• Closed • Burial Rites (Edalene)

[Narav]

"I can still see him in my dreams. Strange how some memories you never want to fade lose their luster but the horror always remains in stark clarity. I've killed Godryn a thousand times since that day, always with the shovel. I used to think the dreams would eventually stop, that I'd eventually find peace. But one nightmare is only replaced by another...and I never spare him. Not a single time." -Narav's Journal

6 Ashan 717


It was still cold that night. Cylus behind them and its touch still remained frozen in the shadow of each headstone in the tombyard. He'd circled the place three times now but everything was as clear as it had been then. He knew the grave he'd chosen to bury Godryn under and he'd long found the grave they erected nearly a year after the Knight had vanished. As fate so willed it, one was downhill of the other. Early Ashan rain had softened the earth, brought the thick bodies of glistening worms to the surface to slither and prod silently. The corpse-eaters, taking their spectator spots for a murderer come home.

Narav's arms itched, rebandaged after his run in with the shadow woman. After speaking with the city guard, he'd been told it was likely a Naerikk, some sort of humanoid from far cross the sea. Always women, always tattooed, and it was said that in the dark they became the shadow. Narav hadn't eaten since that night, finding meat repulsive to look at. He kept remembering the way she'd buried her blood-soaked face into the open stomach, ripping membrane and organ with her teeth in a violent upward jerk. The bones that cracked and shattered under her hungry advance.

Now all bones sounded like that, shattered and broken, food for the monsters.

Earlier he'd passed along his sickness to a dying man. Narav didn't know whether he was dying, but he looked near dead enough that it wouldn't matter. He could smell the sickness on him and thought his own blood poisoning wouldn't have made much of a difference. He'd leaned down by the figure's head and passed along his infection through his hands. He felt nothing. It was different, releasing an infection into someone and bashing their face in with a shovel. There was no rage, just the finality of suffering, the truth of his lot in life. On that beach he'd made the decision to survive and had been wrestling with it for the time after. Sometimes surviving meant abandoning your higher morals. No. Surviving always meant abandoning them eventually.

He hadn't felt the tears on his face at first, only on the hill between the graves where the wind was its sharpest could he feel them biting into the skin beneath his eyes. Maybe it was the pain of his injuries, maybe it was his exhaustion. Deeper still, Narav knew that he was mourning for the person he thought he was...the person he'd always considered himself to be. Long ago a bright eyed boy read stories in the tangle of branches, waiting for a crush to come and draw him from his study.

Now he didn't know whether he was waiting for Edalene or not.

The old shovel had been replaced, but the gravekeeper hadn't. Old man kept it in the same spot, leaning up against crypt. Part of Narav was disappointed he wouldn't have the same shovel again. It seemed appropriate to finish this with the tools he had started with...but back then it had already been on its last legs and shovels weren't the hardest to come by. Slinging it over his shoulder he turned and took up the shovel's post of leaning against the crypt. Darkness fell over the graveyard and distant clouds inched ever nearer the slumbering city. Narav sighed and started down the hill, standing before the grave of one Dottie Cofeld, the woman he had buried Godryn beneath. It would be hard going, digging two graves, the kind of hard going he might not be able to finish alone.

But if he didn't now he never would. He knew that.

Whether she came or not, there was no going back.

His shovel bit the first mouth of easy dirt and slung it to the side. Then another. Then another. Distant thunder boomed and Narav no longer looked for her at the cemetery entrance. He just dug, the thunder of the shovel mirroring his own heartbeat.

[Edalene]

Narav had told her he would be here. But that meeting down by the docks had gone so poorly - he had wanted nothing to do with her. He would have been content to sail away from her, she thought, and honestly there were even moments where the strange gleam in his eyes had flickered, and Edalene had been afraid. Afraid of what he might do. A traitorous voice whispered in her mind, suggesting that perhaps he would do to her what they had done to Godryn, but she squashed it down, and kept walking towards the graveyard. It was her. It was Narav. For however much he had changed, what horrors he had been through since he had left, Edalene could not - would not - believe he would do her harm. She had faith in him. Would always have faith.

