There comes a time when you must let it go. Time or circumstance will see to it; that thing you can’t live without will be removed from you and you’ll be left with naught but ashes in your hands. Life is cruel and the force that governs it brutal; people within it cannot help but be savage and barbaric and vicious, selfish and greedy and vain. Life and its governance will require you give up that which you hold dearest or punish you your inability to do so.
I stood over the casket of my beloved, my wife Ishana, the wife of my youth and middle-age. She could bear us no children and lived with that barrenness with a grace I could only envy. Her body was peaceful; finally at rest; in an eternal rest; sleeping her way from this plane to the next; to await what hero may rescue her there; and make her the beauty in the adventure that was his version of life.
And I hated him.
For the rest of the attendees, I kept my seethe from my face, letting tears wash away anything but remorse for him taking her from me. Ishana was MY wife, MY gift in this abysmal world, and she would not be taken from me by something so simple as death.
The Priests in the Cathedral whispered words of light and encouragement, and forgave me my shrugging off their touch as the actions of a man out of his morals in grief. If they only knew the blackness that gnawed at my heart, that chewed its way from the bowels of my inner spirit to manifest itself in the manner I schemed; if they only knew I would be struck down where I stood, joining Ishana on one of the other sides.
I would never let her go. Never.
I stood next to the goblin brigand who had parlayed my way with them. The night was frigid and my breath made a heavy cloud of mist. We stood in silence as I counted the heavy gold coins into the pouch, finally cinching it closed and tossing it to him. He said something but I was already ignoring him, his job done. Shortly, I stood alone.
I wasn’t long before I was joined by another. The shadowy figure hobbled out of the shadows and made its way towards me, the air becoming colder as it approached. Beside it was a smaller, shadowy figure, moving with the taller but slightly behind.
Still shrouded by shade, I could tell the form was bent as if it carried a great weight on its back. The wind blew, parting the trees to let the moon glow light our meeting; the taller, hunched figure was a Forsaken; the smaller a goblin. The Forsaken spoke to me and I heard only gibberish, though its voice was masculine. Translating, the goblin repeated, speaking in a gravelly voice and heavily accented common, “You are bade welcome to Deathknell, Traveler. Ishana is ready to see you.”
That hero would not have my Ishana as the beauty in his story; she was mine.
They turned and I followed after them.
