Broken Links (short story)
Title: Broken Links
Author: player of Charna Ja'Varrel'Kav
The sun sank in a sea of reds, Liabo growing brighter in the painted world of dusk. She sat with her back against the worktable with tears drying on her face. A war of emotions was waging inside of her, some as familiar as her hand was to her and others as foreign as the faces in the city beyond. She wasn’t sure what to make of them and was even less sure that she wanted to be feeling them.
She was back where it began, some eighteen months ago.
The telescope had moved, the Lady putting it into place when she had not been able to and was now staring into the heavens. The moons were up there, all of them. Zelia’s moons.
She paused for a moment, her fingertips upon her brow freezing in place before they could pull the strands from her eyes.
Zelia’s moons, she repeated to herself.
Laughter touched the air, a silly kind of laughter that was filled with raw emotions.
Charna quietly said to herself, “Liabo, Lornon, what does it all matter? They are all Zelia’s anyway.”
She hummed for a moment and then her mind seemed to explode with voices and face all lost in time and memory only to finally have meaning and worth.
“I could have told you that myself, “ She had said only moments ago, “But you wouldn’t have believed me.”
“No more Fear,” he had said and then squeezed her hand.
“Then we will find another way,” came the other’s simple reply.
“I can not help you, but I can tell you this. You have what you need with you already.” He had spoken from his cloak of invisibility but he had been right, just as they all had.
“Masks and shadows, Moon lass, Masks and shadows.” Was the last thought before a quiet settled over her.
She tilted her head up to look at the sky, new tears on her cheeks as she stared at the white orb of Liabo. She was laughing again.
“Ye know,” She said very slowly, her eyes falling to where her hands were busy at work rolling up her sleeve. “I’m tired o’ this scar. I think tha’ its time I let ye heal right.”
Taking a drink of the wine she always carried in a flask, she eyed the discoloration on her arm.
“I donnae hate ye, Fox, I donnae pity ye ‘er really feel anythin’ fer ye anymore.” She said through a chuckle. “I’m nae e’en ah fraid o’ ye anymore.”
She pushed her bangs from her eyes again, hearing Nyrithorn tell her that it was all just an illusion and none of it real.
“Yer right, “ she yelled to the domed ceiling. “Ye might be ah rat bastard o’ ah brotha’ at times but yer right!”
Lowering her eyes to her scar she said, “An’ I donnae believe in ye anymore.”
Pulling her dagger from her harness, the dagger she had made for Azorack and that Turinrond had carried for a while, she pressed it to her forearm.
She cried again, but this time from the pain of cutting into the diseased scar on her arm. The scar she had hated and hidden in shame, the scar that she had long cradled and feared. She wasn’t afraid anymore, just alone but for once being alone wasn’t so bad. She wasn’t sure she wanted anyone to see her do this. Besides, the moons were on her and that was enough. Zelia watched, Zelia knew.
She cleaned the dagger on a ribbon and carefully placed it away. Then layered some ambrominas leaf upon her forearm over the wound she had created. Using her teeth to draw the ends tight, she tied a ribbon to her arm to bind the leaf into place.
Every so quietly she whispered to her arm, the physical remains that she had always thought was the source, “G’bye Fox, I donnae believe in tha’ shadows anymore.”