Re: {ATAE} Unto the Anvil of War

[acleverpun]

Aerilaya was quiet in these hours between battle. This was hardly anything new, she was not known for being a particularly great talker even among her own kind. She was tired. So very tired. This was the second war she fought in the same year. The former had occurred in Sildeyuir, this second one now back on the material plane. Again to aid her distant relatives, again against a terrible and destructive foe. She and her people were not made for war. This was not their purpose. They could fight, yes. And did so when they needed to. And did so well. But Aerilaya had never enjoyed battle. It was not in her nature. She despised the bloodshed, the destruction, even the very same she herself wrought against their foes. It wore on her, her spirit, her mind, her soul. For that was her curse. She was good at fighting. She could withstand what others could not. And so she did, so someone else would not have to.

She distanced herself a little from the camp. She could not go too far, too great the danger that she would need to spring into action all too quickly. Her eyes closed as she listened to the forest, a tear briefly running down over her cheek. Then, the lythari caught herself. Not yet. She could not allow it yet. She did not know if and when she would stop and this might be dangerous in a time like this. Carefully she began to unweave the beads and pearls in her hair, storing them in a pouch. A practiced motion. A ritual. She selected a different set of beads. One, she had collected on the sea of fallen stars, two years ago when she had run through the night. Another, collected at the coast near Tethir, a year after she had first gotten started on her journeys. A third which a priestess of Eilistraee had gifted her. More and more of the pearls she selected, each one holding a distinct and important memory to the lythari. She wove these back into her hair, her lids closed. The movements calmed her. The memories calmed her. They gave her back a tiny fraction of the piece she so desired. Not all of it. It couldn't.

Once finished, she looked up to the sky, her eyes distant, murmuring up into the night, to her goddess, in the hopes that she would hear this strange little servant of hers.

Eilistraee, guide my heart through this night.