And so, even though he did not want her, Edalene went to the graveyard. It was still cold, colder than it had been that first time arcs ago, and Edalene was kept warm by her cloak. This time was different. This time Aeodan knew where she was - he was worried, she knew, but still, he had let her go, understanding that perhaps she needed something Aeodan could not give. He would be waiting up for her, worrying his lip with his teeth til it cracked. Perhaps Duncan would even wait with them, after the day they had. For now, though, Edalene squashed thoughts of her family down, focusing instead on the boy she loved.

Edalene could see him, as she walked through the arch of the graveyard, illuminated by the moonlight. She shivered. She knew if she turned she would see the staircase where it had all happened, but she could not do that. Edalene just put one foot in front of the other, moving strongly towards Narav, with more bravery than she felt. That voice, again, whispered that he would turn with the shovel and do to her what he had said he had done to Godryn, but again, she pushed that voice into the deep recesses of her mind. She could not believe that.

As she walked towards him, she cleared her throat, an awkward smile on her face. How silly that she should be smiling, here, as if they were meeting in a park, not the site of their murder. She would not look down, could not bare to see the partially unearthed body, would not handle seeing what the decay was like four arcs on. "You know," she said, calmly, her voice not quavering, and she was proud of herself for that at least. "The last time I was here was as Allan's girlfriend. I never told you that, but I came here for the funeral. They didn't have a body to bury." She didn't say how she had gone home with Allan that night, that she had let him fuck her for the first time for both of them, that he had cried when they were done. A pause. "Do you need some help?"

How could she act around him? This man she had loved - that she still loved - who did not want her around?

[Narav]

Narav didn't look up as she approached. He could read the subtle footfalls of her treading path to where he dug. She was too light to be a knight, not stealthy enough to be a brigand or thief. So Narav continued digging, shoving the blade into the soil, tearing it up and depositing it beside him. By the time she arrived he was three feet down, the ground swallowing him up slowly. His arms were bandaged, recently so, and the bandages had been changed across his face. The sea air aggravated his wounds, slipped themselves inside and stitched themselves inside his skin. Now, lost, they clamored to escape through unbroken flesh. Narav did his best to ignore it, ignore the constant taste of narcotic at the back of his throat. Mastes had left him a gift and its addiction played lightly in his mind. It was too dark for his shadow, a savage thing that would have frightened her, no doubt. At least it listened to him and he found it somewhat ironic that he had chosen one magic over another. Trust in the Immortals who bring pain, misery, and ruin...trust the plague spreaders but not the wild apostates.

Gods and demons, the lot of them. Boons won with dedication, death earned with boredom.

He paused, leaning against the shaft of the shovel and keeping his eyes down. In the dark the glow would be too noticeable. "If you see another shovel," He said at last, quietly, "It would make the work go along faster." He hadn't yet figured out how they were going to lift Godryn out of this grave and drag him to the next. Perhaps ropes and more painful exertion. Maybe they would be caught and forced to explain themselves.

Maybe he would confess to all the murders he might yet commit, if no one stopped him.

"I'm sorry," He said at last, after five more slashes of metal against dirt had sounded, "I left. Maybe I should have stayed but my father was to leave in seven trials. I didn't think we could..." he trailed off, "It was foolish of me, and cruel to you. I understand why you wouldn't return my letters." He looked up at her, remembering how Danielle pleaded with him to speak with her. "Afterward we never made it back to Rynmere. I didn't go on the last trip over. Danielle was to meet with her suitor and Edward felt I was better served at home, learning." Another scoop of dirt following another. "I didn't fight it, no. By then fourteen letters had gone unanswered." He took another break, breathing hard. His body ached, protesting what it desired, what it needed...healing. "Did you read them, at least? The last one I wished you a happy life, a free life, that I wouldn't trouble you again." Sitting back against the hole he slid down into it, taking a moment to collect himself.

