The Price of Life: A Lament by Raze, The Broken.

“I can do naught but accompany and listen…

I am no guide…

I am the guided.”

-Raze-

A lament from:

RAZE: THE BROKEN

Here…

In the dense forests of Vandervroot’s shifting groves…

Grows a place that’s been gifted to the unwanted…

… To the unneeded…

… or simply alone.

A place where a nobody can slip away in peace…

A place for quiet whispers and fertile tears…

For here, in the gentle cradle of the Vagabond's Hollow, the silent but calm orchard of aether willows watch over the soon-to-be-forgotten of the realm… A place where the homeless can finally call home… A place where the abandoned can finally find love… A place where the lost can finally be found…

… but upon our walk down this story’s road, we come across a rather sad sight… A poor single mother lays dying in one of the vacant garden plots… Surrounded by a few gifts from her neighbors and sister… As well as her only precious treasures from her long, but tragic life.

She lays now in a bed of hay and various flowers... All gifted from the few people that knew and loved her… Along with these gifts was a blanket from her old bed… and beside her was a small picture of a hand print… The handprint of her young son… Who she would later lose in Vandervroot’s second civil war…

Out of all the things she asked to keep before she was so kindly ‘relocated’ to her grave by her surviving family, these were the only things that she treasured most…

… but deep within her clouded, blurry gaze was a fading spark.

A lingering dream…

A fruitless hope…

That maybe her son would finally come back home to her…

… but she never knew the truth...

He was already gone.

She could still remember the day her king’s emissary came to her family tree’s nook… With an arrowhead dipped in silver… Hanging off a chain that rested on a folded banner of her kingdom’s insignia.

An honored soldier’s final message home…

… and the worst possible ‘sorry’ a mother could ever receive.

Her son meant everything to her…

He was her greatest joy…

… but he wasn’t just the light of her world…

He was the only thing she had left of her one, and only lover…

Her secret midnight stroll under the starlit void…

Her sweet and gentle, Jaspar.

Just another nobody that was taken from her by her own government and kin… Simply because they were ‘too young’, and ‘not meant to be’...

… or in other words…

Because he wasn’t a ‘true’ native of their grove.

He didn’t even know he was going to be a father…

… or ever given the chance to meet their little Ash’lyn…

… and because of how Vandervroot’s ‘traditions’ view love outside of soulmates and marriages, she was forever considered a ‘whore’ to her peers, and a bad influence to be around to the other young girls…

So her parents, as well as many others that lived in their tree, took it upon themselves to keep her out of sight… and even after she had given birth… They never truly treated her the same.

She was doomed to never have many friends…

Doomed to never find another loyal lover…

Doomed to forever carry her head a little lower…

But most of all…

She was doomed to be alone…

That was…

Until her whole world opened his eyes.

For in the small, but warm nook of her family’s dwindling branches came a new day… A day she laid in labor for several hours… A day where her best friend and sister helped give her water and fresh blankets while she struggled to bring new life into their tree… A day she cried… Begged… Even cursed for it just to be over…

… and then it was.

The moment she heard her son’s little cry of life, her heart felt alive once more… and from then on, without question, she dedicated every waking second to him… Giving him endless hugs and bedtime stories… A mountain of food and treats… Any and all of the hard-earned wealth of her many labors… and much, much, more.

It was even because of her unrelenting love and dedication to her son that a few of her previous cynics began to change their opinion of her… and as her little Ash’lyn grew older, they even allowed their own children to grow up alongside him.

He was everything a mother could ever want in a child…

Kind… Soft-spoken… Respectful…

… and though he didn’t care for violence, he would gladly stand up to those who would use it. It was one of his greatest strengths…

… and in the end, his weakness.

For when King Estel III sent out messages to every elven house about another civil war breaking out with the Neanders, he also put into effect a mandatory draft for any and all able-bodied natives over twenty one to apply for a tour in the southern tundras.

Her son was one of the first people to sign over his name…

… and one of the few that lived long enough to repeat many of their king’s mandatory tours.

Overall, he spent seventeen years going back and forth from the Na’Vaira outpost, to the brutal killing fields of Huls’vin Hak… (a.k.a, The legendary area of the frozen Black Sea where one of Lucidian’s heads was decapitated. Known as ‘The Huntsman’s Block’ in common tongue.)... and it was there that he helped his fellow Grove Rangers hold back the Neander’s Berserkers and Blood-Surgers from ever taking a step in their king’s lands…

… but for all of his loyalty… His dedication… His unfaltering desire to protect his home…

He was forgotten just like the rest…

On the day he was pronounced, ‘Missing in action’...

… or in real documented reports…

‘Eviscerated beyond recognition’.

