81st of Ash, Year 120
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What did it mean to be a man? He supposed that now, he had lived the full life of one -- but he'd never had a purpose. A meaning. Even when he thought he had one, there was always this... feeling, in the foreground of his mind; a sort of hesitation, a distant pull towards other things. No one thing had ever been enough. Even Riven, as much as he had loved him, hadn't been enough to fill the whole that was his 'purpose'... whatever that even was. Did a man even have purpose? He supposed that was a question for the Gods, not himself.
He was dead, now. That much was certain. He felt himself falling towards an endless abyss, and based on everything he thought that would happen to himself as he died, that made sense. He expected to go to the Carrion Hole, to be with Malek for an eternity; the Living God whose son had just forced him to open a portal for him in his final, dying breaths. He supposed, if he thought on it, the request made sense. As much as he didn't want to be lonely, he also did not want for all too many Ebon Knights to join him. They still had their revolution, their purpose, even if his own became more and more distant from him.
Falling into that darkness... he always expected to feel cold. Instead, he felt an incredible warmth, as if the Beacon was still churning. He hoped it wasn't razing through him; then he wouldn't have an afterlife at all. He wouldn't get to meet his mother, or his father, again. And if there was one relief in all of this -- it was that hope. Of finding them. Of feeling their arms around him, just one more time.
He felt more of that warmth filling him. Like blood moving through his veins, or perhaps out of them. Filling the gaping void near the center of his chest, pouring through him onto the grass, like a fountain. As much as he hated the Dranoch all his life, he was succumbing to them now in the most brutal and grotesque of ways. He was becoming ash as he died; the most poetic of justices, burning himself alive -- even through his own soul -- much as he'd done to them. At the end of the day, they were just another lifeform. They just wanted to live, to thrive. To dwell freely within their world, and command their own destiny. They were cruel, and they treated men like beast, exploiting them and bleeding them dry. They didn't care about the pain they inflicted, or the filth they forced others to dwell in. But in that regard, perhaps they were just like his own kind. He could practically feel it, now: the history of his people.
He was becoming ash, and so he thought of the Ashen Elves, the Ald'norai. The things they had subjected others to... perhaps their descendants were still paying for that now.
Even though he was dead, he had a feeling that his mortal form was still crying, somehow. Like its tears were streaming from their glands, like his heart was still heavy, even though it had probably stopped beating. There was this overwhelming sensation of pain, and letting go, that he still felt even now. Like when one sobbed; when they couldn't even breathe enough to break through with simple words. He felt like that now, like he was going unto death still sobbing, hoping for another word, hoping to release some of that pain.