The night closed in around them, curtains that made this moment private, sacred. "Everything changed after that, Eda. Everything." He wiped the dirt from his hands, wincing at what he expected would be blisters later, "I couldn't sleep, wouldn't eat. Edward threatened to have me taken in by the Order of Audineh. Danielle searched for my journals, looking for answers. I shut them all out." He wasn't sure if she was looking for a shovel or standing over him. He wished for some of the painkillers he had run out of, some sweet taste of release. "Then, a trip to Rharne. On the Dancer. My father was going to take me somewhere, a shipwright I think...though he never said." He chuckled, it was joyless.

"A storm caught us miles off the coast of Rharne, not even in our sights. A storm like you've never seen, Eda. No storm seems as terrible on land as when you're in the water." Standing again, he hefted the shovel and started digging, "Two ships sailed out of the storm. SAILED, Eda, full sail." His eyes itched and he wiped them with his elbow, "Danielle got to one of the smaller boats, Edward and my Uncle remained behind with the crew and I..." he shrugged violently with his shoulders. "Someone hit me, hard, and I fell into the sea."

The tip of his shovel bit wood and he withdrew it, resting again. "I'm cursed, Eda. There's no other explanation. And those who stand around me end up cursed too." Slowly he scooped dirt away from the coffin, knowing he would have to dig beneath it to pull out the corpse. "You were better off away from me, I think. You and your brother...I always thought," he trailed off, remembering the laughter of Mastes, the empty annihilating stare of Kata. "I always thought it would be different."

[Edalene]

Edalene nodded quietly. Of course that's all he wanted; just a hand with the work. Edalene turned away from his bandaged face, the pain still clear on his expression from what that monstrous man had done. Moving quickly back to the undertaker's house, she noticed a shovel leaning against it, and picked it up, the weight heavy in her hands. She had no idea how much help she truly would be, but reburying Godryn was not the reason she had come here today. To spend time with Narav was. To show him she was still here, and still his.

Edalene returned, quietly stepping deep into the tunnel of dirt that Narav had created. Briefly, she wondered how she would get out again without scrabbling, but she quietly began to dig. A few strokes of the shovel - she was not as strong as he, who had a sailor's build, and so she could not move the amount of dirt Narav did. But she worked, quietly, and wondered what to say. If there was anything at all to say.

But he spoke first. Her eyes snapped up to him, and she took a moment to look at him in surprise. She kept digging at first, but all of a sudden, words poured out. Words she had wanted, needed to hear for so very long. Edalene stilled, leaning against the shovel, watching Narav as he spoke. "I did read them," she said slowly, wondering what to address first. "I read every one. They were very important to me - they still are. I kept them all." Edalene passed a hand over her face, wondering how to explain. "You just seemed so content to leave me. To go on with life without me. I didn't know how to respond, to tell you that letters weren't enough. That I needed you. So ... I didn't say anything."

Narav spoke on. He had been as tormented as she, then. Edalene had turned to sex, after that night with Allan, after they had "broken up" - not that they were ever truly together. A ruse to protect Narav. But ... for Narav, that was not all. Horrors on the sea, loss of the only family he had ever known. Edalene stood silent, watching, cheeks pale in the moonlight. How could she have known? She had been in anguish about the loss of her first love; he had lost his love and his family. How had she tried to compare her suffering to his?

"I'm so sorry..." Edalene watched as the coffin was exposed, the evidence of their horrifying deed that had changed everything laid bare before them. "I didn't know. I wondered why the letters stopped." He looked at her then, his strange eyes meeting hers. They were different to when she last had known them, surely. She couldn't address his loss - she didn't know his pain. "You could be cursed. I feel like I am, too. Or maybe it's just ... life is like this for some of us. Maybe we got all the bad luck when we were born."

Edalene took a step forward, and ran her hands over the dusty coffin, crouching down to look at it. Imagining a heartbeat within. Imagining the past four arcs undone. "I thought it'd be different, too." She didn't look at him while she said this. "You know. I thought I'd marry you. I thought I'd be a Researcher by now. And I thought we'd be married, and my father would give me away, and your family and mine would be there. I thought Aeodan would be happy for us, and he'd dance with me. I thought I'd love you, make love to you. I even thought about our children."
Edalene sighed, standing up. Finally looking at him again, earnestly. "It's a life I still want, Narav. A life I want with you. But I don't know if you feel the same, anymore."

