Lyric held back her tears as she watched her father pack the dirt over the freshly tilled grave with the back of his shovel. When he was satisfied, Landrick knelt on the ground in front of the grave and cupped one hand over the whitewood bird pendant he wore on a chain around his neck as he placed his other hand on the ground in front of him and began whispering a soft prayer.
“Why do you still pray to the Gods?” Lyric asked, her voice tinged with helpless anger, when he had finished. “They didn’t do anything to help with this calf.”
Landrick sighed and pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up higher on his nose as he stood and turned to face his irate stepdaughter. In a soft voice he replied, “I know you are angry and sad, but t…”
“The Gods turned their backs on us! Mom says they aren’t worthy of our worship much less our respect.”
Landrick sighed again, this time deeper. The girls’ mother was a formidable figure in all areas and he knew he was in trouble if the pair of them ever teamed up on him, and he wasn’t sure the best way to handle a delicate conversation like this. But he also knew that the girl would not let it go, for when she set her mind on something a raging ogre couldn’t deter her from it. He could practically hear Kavras’ voice in his head whenever the question of faith and hope would come up on conversation. Her typical response would be something like “faith should be placed in a steel blade not some mystical force and hope is the idle fiction created by those who have given in to their fate. Your only hope should be that your blade strikes true – or better yet, hope should be scrapped entirely and replaced with practice and skill so that it is not left to chance at all.” Gods she was terrifying. And Gods he loved her all the more for it.
“Come here,” Landrick said to her softly, as he pulled the diminutive girl to his side in a hug as they turned to walk back towards the house. After a few steps he continued, adopting the tone that Lyric joked was his teacher voice. “We all know the story of the Redeemers, their sacrifice in saving us; their anger at our later actions; and their eventual removal from our lives. But Haruk was not a Redeemer. He predates them. He was one of the ancient pantheon brought low by She-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named, but even She could not extinguish life itself. The wizards of old powered their magic with Haruk’s gift of life and, while some called them ‘defilers,’ the story is that the magic of these defilers aided the Redeemers in ending Her tyranny over us.” He did not add that religious scholars were at odds over this point. Some claimed that Vashir was a himself a defiler in life and others would argue the opposite. But irrespective of this particular point, the slow trickle of magic to the world, now regulated and controlled by the Davidians, most would agree was a good thing.
“But Haruk didn’t help with that calf, he just let her die,” Lyric protested as she tried to squirm free of his hug.
Landrick repressed a sigh as he pulled her in tighter. “The magic of life is a strange and wonderfully sad one. That calf never got the chance to live, that is true. But with her death her body will feed the soil and blossom new life…various in wonderful in its own way. She will feed plants and insects who will in turn feed other life. And those lives will feed others, and so on into eternity. It is a circle. A beautiful, sad, wonderful, and miraculous circle.”
He felt the girl sink into him for a moment as she contemplated his words. Landrick knew the siege was not over, but he had breached her defenses. They walked in silence for a moment more before he continued, “Our family had maintained their devotion to Haruk throughout the Desolation…risking their lives and souls at the hands of Inquisitors and Templars who sought to root out this heresy.” As he spoke, he could practically see his grandmother back when she had told him this very story, sitting in front of a cheery fire as he and his siblings sat on the floor in a ring around her. She told them of their family’s pilgrimage from the doomed city of Raam and finding the great pyramid ringed by flowing water and verdant, green trees. She told them of the beauty of the land and in the peace their ancestors had found working that land. And how in tilling the soil and shepherding the animals they had willed the very soul of the sleeping God of Life to slowly awaken and blanket the world with His blessing. She had spoken of the melody of the bluebirds that arrived to the pyramid that one fateful day, the birds all singing out to the clear skies and heralding the return of Haruk in a song that was deafening in its joy. Though these events had happened many generations before her, his grandmother had spoken of them as if she had heard and seen them herself, and that was the very moment that he felt the seed of faith take root inside his own body.
Landrick turned and knelt in front of her, staring deeply into Lyric’s bright, silver eyes. “The worshippers of Haruk risked everything but they held on to that hope…the hope that He would awaken; for they knew that Life itself, despite the risk and hardship and turmoil, was worth fighting and even dying for.” He let the words sink in for a moment before continuing, “The skills your mother teaches you, all the practice and training and planning, those are all important…but save a little space for some hope as well.” Lyric met his gaze and saw the earnest zeal in reflecting back at her in his soft, brown eyes. And when he slipped the whitewood bluebird pendant from his neck and slid it over her head, she had felt that stirring of seed of faith taking root there inside her in that moment.
The memory of that day washed over Lyric in a wave as she looked at Eros’ bare face for the first time. The mask had hidden unimaginable wounds, hideous scars and burns ravaged the elf’s skin and Lyric could not imagine what had caused such sores, nor what it would be like to carry the reminder of such pain around; the network of scars a testament to inconceivable suffering. No wonder he had hidden himself behind the security of his mask: not only to spare the outside world his ruined visage, but to spare himself the reminder of this pain that he carried with him should he ever catch a glimpse of his reflection. Lyric had some small experience with this shameful sensation, hiding her own disfigurement behind an eyepatch, but her injury was nothing compared to his.
Eros stood there waiting for her reaction to his ruined visage, perhaps expecting her to return an expression of horror or pity, but Lyric felt neither of these emotions, but rather felt something else stir inside of her instead. As he beheld her with his one good eye, feeling exposed and vulnerable for the first time in ages, Lyric saw in him that familiar earnest zeal that her father had displayed that one fateful day reflected back to her in his single, soft eye and she knew that he too had felt the seed of faith take root inside himself as well.
Lyric smiled warmly at him and slipped the wooden bluebird from her neck and wordlessly slipped it over his head.
Hope.