Serafina sidles up to Sam, a strong drink in her hand. "How are you so calm all of the time? You're sitting in a bar run by an aspect of death, meanwhile you've turned undead, and your group is in shambles might I add, and also you're undead! We're gonna have to go back to town at some point and I'm going to have to convince the other elders not to kill you, because... And I'm not sure if I mentioned this yet, YOURE UNDEAD!"
Sam smirks. "It's been my experience that the undead are a rather chill class of people," he quips in response to Serafina.
"Panic helps nothing. Not in battle, not in talking to the spirits of dragon gods or death itself. Even banging around a kitchen can make the cake collapse... But if you are calm you are able to think. Even in battle, or when dealing with gods, or baking in the kitchen. As for the group, you should have seen us when they first threw us together. We're a ragtag bunch, alright. Rub each other the wrong way at least as often as not. But it takes some grinding to smooth and polish, don't you think? Nothing great is born perfect... It takes some agitating and adversity to gain the grace and strength that greatness needs..."
"As for being undead... So it seems. But Lumithor is a pile of bones and an unconnected spirit. Your elders don't see to hold that against him now, do they? So I became undead helping their great dragon god spirit. If they want to hold it against me then I guess I'll just have to remain calm and convince them not to," Sam says. "It wouldn't be the first time someone with their nose pointed to the heavens declared me unworthy just because of what I am."
"what you are... Is temporary, a curse. And it is wrong. I'm not sure if you simply don't realise... And lumithor isn't undead he's, weird. I've never understood it. Like a ghost but not a ghost, a soul with a purpose, bound to purpose..." As Sam looks in serafina's eyes he sees the all too familiar fog of someone teetering on the edge of full blown drunk. "You'll never die naturally, but that's not the worst of it, the idea of eternity is... Terrifying" she mutters wide eyed, more to herself than Sam.
"Sorry about that", Vin says to the others after Muir has left. "He is really smart and all, but what good is knowing who to ask for help, if all you do is alienate everyone you come across to the point they won't want to".
He sighs and wanders over to sit on the floor, leaning against Neferox and resting.
He watches and listens to Sam and Serafina speak, but doesn't interject.
Sam subtly moves Serafina's drink out of her reach. "Perhaps not everything is black and white? A dragon can be dead yet alive enough to do it's duty. A man can be cursed yet still stand up for what is right. And eternity? I guess the thought is scary... The pure number of people one could lose in such a time... I don't know if my head can grasp that," Sam admits. "But what I can grasp is that, given the choice, I would take as much time as I could to spend with those I loved and cared about. If everything isn't just black and white, eternity can't just be losing loved ones, can it? It also has to be about finding new loves, new friends, new joys..."
"I get you're sore at him," Sam says in reply to Vin, "but that's a question to ask Muir himself. Maybe he thinks that the stubbornness is a wall that will break down if chipped away at often enough? Maybe the answer is more important than people's feelings? Maybe he only knows one way to go at things? All I know is that he feels the answer is important and it seems someone is keeping it from him. His asking is alienating those with the answers? Well I suppose those with the answers withholding them for no reason he knows is alienating him...."
Serafina squints here eyes suspicious of the sense that Sam is making about eternity. "I found my love, and he was undead when we first met... I think you're right, the elders can be convinced, they have been before huh? Hah!" Morris sees Sam move the tankard and takes it away replacing it with a tankard of water instead without her notice, he gives a nod and a wink to Sam.
Xazgan gets up in a huff and leaves, not out of the front door but just towards a wall where an internal door appears before her and then disappears behind her once she closes it again.
The door that Elthana left through opens, and a copy of Morris holds the door for Elthana to walk through, she steps into the door frame and mutters something back to Morris, a question? Possibly, Morris looks at her with surprise and quickly closes the door again, him and Elthana still on the other side of it, now out of sight.
Vin's temper is still enflamed, and no matter that Sam speaks sense, it doesn't hit home. He doesn't argue the case though, simply grunts showing the petulance of youth.
