The Ashes of Napkit

Having just defeated the ghoulish enemies, Haven’s Blade continues on, led by Aeldevan and the light of his driftglobe, casting a soft blue glow on the cobbled street and old architecture around them. Passing the fountain, he pauses briefly to think out loud, looking up at Lynthra: “Lynthra, the hero who helped found this town holding his stone sword high above his stone head. If only he had been here twenty years ago when the orcs attacked, maybe my family and the rest of the town would still be here as they used to be.” Casting the useless thought aside with a sigh, he unclenches his fists and resumes leading. Luckily, Feyre’s Weapon of Warning doesn’t alert them to any more immediate threats; the team is starting to push their limits after traveling all day and fighting further into the night.
  With every step closer, Aeldevan thinks more of his past. He remembers the beautiful garden his mother tended to out front, filled with a variety of plants including Starblooms, prized by her moon-elf culture and everyone passing by who saw them. It was undoubtedly reduced to ashes, but perhaps some growth has sprouted since then.
  As Aeldevan approaches the front of his childhood home, the sounds of Haven’s Blade’s footsteps fall away into deafening silence. His face, caught in the pale blue light, becomes numb to the icy bite of a winter’s starry breeze. Through the burnt rubble, Aeldevan sees the back of his house where he and his mother fled while his father fought to keep the orcs from following. His sight begins to blur with tears as he remembers the look of desperation and sadness on his father’s face, knowing it would likely be the last time he’d ever see his family.
  Quickly shaking his head and wiping his face, Aeldevan clutches the leopard’s tooth and glowing moon stone hanging around his neck, the only things left of his birth and adoptive mothers. He’s immediately back in a daydream, recalling playing with his mother’s heirloom necklace while she held him as a baby, and just as quickly thinking of the nightmare of her putting it around his neck the night she died, screams coming from their burning village in the distance. She told him to always think of her every time he sees it glowing under the moon; it’s been a comfort in that way, but also a constant reminder of what he’s fighting for and what he’s lost, her love not being enough to keep her alive.
  Taking a deep breath, he motions for the rest of the party to wait while he crosses what’s left of the crumbling threshold into the remains of the house.
  Stepping into the entryway, he glances to the left where their staircase to the loft and bed used to be; every night he would sleep feeling protected between the two of his parents, but now all that’s left of the upper floor is his memory. His gaze slowly drifts again to the back of the house, but this time inside instead of outside. He focuses on the black soot-stained stones of the kitchen floor where before they would be covered with white flour while he tried to help his mother bake bread; closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, he can almost smell his favorite: freshly baked moon bread.
  Opening his eyes again and sighing, shoulders slumping, he brings his attention to the right side of the house where a now unstable fireplace sits, where his family would gather every night before bed, warming their feet by a cozy crackling fire. He loved to listen to his mother and father tell stories of their adventures before and after they met, about their friends and families, and their hopes and dreams for him as he got older. His favorite was about how they met: his father, traveling and doing odd jobs, caught his mother’s eye at a market he was stopping at for supplies. Being a human, his mother’s moon-elf lineage disapproved of him, but the two of them would still sneak off in the night, her suppressed thirst for adventure unleashed by his spontaneity and bravery. Even with his vows and their confession of love for each other in front of her parents, it was only when he proved himself by recovering a stolen family gem and returning it to them did her family truly accept him for the loyal, honest, and selfless man he was. However, it was a rule that they could not marry or for her to leave the city. Despite that, she defiantly chose to leave to be with him, cutting off any further communication with her family. Inseparable more than ever, they went and visited different lands and took on jobs together up until one job brought them to the village of Napkit, where they decided to stay to create a home and start a family.
  Slowly walking through the house, Aeldevan is abruptly snapped back to reality. Halfway through the main floor, he hears a crunch louder than the burnt wood he’d been treading. Looking down, he sees a faint blue glow uncovered by his footsteps, illuminating the skull of his father next to it. Dead-eyed and the wind knocked out of him, Aeldevan drops to his knees, jagged pieces of debris puncturing his skin although he barely registers it. Shaking, he tries to clear more wreckage from the brittle bones, his tears making mud on his hands.
  Uncovering what’s left of the man who helped make him and raise him, Aeldevan places his left hand on the skull, closes his eyes, and pours every memory of his father into it, hoping that somehow he’ll see his father smiling at him when he opens his eyes. But of course, he opens his eyes only to a decaying skeleton holding onto his old traveling sword. With a slow double-take and furrowed brow, Aeldevan looks more closely at the sword, the one he would daydream of carrying around when he got older. He sees that the blue glow on the floor is coming from its hilt, cracked by over twenty years of the elements. He notices that there is a stone loosely fit into the cross-guard and that a small cover, now completely rusted away, was used to conceal it; that would explain why he never noticed the stone despite the sword always hanging above the fireplace.
  Carefully picking up the stone, he recognizes it immediately. Taking off his moonstone necklace, he puts the two next to each other; to his amazement, he finds that the two fit perfectly together, glowing brighter than before. He smiles at that, understanding that his mother and father both kept a piece of the same stone even until their last breaths, a testament to how they were always together even when apart. Picking up the fire- and blood-stained sword, he gently places the stone back in its setting; it fits snugly as if it had been made to be there, all three pieces becoming one.
  Almost instantly, the glow from the complete stone grows and pulses down into the blade; under the cracking rust and stains of time, the sword radiates a calming but brilliant light, too beautiful to look away from. At that moment, Aeldevan feels his parents’ spirits there with him, the sword’s light a symbol of their devoted love for him and each other even beyond death. As he basks in the warmth with closed eyes and an open heart, he feels a sense of long-awaited peace wash over him.
  As he blinks away his blurred vision, the sword calms to a pleasant blue glow. Reluctantly, he sets the sword gently to the side and lays out his spare cloak. He gingerly places his father’s remains on the cloak and wraps it up. Cradling it in his arms, he takes a deep breath and exhales slowly as he stands.
  Turning towards the rest of his party who have been patiently watching everything, he gives a gentle smile. Stepping carefully back through the house, Aeldevan steps into the front garden and places his father’s remains in the wild plants that have since resurfaced after the fire. Speaking softly to the plants, “Please take my father into the earth so that he may finally be at rest. With all the love my mother put into this garden, I know that is why some of you have managed to return since the fire. Please show him the same care and graciousness that she showed you.” Rising from a crouch, Aeldevan witnesses the plants gently start wrapping around his father, pulling him deeper into the dirt. As he steps away, he sees one of the plants unfurl into a Starbloom.
  Finally, Aeldevan turns again to his friends to speak, “Thank you all for being patient and letting me take some time by myself. I didn’t know what to expect when we got here besides ash and ruin, but what I found was something I didn’t know I needed. Not only was I able to lay my father to rest, something I never thought I would do, but I have found something that helped restore some hope in me. When all of this is over and we’ve stopped the rising of Gruumsh, I will return to rebuild this place and take it back from the darkness that has taken it over. Now I know it’s late, so let me grab my sword and we can figure out where we’re sleeping for the night.”