The following took place during the funeral for Ysera Song:
Barron looked down at Ysera’s still form, his head bowed and his ratty top hat clasped solemnly to his chest. The girl’s father was intoning a soft and melodic prayer sung in a language that Barron did not understand. While he didn’t comprehend the meaning behind the words, he marveled at the sublime beauty of the song and the sense of soulful reverence it conveyed.
Akima stood pressed tightly against her mother and staring down at her sister’s body with a look that bordered that fine line between fury and grief. There was an intensity in her dark eyes that Barron had only seen a handful of times in his life; and each time he had seen it, devastation typically followed close behind.
She wanted to burn it all to the ground.
Barron didn’t blame her one bit. Her sister’s body, which had once radiated so brightly with the flame of life and youth, now lay still and cold; her skin like ash from a fire that had run too hot and burned itself out too quickly. Barron was no stranger to death, having ushered many unfortunates into the waiting arms of Aza Guilla by his own hand, but he had never seen a corpse like this one. The contrast between the serene countenance she wore and the lack of any physical wound coupled with the shriveled desiccation that had so clearly ravaged her were at such odds that it reeked of something unnatural. Something infernal , even…
Barron had no experience with demons and their ilk, having mostly only heard of the stories told by minstrels and bards and priests looking to make an easy Crown by preying upon fantastical fears. And sure, the history books were full of tales about the ending of an age and the sundering of the world at demonic hands, as too were the drunken boasts of the Demonhunters in their stories of battling these foul beasts. But these were tales that Barron had only chalked up to insincere and idle swagger, rather than stories of fact. But there was something wholly unnatural at play here, and the thought of what it might be made Barron’s skin run cold.
As if reading his mind, he noticed that Akima was staring at him with that same burning intensity she had focused upon her twin’s lifeless form. “You promise?” she flashed with her fingers, forming the symbols with one hand against the back of the clenched fist of her other; making the marks with angry, slashing gestures.
Barron responded with the sign of affirmation and quickly looked away from her fierce gaze, reaching into an inner pocket of his long coat and withdrawing the Death Letter he had written to the girl. He hadn’t known Ysera well, but he had really liked her on the few occasions that he had met with her, and he had also promised Akima that he would avenge her sister’s death. In light of this last fact, leaving such a letter seemed like it was the right and proper thing to do.
He knelt over her body and gently laid the crumpled parchment upon her still form. He wasn’t much of a wordsmith, having little use for flowery language in his life on the streets. But, he was pretty proud of what he had written here, and he hoped that the words might serve the poor girl well on her journey to the Resting World.
He didn’t know many dirges, and nearly all of the ones he did know involved sailors and drowning, coming from Manea as he had. The only one that he had committed to memory was the short hymnal known as the Lamentation of the Sailor’s Wife and, while the message of the poem was not entirely fitting for this moment, he always found the imagery it conveyed quite uplifting:
Should Iono take you in His watery grip,
And carry you beneath the Lifeless Sea;
May your soul break free and make the trip,
To sun-kissed shores and back to me.
In a postscript following the short poem, he had scrawled a more personal message:
While I did not know you as well as I would have liked, I felt a great kinship to you and am greatly saddened at your passing at such a young age. I have made a solemn promise to your sister that I will find your killer and see to it that justice is served. By the Nameless Thirteenth, I pledge my blades to this task. Take solace in this at least, in your slumber.
Your friend,
- Barron Ambrose Selby
Akima likewise knelt down and placed her letter on her sister’s still chest; as did her mother and father and a dark-skinned gentleman that Barron did not know, but who seemed very close to Ysera’s parents. Five letters. That seemed like a paltry tribute for one so young and so full of promise
The solemn Mul laborers, dressed in the livery of House Song, gently draped a sky blue silk shawl over Ysera’s body, and hoisted her palanquin upon their shoulders to carry Ysera to her internment before her final rest. Ysera’s father broke out in another singsong prayer, this one full of sadness and despair as her body was carried out of sight, and tears were streaming down everyone’s face as his mournful lament reached its crescendo. Everyone that is, except for Akima, whose face was still a mask of focused wrath. As Barron made eye contact with her again, she repeated the same hand gesture to him, this time leaving off the question mark at the end.
“You Promise.”