Over the next few minutes, he remains introspective, or what others might badge as sulking.
"So," Sam says, turning back to Serafina. "Your love was undead, huh? Don't get me wrong, I'm kind of spoken for myself so I'm not interested... But you say was? Does that mean they became unundead? As in alive or as in normal dead?" He's not always the most tactful.
Seeing Elthana returning Sam smiles and is halfway through a nod of recognition to get her attention when she turns back to Morris. Other Morris. Morrisii? Ah well...
"So this Roxs'hianbumped uglies with an angel and got the demon realms shut down then, eh? How's that work? One good shag and the angels win the ballgame?" Sam - tactful as ever.
Serafina's looks confused at Sam, "hector was a vampire when we met, I thought he told you, but we let him in, it took a while to trust him but eventually we got him help, now he's mortal, and charming" she looks up tho the roof deep in thought and sighs with a red faced smile.
"Angels win the ballgame?" Morris inquires, "if you didn't notice all of the realm portals shut down for a thousand years, well... A thousand on the material plane anyway"
The door opens and Elthana slowly walks through, her head down. She pauses, looks up and when she does, you can see her red, bloodshot eyes, disheveled hair and the sorrow, the grief written all over her face. She meets Sam's eyes and the tears come again, unbidden.
She ignores them, letting them fall.. she stares at Sam, her lower lip starting to tremble. The vulnerability and raw emotion she emotes, something the others have never seen from her. She starts walking forward, stumbles and catches herself on an empty barstool.
She finally gets to Sam and falls to her knees. She starts reaching for him, his leg, his foot.. but takes her hand back before touching him. Then in a voice that is a whisper, but carries through the room, "It was me, Sam. I did it. I..." and she can't finish the sentence.
The Morris that enters with Elthana folds into the one at the bar, he reaches a hand up as Elthana stumbles toward Sam and he chitters something into the rafters. Ratosk jumps down and sits atop morris' shoulder.
Morris also looks terrible, full of sadness and grief.
"Hector, huh?" Sam asks Serafina. "Maybe. Honestly I can never follow the soap opera drama of relationships and such..." I mean Soap Opera's won't likely be invented for at least a couple of decades but Sam assumes the jist of what he means will come across via context.
"But the portals being closed was good, yes?" Sam asks of Morris. "Stopped the chaos of one place spilling into the next and..." And Sam didn't know exactly what he was going to say. He usually doesn't until he actually has said it and he listens to himself. But he gets cut short this time not due to a lack of words or thoughts but because of Elthana.
Sam begins to smile again but then he sees the state of her. "What happened?" he begins to ask just as he also begins to stand. As she starts walking forward, as she stumbles, Sam rushes after her. Even as Elthana falls before him and reaches out but then recoils from touching him, Sam is squatting down to her level, reaching out to her and pulling her to him. "Shhhh, it's ok. Whatever happened, it's ok. Just relax and take a breath, eh? Tell us what Morris did to you..." At this last bit Sam glares over at Morris with accusing eyes.
As Xazgan gets up to walk away, Gewyn says, "Well I'm always in the mood to help a pretty lady, but also, sometimes there doesn't need to be a reason. Sometimes things just work out in your favour. The world's an unpredictable place. If what we have to do ends up improving your situation, then cheers!" With that he tips back his drink.
Afterwards, he goes over to lean against a wall next to the sulking Vin. He lets silence sit between them for a while before saying, "You've changed. Grown really. Used to be a lot softer. So I pray you'll forgive Muir if he needs some time relearning your boundaries. Not everyone can get people as well as I do, and I know I'll still need some time and grace too. With all of you."
Xazgan before leavin listens to Gewyn's words and gives him a nod, "then I hope you succeed." And then she is gone.
Morris keeps quiet, as Sam asks about the portals distracted with what is happening in the other room with his other self, and then his double and Elthana return,
At Sam's accusatory tone Morris hangs his head, not so much in shame but in recognition of the situation, and of the understanding that is yet to reach the half orc.
