Death in Dreamland

GAME: Verna rolls will: (7)+24: 31

It's a funeral. Verna can tell by all the people wearing black. The tears streaming down their faces, and the general aura of sadness that permeates. There, ahead of her is Auranar. She's been walking toward the woman for some time now. Noticing small changes in her. How her hair is all black now. No sign of the pink that she dyes it. The changes to her face. As if she's grown more world-weary.

They reach the coffin together where the dead is laid out, and when Verna looks down she sees herself grown old. Her hair white and gray, her face lined with wrinkles and the other signs of age that come only to those that have lived a full life. Auranar weeps at her side, clinging to the side of the coffin for support.

Verna knows in the way of knowledge in dreams that they'd lived a full life together, but it's no less heartbreaking to see Auranar mourning her loss. To try and reach out and find that she's a ghost. No ability to comfort. No voice to speak with. Nothing.

The recognition of the setting is swift given the number of such Verna has attended or even officiated. It takes her moment longer to recognize the woman beside her. This, itself, bothers her after the fact. Who else would be beside her? Perhaps it was the lack of pink? Lack of smile? Lack of wide-eyed passion and wonder? Perhaps she sought to deny witness of Auranar in tears as long as she might?

When their walk ends, the deceased is both surprising and not. None typically attend their own funerary rites as a witness. Verna only feels the loss more, now: not for herself; the cycle is ever-followed; knowing that Auranar's pain is her fault. It is only then that she attempts to offer some solace of touch, a word of comfort, though it would only be her beloved's name. The Mourner, now the mourned, had not the slightest notion of what other words to offer. With her touch passing through and no sounds coming forth, she discovers she cannot even offer that much.

Auranar falls to her knees and for the first time Verna might realize that Auranar is... alone. None of their friends are here. None of the other adventurers have endured to this point. Those gathered for the wake pull away from Auranar, as if her grief is too much for them, and she's left in the dark.

A shadowy figure takes place near the wild elf, hood drawn up over its face. Verna could not help but recognize a servant of Vardama. Yet the figure seems less focused on her - the ghost - and more so on Auranar.

Others may have passed, or gone their separate ways. Yet Auranar is here. That speaks volumes to Verna.

The dec-Verna, looks to have lived a full life. As Auranar is here, Verna can only presume-no, is certain- that such was a happy and full life. This does give her some comfort, though the thought also makes her all the more pained for Aura. She lowers to stay at Aura's side, reaching out again. Tactile contact or no, she does not, nor cannot, do otherwise.

She would cry with her, for her. Perhaps she does and is unable to sense it? Moments pass before she notices the moment (were not all gone) and spies the hooded figure. Is it time? For all her decrying of spirits lost or bound to roam, and certainty that aiding them to pass beyond is what is best... now she is less certain with the view from the other side of the equation.

Yet... its hood is not focused upon herself. Why would it not be? It seems far more interested with -No, it should not be!

The figure does not reach for Verna as it should. As it might seem at first that it might. It reaches for Auranar. One long-fingered hand reaches out for her, and she slumps to the side at the touch of its hand. Some light slipping out of her body and into its hand. The figure looks at the small ball of light before tucking it away safely out of sight and turning to go.

Verna snatches at the reaching hand. Panic. Blasphemy? Yet she is too late! All that follows seems to slow to a crawl for her, as if time itself paused to sigh.

The emerging light illuminating the darkness. Aura's light. One that is also Verna's light in innumerable ways. Then it is gone. Taken. Extinguished. Verna's grasping for hand then becomes flailing to catch Auranar. Hold her. Lay her to rest easy... All of this is denied her as the remains pass through herself as if she were not present. The cycle is inviolate.

This paradigm is truth, yet that truth gives her neither comfort nor assurance in this moment. There passes moment of silent thought as her mind seeks solace from other sources. That Aura is no longer pained, no longer weeps... This assuages some of Verna's own pain. As well, they vowed that they would seek and find one another, in one realm or the next. This uplifts her her further from her grief. She is not gone, only moving elsewhere. They will be together, yet!

Only then does she notice the Vardamen servant has turned to depart.

'Where in Her Halls are you going?!'

Had she a voice, she would scream. Instead, Verna stands to move with it. Surely, it knew she would do so? If she is already departed, it need not take her, only escort.

The servant of Vardama seems as dumb to her efforts as was Auranar. Between one step and the next she is left alone. Denied sanctuary? Denied Auranar. There's nothing here for her.

Auranar of the living would not be held accountable for being unaware. How could the servant, however, have not known her presence?! Now there is only Verna.

Alone. A state to which she became accustomed at an early age. Yet that was before. Now, it is total. No friends. No wife. Even her goddess appears absent. What does one do? What -can- one do?

She falls to her knees and weeps.

Eventually, there's just the darkness, only her own tears and her own pain and nothing to comfort her. It's an emptiness that simply exists until the time that she can come to terms with her own sense of loneliness.

Verna is lost within that for some time. No time? Amidst nothingness, the concept loses much of its meaning. It is a strange return to awareness from her mourning to discover that she is... Well, she IS. Beyond that, all is unknown. There is no what, where, when, nor why to be found. There is naught else but her, and how would she discover otherwise? What is there to see nor hear? Where is there to go? Whom to approach?

It comes to Verna slowly, as she regains her sense of self, that this is in fact... somehow not reality. That though it feels in every way as if it were, it is not. This is a dream.

Logic. When all else is absent or faded, it remains. Verna does not recall how she came to the funeral. If she enjoyed such a full life with Auranar, certainly she would recall such: even flashes or morsels. It is deemed impossible that she would lose all recollection. By extension, the entire situation cannot be possible. Ergo, it cannot be real. A dream, albeit a nightmarish one.

This realization brings an answer, but new questions. Is this a sign? Guidance? Vision of the future? Her own fears simply made manifest? While it seems she's surrounded by nothing, it is madness to imagine that its nature or purpose is also nothing. There must be something to discover, something to understands. Where is here? Why is she here? What is there to find? Verna wanders, or at least believes that she does, in search of something. Anything?

The darkness is unrelenting. It surrounds her ups, her downs, her left, her right. Everywhere is the same. Does she tread uphill? Down? Does she follow a path? There seems to be none there but the one that she chooses to follow. It goes... nowhere. Whatever she searches for is not there. Perhaps because she searches for nothing?

Absence of knowledge is abhorrent, but moreso in Verna's thoughts is the concept that she, and Auranar (real or otherwise) would suffer this all for naught. If it is guidance, where are the signs? If torment, where is her gleeful gloating tormentor?

"Why am I here?!" "What is it you seek of me?!" "How do I end this?!" "How do I keep her safe?!"

All screamed at the dark nothingness, fists clenched, with her soul if not voice and body. Even were The Harpist judge her or even the Red Maw Itself rise up to devour her, it would be -something- at the least.

GAME: Verna rolls will: (6)+24: 30

Perhaps in defiance of her, the darkness persists. As does the absence of answers. There's nothing.

Nothing. The absence of all things is indeed maddening. Questions must have answers. Issues must have solutions. Here and now (as mutable as both are in dream), however, Verna is uncertain of whether such logic still applies. There is not even an echo of her venting screams to assure her that they even exists.

She droops, the moment of ire spent and leaving her suddenly exhausted. And still alone. "Please," she begins with a pleading thought towards ... everywhere? nowhere? herself? "If this is dream, allow me to wake..."

... so she might no longer be alone.

And so she does, and she's not.

-End