[Narav]

Narav continued to dig as she spoke, clearing the edges around the coffin and unceremoniously leveraging his shovel beneath, straining to flip it and reveal the contents beneath. In the time since he'd been buried beneath the coffin, Godryn had rotted. A collection of white worms wriggled pallid in the moonlight, gently pushing towards bones and putrefied flesh to hide from exposed air. Narav grimaced, noting with some grim disdain that Lisirra would accept such a body as a sacrifice if he dedicated it to her. The voice, the ever constant niggling at the back of his skull called him to do so, to spite the memory of the man they'd killed. Instead, Narav grimaced and held back vomit. Luckily, he'd buried Edward face down and did not have to look at the remains of the ruinous skull he had shattered those arcs ago. Leaning down, he took rope from his belt and secured it around the remains of Godryn's armored midsection. The gleaming hilt of the Knight's sword caught what little moonlight spilled into the hole and after a moment of contemplation, Narav took that as well, securing it to his own belt.

"I was never content," He said finally, scaling the wall of the hole and reaching down to help Edalene out as well. He took the rope and wrapped it around a nearby grave, serving as a means to support the weight of the corpse as he dragged it from the hole, "I don't think I ever was. There's this...rage that lives in me, and always has maybe." He thought back to those sunny days before, wondering if this lie was true. He didn't remember the fury before, the pure anger that coursed through him now. Everything slipped beneath his skin, ants that crawled ceaselessly up and down his bones. Maybe he always was, maybe he wasn't. The truth was gone, interpreted now. "I think..." Narav gritted his teeth and yanked against the rope, slowly pulling up the rotted body from the hole. Every part of him wanted to drop it, let the rope go slack and bury the man again.

But if he did, Godryn would haunt him forever...Allan as well. And Edalene? She would become a phantom to. "I think it was you who should have been better without me. You and Aorden always seemed all that you needed, you've grown up well, and had things gone differently you might have been dead too...lost on that ship. So, maybe...a curse is just what saved you."

Godryn's diminished corpse thudded on the grass and lost bits of itself as it was dragged forward. Still mercifully face down, Narav took a break to breathe before grabbing the shovel. Spitting on his hands and wiping them against his pants he headed downhill toward Godryn's grave and started digging again, his hands blistering already under the strain.

All that she said, all her sweet words like butterflies against his memory. Had he thought of it as well? Surely he had in those late nights in the dark of his room, the rocking of the ship the only woodsong to keep him company. He could almost see that life as well, the proud smile of Edward, the dress his sister would wear...the beauty that Edalene would embody before the altar.

Child eyes staring up at him, like he had stared up at Edward.

But it was all too foggy, distant, like the pages of a book.

"Maybe," Narav said, gritting his teeth as the tooth of his shovel bit dirt, "Maybe the cursed don't get a neat ending." He sighed, not looking up at her, trying to steel his already cold heart. He was alone here, alone in the world, and the mark Kata and Mastes had left pulsed on his hip.

"Maybe," he continued, "Maybe I'm not the same Narav you knew."

[Edalene]

Edalene pressed her fist to her mouth, disgusted by the evidence of their crime before them. She could not look at the body, and for a moment, Allan's face flashed before her eyes. He had never got to see his father's body. Would this disgusting display of death bring him peace, or further anguish? Swallowing, she attempted not to look, even as Narav handled the flesh and wrapped rope around the decomposing Godryn.

She said nothing as Narav took the sword, though she wondered why he would want a reminder of this day forever. But it was his right, she supposed - or maybe Allan should be the one to have it. Should they leave it on his doorstep in the night, never telling him it was them? Edalene took his hand as he helped her out of the hole,stumbling a little as she came to the ground. Falling into his chest. She stayed a moment, tempted to wrap her arms around him and feel his warmth, but she dropped his hand and let him go, instead picking up the rope and helping Narav haul the body from the earth.

