Aftermath, Part Three: Ruin, Werendril, Aesa, and Tarric

They weren't in their rooms, nor were they down in the primary chapel, nor was Werendril up in the Chapel of All. They weren't out in the practice yard, and Akkora hadn't seen them. It was only when he stepped into the antechamber to the Abbess' office and the halfling priest Birno rose to his feet with a resigned, "Ah," that Ruin thought he might be able to locate the rest of his people. 

"You know what I'm here for?" Ruin asked. 

Birno nodded sadly. "They will be in the Chapel of Farewell."

"In the what?" In all his time in the temple, Ruin had never heard of the Chapel of Farewell. 

"This way," said Birno, and set off. He walked quickly for a halfling, making it easy for Ruin to match his pace. "The Chapel of Farewell is where we bring the dead, where we clean them, and where we see them off on the journey from which they will not return. It's the open-walled chamber in the western tower."

"Ah," said Ruin, as Birno threaded their way across the temple and up the stairs. "That seems..." He wasn't sure how to finish that sentence, and finally settled for: "...appropriate."

"Under the circumstances, it was the best we could do." The halfling sounded pained, and perhaps also frustrated.

Ruin swallowed and choked back his rage. He had no doubts that everyone in the temple had done their best. No, what he needed to now was to finish wiping out the Order of Secrets, and then find some way to get to Asgard and kill Galvera again, this time properly. She needed to die in a way that even a goddess couldn't recover from, and he needed to make it happen.

No. What he needed to do now was raise his children and pay his debt to the druids. But someday... Someday.

The Chapel of Farewell was like nothing he had ever seen before. Three wooden tables had been covered with blankets, and a circle of chairs surrounded them; there was even a series of cots along the outside walls. The western wall was entirely open, and as the sun set its light would fill this room. 

Each table held a body wrapped in a shroud, but before he could even begin to confront that he was faced with the survivors: Aesa, holding their daughter Rose; Tarric and Werendril, sitting side by side in shared grief. They were sitting in the chairs and watching over the bodies. 

Aesa saw him first. She rose, and the two paladins were so lost that they just watched as she walked over to him. "Ruin..." she said. "We saw... And Anica, and Vendril, and Rune..." 

"I know," he choked out, as Birno disappeared silently back down the stairs. "And I know they can't be brought back."

She nodded, then collapsed against him, keeping Rose just far enough aside to avoid crushing the little girl between them. Ruin held her until she finally drew back; Aesa didn't cry, but he thought that was only because she'd used up all her tears already. Rose actually smiled at him, and for a moment his heart caught. It should never have come to this. More people, dead on his account. More people he had cared about, lost to him. It should never have come to this. 

Tarric rose, approached, and studied them. "I know this was Vecna's fault," the paladin said, studying Ruin's expression closely. "I know it. But I still hate you for it."

Ruin nodded. "So do I."

Tarric snorted. "Is it weird that hearing that helps?"

Ruin shook his head. "Not at all." He stepped past Tarric, past the chair where Werendril still sat looking pollaxed, and went to each of the bodies in turn. Anica, always so fiery, was still and quiet now; death had taken that fierce energy from her. Vendril... Ruin wasn't sure he'd ever understood the man who had stepped in to court Aesa and help raise Rose, but he didn't need to understand to feel the loss. The Silver Fox was irrevocably dead, his soul carried back to Asgard despite Vecna's defeat. Oh, yes. It might take centuries, but Ruin was going to find a way to cross over, and to slay the false goddess. 

He went to Rune at last, and that was when he broke. For a long, impossible moment he didn't even realize he was sitting on the stone floor. All he could see was his child's face, still and cold, all traces of that child's curiosity and developing awareness wiped away. The image consumed him utterly. He couldn't chase it away with justifications for the battle or thoughts of vengeance; he couldn't focus on anything else but the face of his son. 

It was the knowledge of his other children that brought him slowly back. Rose needed him here. Scar, Risk, and Sun needed him here. Whatever children Alnira and Nym eventually gave birth to would need him here. 

Galvera had been wrong. She'd seen his ties to the world as vulnerabilities, and tried to make him see them that way too. They weren't, though. They were strengths. They were anchors, dragging him back from despair. 

Werendril came and knelt beside him, holding him as he sobbed and keened. That was an anchor, too. Then Aesa came as well, and finally Tarric. And when the last of his tears ran out, they held him still. It didn't make things all right. Things were never again going to be all right. But it made things possible.