She wants to let him hold her. She really does. She almost does. She feels his warmth and his care for a moment, then she can't let herself be lost in it. She pushes him back and forces herself to look in his eyes.
Then she can't and she drops her head again, "Not Morris. Me. Your Molly... oh god Sam, I'm so sorry." and she buries her face in her hands and her body starts wracking with sobs.
Gewyn stands upright, no longer leaning against the wall. His hands hang by his side, grasping, ungrasping, ready for... what? What to do in this situation? His eyes lock on Sam, waiting for a response.
Sam struggles to keep a hold of her, to allow Elthana to tire herself out and work out whatever has her in such a state. Sometimes when you finally have someone in your arms, no matter the reason, you just don't want to ever let them go. And then she speaks...
"My Molly?" Sam asks softly. Almost a whisper. Not really a question so much as something he just has to process... His grip still strong but fading...
"My Molly?" he repeats again, it gaining question status now. He still doesn't understand. Doesn't want to understand.
"You're sorry," He says, piecing it together. "You did it..."
"My Molly..."
Sam rocks back onto his heels, his hands still on the outside of Elthana's arms but no longer gripping her, no longer holding her. They just... need to be somewhere.
"I..." he begins the words don't come. He looks around the room to Muir and to Vin and to Gewyn and to Serafine and to.. Well his eyes flit right over Neferox before he looks to Morris and stalls there for a moment. "You..." but wording can be hard sometimes. Sam clears his throat and starts again.
"You said you had her memories. Molly's memories..." Sam says, voice controlled like an overburdened dam, "You said..." He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment.
"she didn't know. She didn't know that it was Molly, I, I thought she did and so... I showed her what you asked to see earlier, I showed her what she did. You don't want to see that Sam, but Elthana had already lived it." Morris stumbles a little over his words, and takes a seat behind the bar, his shoulder slump and his head droops down. Ratosk watches the scene unfold with focus, ready and prepared for, something.
“And it was me he was worried about,” Sam snorts and continues drinking his ale.
Serafina sidles up to Sam, a strong drink in her hand. "How are you so calm all of the time? You're sitting in a bar run by an aspect of death, meanwhile you've turned undead, and your group is in shambles might I add, and also you're undead! We're gonna have to go back to town at some point and I'm going to have to convince the other elders not to kill you, because... And I'm not sure if I mentioned this yet, YOURE UNDEAD!"
Sam smirks. "It's been my experience that the undead are a rather chill class of people," he quips in response to Serafina.
"Panic helps nothing. Not in battle, not in talking to the spirits of dragon gods or death itself. Even banging around a kitchen can make the cake collapse... But if you are calm you are able to think. Even in battle, or when dealing with gods, or baking in the kitchen. As for the group, you should have seen us when they first threw us together. We're a ragtag bunch, alright. Rub each other the wrong way at least as often as not. But it takes some grinding to smooth and polish, don't you think? Nothing great is born perfect... It takes some agitating and adversity to gain the grace and strength that greatness needs..."
"As for being undead... So it seems. But Lumithor is a pile of bones and an unconnected spirit. Your elders don't see to hold that against him now, do they? So I became undead helping their great dragon god spirit. If they want to hold it against me then I guess I'll just have to remain calm and convince them not to," Sam says. "It wouldn't be the first time someone with their nose pointed to the heavens declared me unworthy just because of what I am."
"what you are... Is temporary, a curse. And it is wrong. I'm not sure if you simply don't realise... And lumithor isn't undead he's, weird. I've never understood it. Like a ghost but not a ghost, a soul with a purpose, bound to purpose..." As Sam looks in serafina's eyes he sees the all too familiar fog of someone teetering on the edge of full blown drunk. "You'll never die naturally, but that's not the worst of it, the idea of eternity is... Terrifying" she mutters wide eyed, more to herself than Sam.
"Sorry about that", Vin says to the others after Muir has left. "He is really smart and all, but what good is knowing who to ask for help, if all you do is alienate everyone you come across to the point they won't want to".