His mother was never told…

So instead of the painful truth, she was given a poisonous lie…

She spent every day after that hoping he would one day come home…

So she waited…

… and waited…

… and waited.

She didn’t go out… Or try to travel…

She didn’t let her family convince her that he was truly gone…

She simply worked… Bought enough necessities to keep her alive… and waited…

… All the way till now… At the rather young age of hundred-eighty four.

Her body has suffered much in her life… But after the signs of weakness started to show up in her legs, (Guillain-Barré Syndrome), her whole family knew she was sick… Too sick to be treated… Too sick to even stand up, or even walk again…

Just another tragedy in her story…

… but it surely wasn’t the last…

That came but a year after she lost the ability to walk to the kitchen to feed herself… Or even to the outhouse to relieve herself… If it wasn’t for her sister, she would have starved to death… but even then, the toll of caring for her, as well as her own growing family, was becoming too much to carry alone…

So after many heated fights, her surviving family members all came together and came up with a decision… That it would be best to let her live out her final days in the comfort of Vagabond's Hollow… Where she wouldn’t need to worry about the struggles of bodily functions… The sickness of hunger… The thirst for sleep…

But in reality, she knew the real truth now…

They just didn’t wish to be burden by her anymore…

So here now, she lies… No longer waiting for her family to come see her… Or her few friends… Or even her sister…

They have all moved on… Just like the rest of the world…

… and now even she is ready… to say goodbye…

So as she comes to the end of her story…

So do I.

I have crossed over many hills… and tread through many forests and streams to be here on her last day… As well as one very solemn, forgotten place… Where now, only I, am the most common face…

… and as I drew closer, I felt every line of ink whisper to me of her woeful existence…

I can not do much for her…

I am but a vessel that can not crumble…

… but here I am now, by this poor, broken-hearted woman’s side… and as I come to meet her hazy eyes, she smiles…

“Ash’lyn?... I-Is that you…” The woman wheezes, her words slow but soft to my missing ears.

“No, world-kin… I am not your son…” I say truthfully, my voice hollow, and with no ounce of life.

“O-Oh… I’m so sorry, sir… Forgive my eyes…” She says weakly, slowly losing more of her rare smile.

“Do not ask for forgiveness when it is not needed…” I say back to her apology. “... I am not insulted that you mistook me for what you seek most…”

“W-Wait, then… W-Who are you?...” She hastily asked, seamlessly puzzled as to why this stranger has come to find her. “... H-How do you know of my s-son?...”

“I know everything about you, Rayla…” I say with a lifeless ring, and then, with my only remaining hand, I lay down my lantern… and take her frail hand. “... I’ve heard your entire life whispered to me over the course of my travels here… I know of Jaspar, your only lover… and how he and you secretly saw each other, without the blessings of your family… When they did find out, they beat and bound your lover… and that you were never allowed to see him again… I know they threw him in prison, where he rotted away for breaking the law… and how you, a mere teenager, had to be taken out of the public’s view… Until you gave birth to your only son… Who would later be killed and left in the frozen trenches of your king’s war… I know everything you had to endure, dear Rayla… but most of all, I know you kept your smile… I have seen mountains crack… Rivers dry… Gods die… But you… You never let the world take away your passion… Your hope… Your smile… and there isn’t a day on this journey that I regretted hearing of how much you sacrificed for your life… You are, without a doubt, a true gift in this world… A stone rarer than any gem… A gold beyond purer than any of my own gilded bones…”

The poor mother I knelt beside… The poor Rayla I held in my mummified hand… then began to weep… Who was nameless almost her entire life… Who had never been told, in detail, of how wonderful she truly was…

“T-Then… Does that m-mean today is my l-last day?...” The mother Rayla rasped, her body trembling in my grasp.

“Yes…” I say, without pause.

“O-Oh, gods… Please, no…” She weakly cried, and in that breaking moment, she could no longer smile.

So I stayed beside her… and let her break.

To listen as she finally let go of all the pain…

To finally see her be free of all her worldly woes…

For she did not cry just for her lost youth…

Her stolen love…

Her cancerous kin…

She cried for what it really cost…

To be here…

To be alive.

… but before I could let this story see its final page…

I let another take her hand…

Mama?... A distant echo reached out…

… and in that final, fading moment of a broken mother’s world…

She looked back up to see the face of her only son…

Who was finally able to find his way back home.

“A-Ash’lyn?... Ash’lyn, is that you, my seed?!... His mother's voice gasped into the silence, feeling the air leaving her lungs now being replaced with a burning spark.

Yes, mama… I am here now… I am home… The voice of her son eagerly called out, and though it couldn’t be seen, there were tears already flowing down his long forgotten smile.

The two then wept…

… and then talked…

… and then laughed…

… and then…

They were gone.

For all things must end…

Even your own stories.

END