"You... seemed content." She huffed as she spoke, the weight of dead flesh heavier than she had thought. But she could not think about what it was she was doing. Just one tug at a time. "The day this all happened... no, the night before. On the roof. You seemed content with me. I never saw that rage." Was the rage new? Was this a result of the horrible things that had happened, worse than even killing Godryn? She dropped the rope, wiping her sweaty hands on her skirt. She followed him, made no move to help him dig - unable to stand by Godryn's corpse anymore. She leaned on her shovel, and watched.

"Maybe," she admitted. "Things might have been different. But we wouldn't have known. Things might have ended on a ship. Maybe. I don't know, Narav. All I know is I wanted different to this... I wanted you. I want you. Even if you are different now."She paused, reached out a hand and touched his cheek, turning his face to hers, making him look at her."Did you - honestly - did you want me too? Please, Narav. Be honest with me. Did you - DO you - want me too?"

[Narav]

Fool that he was, never once considering a way back through the weed-choked passage he'd woven. Her fingers were spider legs and the stalks of honeysuckle both, and he shivered. When she made to draw her hand away he caught it. Dirt smeared fingers twisted for a moment and then were left grasping. Narav turned back to the shovel. The dirt waited patiently to be displaced, content to sit forever or move forever as fate would will it. What were they like now? Water? Dirt? Fire? His wounds itched.

Bite by bite he tore through the dirt of the old grave, knowing that they would eventually come to a coffin with no body. Already the night had grown to its darkest. They were hemmed in by the hush. Godryn, to his credit, had not stunk nearly so much in the hidden grave. Now, in the open cemetery air, the molder and rot of his body began to slowly press itself against the two conspirators. Narav snorted through his nose, gritting his teeth. Even breathing the air carried the taint and it turned his stomach.

Come, the corpse seemed to say, come look upon me. Here is your future, Narav of Ne'Haer, son of damnation and servant of plague. Look upon your labors and rejoice, for all are rot and to rot we shall return.

He almost told the body to bite its tongue, before realizing that with the damage he'd done to the face...he'd likely pulverized it. A desperate kind of giggle escaped his lips, breathy and panting, before he sat against the edge of the hole he was digging to take a break.

Edalene still waited for the answer to his question.

Would it be too morbid to kiss her here, he wondered? Roll about on the burial dirt of their crime and get lost in desperate passion? Too morbid, he decided and dismissed the idea. Her eyes were on him and he could feel them, small marbles pressed against his down-turned face. She dug methodically, her body forcing frustration through stroke upon stroke of effort. Idly, he wondered if she wasn't actually trying to dig away at his defenses...if this had stopped being about a long dead child beater and was more about how they'd left things. So much soil had blown into the holes they'd dug in each other's hearts and now Edalene was sifting through, looking for the familiar dent in his emotions, a place she could fill with her whole self.

Edalene hit wood below and began uncovering the old casket. Narav dissappeared over the edge and dragged the corpse up to the hole. When she had finished clearing the lid and opened it, they would send the body tumbling in, close the lid, bury the hole and be done with it. Rain would erase their presence and even if it was discovered, what link would there be to them? Narav counted the lights of the guards that patrolled the city streets. No rash of grave robberies lately and their attention was focused elsewhere. Cannibals and mages, he almost wished he were with them.

"You know I did," he answered her over the lip of the new grave, "I wanted you first, I think...weeks before you felt the same. I would borrow books and return them half-finished, just to have an excuse to see you again." He fell quiet and sat on the lip of the hole, letting his legs dance out over the darkness...dance out over Edalene.

"But after the wreck...no, maybe after my last letter went unreturned, I learned to let go...just a little bit." Putting both hands out behind him, he balanced and looked up at the sky. No stars. It was a sore. "Just a little bit every day. Danielle helped, a little I think...though I don't know she knew it. After I lost her, lost my Uncle and Father, I guess I stopped thinking about it entirely. Suddenly there were more important things than the person I used to be and the adventures I used to have. It felt like I couldn't go back there, be that person again. The Narav you knew had...fury, but it was eased by your sweet words, touch, and the life he led. Now? Now it's an open wound. No matter where I go I seem cursed to conflict. Fridgar, the cannibal, M-" he paused, having almost said the Immortal's name and swallowed it down, "Maybe I am cursed. Maybe I am simply unlucky. I want you, Eda, but maybe not the way you want me."