He sighs and wanders over to sit on the floor, leaning against Neferox and resting.
He watches and listens to Sam and Serafina speak, but doesn't interject.
Sam subtly moves Serafina's drink out of her reach. "Perhaps not everything is black and white? A dragon can be dead yet alive enough to do it's duty. A man can be cursed yet still stand up for what is right. And eternity? I guess the thought is scary... The pure number of people one could lose in such a time... I don't know if my head can grasp that," Sam admits. "But what I can grasp is that, given the choice, I would take as much time as I could to spend with those I loved and cared about. If everything isn't just black and white, eternity can't just be losing loved ones, can it? It also has to be about finding new loves, new friends, new joys..."
"I get you're sore at him," Sam says in reply to Vin, "but that's a question to ask Muir himself. Maybe he thinks that the stubbornness is a wall that will break down if chipped away at often enough? Maybe the answer is more important than people's feelings? Maybe he only knows one way to go at things? All I know is that he feels the answer is important and it seems someone is keeping it from him. His asking is alienating those with the answers? Well I suppose those with the answers withholding them for no reason he knows is alienating him...."
Serafina squints here eyes suspicious of the sense that Sam is making about eternity. "I found my love, and he was undead when we first met... I think you're right, the elders can be convinced, they have been before huh? Hah!" Morris sees Sam move the tankard and takes it away replacing it with a tankard of water instead without her notice, he gives a nod and a wink to Sam.
Xazgan gets up in a huff and leaves, not out of the front door but just towards a wall where an internal door appears before her and then disappears behind her once she closes it again.
The door that Elthana left through opens, and a copy of Morris holds the door for Elthana to walk through, she steps into the door frame and mutters something back to Morris, a question? Possibly, Morris looks at her with surprise and quickly closes the door again, him and Elthana still on the other side of it, now out of sight.
Vin's temper is still enflamed, and no matter that Sam speaks sense, it doesn't hit home. He doesn't argue the case though, simply grunts showing the petulance of youth.
Over the next few minutes, he remains introspective, or what others might badge as sulking.
"So," Sam says, turning back to Serafina. "Your love was undead, huh? Don't get me wrong, I'm kind of spoken for myself so I'm not interested... But you say was? Does that mean they became unundead? As in alive or as in normal dead?" He's not always the most tactful.
Seeing Elthana returning Sam smiles and is halfway through a nod of recognition to get her attention when she turns back to Morris. Other Morris. Morrisii? Ah well...
"So this Roxs'hian bumped uglies with an angel and got the demon realms shut down then, eh? How's that work? One good shag and the angels win the ballgame?" Sam - tactful as ever.
Serafina's looks confused at Sam, "hector was a vampire when we met, I thought he told you, but we let him in, it took a while to trust him but eventually we got him help, now he's mortal, and charming" she looks up tho the roof deep in thought and sighs with a red faced smile.
"Angels win the ballgame?" Morris inquires, "if you didn't notice all of the realm portals shut down for a thousand years, well... A thousand on the material plane anyway"
The door opens and Elthana slowly walks through, her head down. She pauses, looks up and when she does, you can see her red, bloodshot eyes, disheveled hair and the sorrow, the grief written all over her face. She meets Sam's eyes and the tears come again, unbidden.
She ignores them, letting them fall.. she stares at Sam, her lower lip starting to tremble. The vulnerability and raw emotion she emotes, something the others have never seen from her. She starts walking forward, stumbles and catches herself on an empty barstool.
She finally gets to Sam and falls to her knees. She starts reaching for him, his leg, his foot.. but takes her hand back before touching him. Then in a voice that is a whisper, but carries through the room, "It was me, Sam. I did it. I..." and she can't finish the sentence.
The Morris that enters with Elthana folds into the one at the bar, he reaches a hand up as Elthana stumbles toward Sam and he chitters something into the rafters. Ratosk jumps down and sits atop morris' shoulder.
Morris also looks terrible, full of sadness and grief.
