing pain.

Gone.

I am gone.

She should have seen it in his broken stature, the pleading look in his eyes when he tried to show her hope.

I cannot say if or when I will ever come back.

He would never come back. She knew it in her heart. She did not know where he had gone, but she knew why.

I hope you can understand one day.

She understood now. She understood that he no longer loved her; that he perhaps never had. She understood, at last, that Diarmhid had been right all along. There was no place for love in this world. She had been foolish to believe there was, and now she was paying for it, paying with that awful pain in her midsection.

I hope you can heal by yourself as I was unable to heal you.

Oh, yes, she would heal. She would heal the way a deep knife-wound healed. She would cover the wound, fill it in with dead tissue, keep it numb, if just a little more vulnerable.

I will always love you and I hope your trust for me is such that you will keep your love strong as well.

Lying never suited you, Kamik. Don't start now, and I won't either.

I am certain we will meet again.

No, they would not meet again. Devrah would make certain of that.

And it looked like she had come full circle, after all. She had strted out alone, hard, unreachable. And she would end that way, too. She would end that way...

Devrah's movements were always fast, and now was no exception. In a fraction of a heartbeat, her dagger had moved from its sheath to her tightly clenched fust, was held at the base of her throat. Her hands were steady, even though the soft skin of her neck trembled under the blade's caress...

[Bailey Thunnigan]

Bailey wasn't at home at night. That was nothing unusual though. She often was on duty during the night and came back early in the morning. Just with the difference that she wasn't on duty this time. The evening before she spent in Varshikar and til yet she hasn't gone back to Trolls Bane. Too many thoughts were troubling her mind.

She kept walking close to the castle that she was observing and ignored the pain in her shoulder while doing so. The wound was always pounding when she was near this building, as if any moment it would tear open again and spill all the infected blood that circulated through her body. But it didn't happen. It just pained.

Baileys feet carried her north while she was ordering her thoughts and feelings and for a reason unknown to her, her thoughts often drifted to her father. She ran a hand through her mess of light brown, short hair and narrowed her eyes and she gazed into the direction of the strong, upcoming wind.

Wasn't there a person standing? Motionless, as Bailey was able to observe. „Maybe he needs help. Wouldn't surely be the first who ran unprepared into some ogres“. She moved closer to the figure and after some moments she could see that it was a woman.

...

Not any woman. It was Devrah. And wasn't it metal flashing at her neck?
Panic-struck Bailey walked faster, til she finally ran the last meters. „Devrah!“, she said as she reached the lady, though it was half a yell already.
Devrah didn't even look up and that worried Bailey even more. She grabbed the womans wrist which was holding the dagger to her neck and pulled it away from her skin with force.
„God Devrah...“, Bailey said firmly in the hope her words would reach her. „What the heck are you doing.... Look at me, will you!“
Baileys knees were weak and the panic fell like a heavy weight from her as she saw that her neck was yet unharmed, apart from a red line where she had held the dagger tightly to the skin. She breathed in deeply and tried to find her composure again...

[Devrah Liioness]

Devrah stared at the woman, as though not quite seeing her.

"Leave me," Devrah said softly yet the voice was firm, clearly commanding.

Her eyes were blank, emotionless, and yet they seemed different than usual... almost like the life had been taken clean away from them. Her body might live, but her eyes were dead.

She met the other woman's gaze steadily for a moment, and then, suddenly, dropped her eyes, levelling them instead on the blade that was still clutched in her fingers, even as her wrist was caught up by the other woman. A crumpled piece of paper fluttered to the ground, and Devrah used her foot to crush it against the stones on the ground.

[Bailey Thunnigan]

"Let the dagger go", Bailey said in quite the same commanding tone, though her eyes were filled with concern.

"Devrah... Give me the dagger. I ... what happened?" Bailey's grip losened a bit around her wrist to gesture her to let the dagger fall, while she laid her other hand on the ladies shoulder...

[Devrah Windslasher ~]

Devrah lets her fingers loosen on the dagger, but her eyes don't meet the other woman's.

"Just go," she repeats, hoarsely.

[Bailey Thunnigan]

Bailey took the dagger from the woman and tossed it away. Carefully she placed now her other hand on the ladies shoulder and tried to get a hold on her eyes.

"No. No, I will not go. Damn Devrah...", Bailey said with a concerned voice and tightened her grip slightly on her shoulders. "Come , lets go to Varshikar... we can have a talk there."

Bailey slides beside her and wraps her arms around the womans waist to support her.. "come.. lets go.."

[Devrah Windslasher ~]

Devrah allows her old friend to lead her, but in her mind she is only playing along, pretending to agree with whatever Bailey is going to say to her. Inside, she feels hopeless, and she knows she will simply wait until there are no witnesses to take her own life. It is not so much that she wants to die; no, it is just that, she doesn't want to live. She tries as hard as she can to feel numb, emotionless; but she can't. She feels angry, and she feels hurt. She tries to hold on to the anger, because she knows it, she understands it; can live with it. But it is the hurt that is consuming her. This feeling... she has not felt it very often in her life. Three times: Once, when her family was killed, twice, when Revlen died, and thrice when she lost her firstborn child. She is too tired, simply too tired, to keep the facade of being indestructible, fearless.

Fearless she may be, but heartless she never was, as hard as she tried to pretend. What she would give, just now, to be heartless, not to feel this pain...

But these thoughts she keeps to herself as she walks silently beside Bailey.

[Diarmhid Liioness]

Diarmhid leaned casually against the castle wall, his gaze barely flickering up to the two women as they passed. One of them was his sister, the second one he didn't recognize, but knew from the way she walked that she was either someone important, or she at least thought she was. Scarecely raising a brow as he took in the still-wet blood on his sister's throat, and the emotionless way she walked beside the brown-haired woman, he began to walk alongside them, not speaking. His gaze surveyed his sister's companion with a look of mild amusement.

[Devrah Windslasher ~]

Reaching Varshikar and pushing free of both Bailey and Diarmhid, Devrah walks past them and towards Trollsbane. She doesn't bother to see if they follow her; Let them follow her. She doesn't care, doesn't care about much of anything, as she makes her way, moving fast over the land, more for the sake of moving than anything else. Somehow, she just feels like if she keeps walking fast enough, she might outrun the pain.

Pauses at the town bulletin board, same old crap. Annoucenements, taunts, bans...

Bans.

Devrah's breath catches and her heart seems to thump to a stop as she stares at the Jailed Reports.

"Revlen." she murmers out loud, her dark green eyes at last holding something other than careful blankness.

"He's back." the whisper aches when she lets it out. After all, it could be another Revlen, or perhaps he won't remmber her, but...

Revlen's back.

Devrah sets out at a run again. This time, she has a purpose. She is looking for an old friend.