He sighed, "What you want is pure, compassionate, emotional...I'm all fire and passion and fury. I'd burn you to cinders, as I am...and I don't think you can share my journey." He swept his arm out in the dark, maybe lost on her. "You have the University, your studies, Aeordan. Me? I have to find Edward, Danielle, sort my life into some manner of sensibility. As I am I'll just..." Devour, he thought, I would devour you in my maddening quest to find some lick of sweetness in this whole affair, "I'll just hurt you."

He was quiet a moment and then, "Let me know when the coffin is open and then scramble out, I'll send him in for his final rest."

[Edalene]

Edalene felt sick, down in the grave. There was a ridiculous irony being in her, and with the clocks on her neck - she wondered if Narav had noticed, but this new Narav was all caught up in himself, his pain, and did not seem to notice - with the clocks, she was aware even now about the inevitability of her ending up in this same place not too long from now. Death had always seemed so far off, but now, a Shirvain, she understood her life was far too quick in the scheme of things.

Far too short to spend on moments like this.

Edalene hauled herself from the hole, taking one of his hands. "Send him in," she said, silently, watching as Narav worked, placing the dead Godryn into the coffin he should have had arcs ago. She looked away, staying silent, but in that moment - the silence was not for respect of the dead. For all the horrible things they had done to Godryn, she still believed he deserved death. Not at the hands of the sixteen year olds, but for everything he had done to Allan, he deserved to be where he was. No, the silence was for everything she had lost. Youth, sleep, Allan, Narav. And Narav was finally back, but she had never felt as far away from him as she did in this moment, not even after he left four arcs ago.

"If I could go back," and the thought made her laugh - marked by the Immortal of Time, who knew if she could? - but she sobered again, "If I could go back, I would answer everyone of your letters. I was sixteen, Narav, and I was scared. We killed a man, and you left me. I didn't - I still don't - know how to handle that. But," she said shrugging, her patience wearing thin. "I can't go back. I can't make you love me now. I didn't answer those letters, and we'll never know what would have happened if I had."

"Narav," she said, making a decision, stepping to him. "I need to tell you something." And it had come full circle; the tables were turned."I'm leaving. Aeodan, Duncan, and I - we are leaving. We move to Viden in three trials." She swallowed, watching for his reaction. "But I'm doing what you never did. I'm asking. I'm asking you to come with me, because I miss you, and I need you, and I think we can work this out. I think I can help you - I know I am good for you." A deep breath, and she looked into his strange glowing eyes, so he could see her sincerity. "Ralaith blessed me a few trials ago, Narav. Whatever I can do, however I can use this gift to help you, I will. I would do that for you. I know you think you are not worthy of it, but I love you, and I mean that." A weak smile.

"So now that we have laid our ghosts to rest, please, Narav," she asked, "come with me."

[Narav]

Silence.

At the end of every burial came the silence. Not true silence, Narav knew, just the illusion of it. Beneath the dirt in the cold earth, worms and other creatures would busy themselves again on Godryn's rotted frame. The whisper of unseen mouths rang from all tombstones eventually, but now...and especially to them both, it was silent. Once he imagined he might have words to say, a eulogy for the dead man he hadn't the courage to say before. It would have been eloquent, practiced, but the thing beneath him was no more Godryn than was the sword at Narav's waist. This was his sword now, anyone's sword. Godryn was dead and gone and no words spoken would coax him up from the filth to listen.

So instead he buried the box, stiff twist by twist, turning to the dirt and then back to the hole. He did it mechanically, without emotion, his mind slipping quietly away from his troubled and wounded body to flirt with the past. Narav almost didn't hear her. It wasn't that the wind was too loud, or the cascade of dirt on wood commanded any more attention from him...he was just distant. The gulf between them was a yawning emptiness of regret and bitter tears. Narav could bury his life in that abyss, his life ten times over. How could they hope to bridge if the abyss was ever hungry?