"Hector, huh?" Sam asks Serafina. "Maybe. Honestly I can never follow the soap opera drama of relationships and such..." I mean Soap Opera's won't likely be invented for at least a couple of decades but Sam assumes the jist of what he means will come across via context.
"But the portals being closed was good, yes?" Sam asks of Morris. "Stopped the chaos of one place spilling into the next and..." And Sam didn't know exactly what he was going to say. He usually doesn't until he actually has said it and he listens to himself. But he gets cut short this time not due to a lack of words or thoughts but because of Elthana.
Sam begins to smile again but then he sees the state of her. "What happened?" he begins to ask just as he also begins to stand. As she starts walking forward, as she stumbles, Sam rushes after her. Even as Elthana falls before him and reaches out but then recoils from touching him, Sam is squatting down to her level, reaching out to her and pulling her to him. "Shhhh, it's ok. Whatever happened, it's ok. Just relax and take a breath, eh? Tell us what Morris did to you..." At this last bit Sam glares over at Morris with accusing eyes.
As Xazgan gets up to walk away, Gewyn says, "Well I'm always in the mood to help a pretty lady, but also, sometimes there doesn't need to be a reason. Sometimes things just work out in your favour. The world's an unpredictable place. If what we have to do ends up improving your situation, then cheers!" With that he tips back his drink.
Afterwards, he goes over to lean against a wall next to the sulking Vin. He lets silence sit between them for a while before saying, "You've changed. Grown really. Used to be a lot softer. So I pray you'll forgive Muir if he needs some time relearning your boundaries. Not everyone can get people as well as I do, and I know I'll still need some time and grace too. With all of you."
Xazgan before leavin listens to Gewyn's words and gives him a nod, "then I hope you succeed." And then she is gone.
Morris keeps quiet, as Sam asks about the portals distracted with what is happening in the other room with his other self, and then his double and Elthana return,
At Sam's accusatory tone Morris hangs his head, not so much in shame but in recognition of the situation, and of the understanding that is yet to reach the half orc.
She wants to let him hold her. She really does. She almost does. She feels his warmth and his care for a moment, then she can't let herself be lost in it. She pushes him back and forces herself to look in his eyes.
Then she can't and she drops her head again, "Not Morris. Me. Your Molly... oh god Sam, I'm so sorry." and she buries her face in her hands and her body starts wracking with sobs.
Gewyn stands upright, no longer leaning against the wall. His hands hang by his side, grasping, ungrasping, ready for... what? What to do in this situation? His eyes lock on Sam, waiting for a response.
Sam struggles to keep a hold of her, to allow Elthana to tire herself out and work out whatever has her in such a state. Sometimes when you finally have someone in your arms, no matter the reason, you just don't want to ever let them go. And then she speaks...
"My Molly?" Sam asks softly. Almost a whisper. Not really a question so much as something he just has to process... His grip still strong but fading...
"My Molly?" he repeats again, it gaining question status now. He still doesn't understand. Doesn't want to understand.
"You're sorry," He says, piecing it together. "You did it..."
"My Molly..."
Sam rocks back onto his heels, his hands still on the outside of Elthana's arms but no longer gripping her, no longer holding her. They just... need to be somewhere.
"I..." he begins the words don't come. He looks around the room to Muir and to Vin and to Gewyn and to Serafine and to.. Well his eyes flit right over Neferox before he looks to Morris and stalls there for a moment. "You..." but wording can be hard sometimes. Sam clears his throat and starts again.
"You said you had her memories. Molly's memories..." Sam says, voice controlled like an overburdened dam, "You said..." He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment.
"Is this true?" Sam asks of Morris.
"she didn't know. She didn't know that it was Molly, I, I thought she did and so... I showed her what you asked to see earlier, I showed her what she did. You don't want to see that Sam, but Elthana had already lived it." Morris stumbles a little over his words, and takes a seat behind the bar, his shoulder slump and his head droops down. Ratosk watches the scene unfold with focus, ready and prepared for, something.