Lisirra would have found joy there, a sardonic chuckle. Mastes and the mad bitch Kata...or...no, perhaps not mad, maybe lost. They would have their own words. None of them reached him now, the night was only filled with her voice. He might have gone on like that forever, maybe, listening to her speak without understanding. She had a pleasant lilt to her speech and the slight accent that characterized all in Andaris. It was a lovely sound, much more than the dull hiss of metal in soil and the clatter of it falling. Maybe forever WAS moments like these, and mortals were all too damn impatient to grab them.

Maybe. Maybe.

He heard her then, when she told him she was leaving. Narav did not respond, a wooden doll in torn sailor's clothes filling in an old grave. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. His heartbeat was the shovel-blade. Clatter, Clatter, Clatter, his breathing was the dirt that fell.

Of course she was leaving, and of course it was in only three days. He'd come so far across seas and storms to bury his past, and now she was leaving. Didn't set foot off Rynmere her entire life and waited till he returned to set sail for home.

Well, he thought ruefully, it isn't as though you asked her to stay.

He didn't know Duncan...but that hardly mattered.

What she said next stopped him.

Ralaith. Lessons long ago played back for him. The tomes of Immortals and their powers, the domains. Ralaith was of Time, he knew that. What else? No...no it wasn't coming. Years ago he would have thought her claim ridiculous. He'd never met one marked by an Immortal before and had come to believe it was nonsense and wives tales, or at least a cunning mask for magic to ply its trade.

He could see now, what he might not have before. In the dark he could trace the outline of a clockface on her neck. So beautiful, bright, vivid. How could he have missed it before? Narav let the shovel stick in the dirt, so close to finishing now and really looked at Edalene for the first time since they began.

There were breasts now, heaving with the exertion of their toils before. She was taller, perhaps even thinner, but her body was undeniably feminine...even through the ruined clothes she had worn for their graveyard palaver. Dirt clung to her matted hair and colored one cheek, dipping down to her shoulder where uneven digging had collapsed mud perhaps a break earlier. She wrung her hands slightly, rubbing at the palms where blisters were likely forming. Digging two graves is hard work, even for a grave digger, and neither had accustomed much to that life. Her lips remained unmarred by the labor, glistening wetly in the moonlight. They were inviting, despite everything and Narav realized with some shame that he had been looking back, seeing the her that she used to be rather than the woman she was now.

Here stood someone who had made a decision in her life, bound it by word and would certainly by blood...definitely by passion. Aimless and lost, Narav couldn't feel the weight of that sincerity and perseverance. It felt alien to him.

Why would it only be the cruel and evil that marked men? Of course she would be chosen. Had he ever considered her worthy of an Immortal's attention? Of a gods attention? Yes. Maybe. It was all too long ago.

Narav took a deep breath, rubbing the dirt of one palm against another.

There was still so much to do.

"I think..." his voice cracked, weary, and he swallowed to try again, "I think Viden is a lovely decision." Left it there. Rotted in the air. Speak again. Speak. "I'm not done here," turning out to the city below them, "Not yet." He remembered what Mastes said. Monsters hunting monsters. Maybe they all were, deep down, in the graveyard of their own soul. "I cannot fathom how you feel." He said it honestly, too quickly, reconsidered. "To have held all that emotion, for so long, and to still think me worth it...after this. After This." Emphasis, as if punching the words. "You, you, you're so indescribable, Edalene. Genius scholar, iron in your bones, marked by an Immortal of Time? I can't..." he was at a loss, shaking his tangled hair, "I have no words for the kind of star you are. Whereas me..." He lifted one bandaged hand and laid it on his chest. The wounds Fridgar left murmured angrily and he winced, "I'm just not. Misfortune follows me. Ruin follows me. I mean, this?" He gestured at the almost covered grave, "This is part of it. JUST a small part. A small one." Taking the shovel he dug fast and hard, hurling the remaining dirt back into the hole and stomping hard on the newly covered grave. Godryn's sword clattered in its scabbard, at his waist. "And after all of this, you...I...we..." each word he spat with increasing frustration, stamping harder, marching over the dirt...almost dancing on Godryn's grave.

He stopped in front of her, his chest heaving and glowing eyes too bright. Too Bright.

Hit her, the egg said
Leave her, his mind spit
Save her, his heart murmured.

Narav grabbed both her shoulders and drew her close to him, crushingly sudden, his muscles burning with the adrenaline he had somehow found. Without a word he pressed his lips against hers, almost hard enough to hurt, and cupped the back of her head.

It was a furious kiss, born out of language finally failing the whirlwind of indecision. Their faces met at the border of their lips and boiled there. Despite himself, he even bit down on her lower lip, a moment of pressure before releasing her back and stumbling away. He almost pitched over the tombstone but steadied himself on it, turned and allowed himself to sit.

His heart thrummed, his body awake and alive to this must more preferred labor, but he did not return to her.

"I can't follow you, Edalene. Not yet." He said at last, flatly, "I need to recover and I need to exhaust my search. If I find no lead on Edward and Danielle then..." he thought about it, considered the answer, "I will come to Viden. If the gods are good, and your patron wills it, I will find you there."

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[Edalene]

Narav stared at her with gleaming eyes she could not understand, and it felt her heart had stopped. Or at least paused, frozen in this time while she waited to hear words that could start it again. Yes, she wanted him to say. Yes, I will, I love you, yes, always yes. But that was fantasy, and though she had always shared those novels with Narav, she knew through life lived that things never turned out that way. Even as hope churned in her belly, she knew Narav would not say yes.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and she was about the say something, the silence of the dead and of Narav crawling into her bones. It was agonising, but even as she was about to speak, to tell him to ignore her as she had once done to his letters, to leave her because she was desperately wanting something she could not have, he spoke. And his words were like fingers on her throat, leaving her wanting air, wanting anything that could start her living again.

Hope sunk as he began to speak. A lovely decision. A lovely way of denying her. But it wasn't as simple as she had thought, and she watched Narav survey the twinkling lights of Andaris, which reflected in the light of his gleaming eyes, something she still did not understand. He tore himself with words, and Edalene did not know how many times more she could say, stop, you are worth it, you are worth so much more than you see, scars and horrors and all, and she was about to speak, to plead again even though she knew she shouldn't, but then he gave her something he never had before.

A ragged gasp escaped her lips, blowing against his own. And without hesitation, as if it were as natural as breathing, as natural as love, her lips moved against his fiercely. Edalene opened her mouth to his, drew his tongue against hers, sketched her love and devotion as misguided as it was onto the inside of his mouth. She poured everything into that kiss: her childhood dreams, her hope, her agony, her longing, and her love. It was an impossible kiss, and she could not say what she needed to with it, but she needed it more than she had ever known. This kiss - it shouldn't have been, but it felt like a beginning, and the hope in her belly transformed into something indescribable, a mix of hope and loss and love and despair, and it was enough.

Edalene moaned as he pulled away, stumbling on the dirt of the grave, and her tongue massaged the place where Narav had bit her. Chest heaving, she looked at Narav with tears in her eyes - not of sadness, but of something unknown. Slowly, she regained her breath, and nodded. There was no more she could say to convince him, and she knew she should leave. Duncan and Aeodan were waiting for her.

"Alright," she murmured, her voice thick. "Alright." Despite herself, she could not resist once more. She stepped forward, brought her hand to his uninjured cheek, and kissed him again. It was an antithesis to the one before; gentle, and full of promise, soft and wanting. "I love you," she murmured, lips brushing against his, her fingers stroking his skin. "Find me there. I'll be waiting for you."

One last look into his gleaming eyes, with a soft smile on her lips. It was a moment before she pulled away, but when she did, she did so with purpose. She turned without looking back at her love, and made her way back to Andaris. Godryn was at rest, and she needed to pack for Viden.

It was a beginning. Perhaps a terrible one foreboding more loss and pain, but a beginning nonetheless.