#// i can't do a DnD event about backstory trauma without making it very significant for character development but w/e

[valshirathelight]

EPILOGUE ;

Location: Mystery Sport Lysara Event Characters: Val'shira Melithar, Ramirus/Eluvian Mentions: Aradia @emissaradia, Tianyou @faelortianyou, literally just kenyer Synopsis: Not a self-para - Private DnD thread with Shaner's NPC that highlights significant character development. Bitterness and trust issues ensue.

RAMIRUS:

“Did we-” Ramirus states, he smiles, “I think that’s the exit.” His excitement can hardly be contained. “I’ve uh… I’ve been thinking about this whole.. Crossing over thing. My physical body is dead, but my soul, I mean- people use spirits all the time, why do I have to go now? If you let me hitch a ride, maybe, I dunno. Maybe there’s a way I can stick around.” They could be quite the duo together.

VAL'SHIRA:

Val is beyond relieved, and she is now firmly against ever volunteering for something like this again. What a nightmare. Relief floods her, almost moving her to tears again but she’s too excited to get home (currently an inn) and get to rest. Val turns to Ramirus, excitement bubbling down. His words put an ache in her heart… maybe he didn’t want peace. Val tried to understand exactly what he means, relying on what knowledge she may have learned of demons as a noble high elf with top quality tutoring but little world exposure.

( An arcana check passed ) : Possession can happen commonly with spirits, while all can apply consent to gain a stronger foothold in the world of the living, demons, specifically more powerful ones are known for going to great lengths to gain a person’s willingness or trust. Greater demons are unable to crossover physically without the expressed consent of a host, or invitation from a powerful conjurer.

VAL'SHIRA:

Val was a logical woman. Emotions had run high in this game, and were still running quite high now, but there had to always be pause whenever she intended to change something in her life - especially something as drastic as her own body.

Creating changelings was a tragedy, the elvhen child was sick, but attaching them to humans was an often necessary step that elvhen parents took to save a life. It was a hard decision in Val’shira’s eyes, not something to celebrate or to consider commonplace and easy to stomach. A human body was changed - two lives altered forever. Val thought of changelings with sadness, and possession and attachment of a soul to another body was not unlike changelings. Only, in this case, it was an unnecessary risk for the two of them. Ramirus had had the chance to live his life and his time had come. He had suffered, without the peace he deserved, for years. Val’shira did not need another soul within her, another mind that might come and go as they please. She cared for Ramirus. She sympathized deeply with him now, she wanted only the best for him.

But she did not love him.

In fact, the undead bard was an oddity in her life. She was over 600 years old. The elve’s trust was usually hard won, but the trauma they had both shared opened her heart in a vulnerable way that had easily let Ramirus in. Elves were no strangers to deception, Val’shira even less so, but she was not thinking of deception. She thought of the little boy who hadn’t had the kind of life he deserved. She thought of what they'd endured in his trial. She was confused, concerned and wondering if this was ever a time for any of them to make such decisions. “You would be okay with possession? With a life without peace? Even after that amulet you were wearing, that possession that had taken hold of you in that chamber of your memories?”

RAMIRUS:

“It would only be for a while,” Ramirus explained, “the Students of Proserpina bind spirits to bodies all the time… if you can help me, then maybe we can find another vessel. One that isn’t-“ he smiled a bit and rubbed the back of his head as he gestured toward her, “occupied already.”

VAL'SHIRA:

She considered, silent for a moment as she imagined this playing out. Temporary possession, but that meant he had been invited so the door would likely remain open. And how would she explain this to her future husband, or to anyone for that matter? That she had come into a Lysaran game for exposure - just to come out with a ghost friend forever invited into her body - if, by then, they had done the unsavory thing of finding him another body to inhabit? Would she explain that alongside her slowly increasing disillusionment with the world outside the Moongate? Her new beef for Olympians?

The same Olympians that had practically killed them all on the battlefield with a plague? It might have been a fake scenario but it seemed very real to her. From what Val had heard of history, the battle had happened. She was well-read, and while the elve had never seen a true battlefield, she knew that published accounts were written by victors. Bias was real. And still, she had nevertheless fully trusted in the valor of Olympians before today. If that distrust had happened to her here, how could she allow herself to be so easily sacrificial now to a near stranger? She had known Ramirus for a few hours, shared trauma or not. True care and affection in her heart for him or not. It was not love, it was not unconditional.

“I don’t trust Students of Proserpina any longer. Perhaps that’s… foolish, I don’t know. But I also do not trust ourselves right now in this very moment. We’re weary, and you might harm your only chance for everlasting peace… reunion with your Gods, the mysteries of what comes next. For what? An eternity in this volatile world?” She frowned. “Horrible things are coming. It is one reason I hope to bring more elvhen within Avalon sooner rather than later, no matter their connection to the Laurelin. I… believe you need more time to think it through. You have seen what can become of possession. Good intentions do not mean good outcomes.”

RAMIRUS:

“I’ve been trapped in here for 75 years-“ after all he’d done for them, after how hard he worked, Ramirus looked hurt. But it was to be expected, she hadn’t liked him from the onset, still, he was visibly wounded. “All I’ve had is time. You’re going to leave me here?”

VAL'SHIRA:

Val’shira wasn’t one to let herself care about other people’s feelings. She had been a bitch, still would likely be a bitch, but the soft interior past the hard shell had a heart that broke at the sight of her new friend’s wounded face. Then she reasoned. She wasn’t one to make life-altering decisions just because someone looked sad and made puppy eyes at her. Especially not someone she didn’t love. Time here would not hurt the bard, though she would still feel heavy guilt for leaving him behind.

If she had to find a way to bring him out of this, she would work her ass off to do it and force a witch to help her. Maybe Aradia? If she had to trust any Olympian, let it be an exiled one, and one who also cared for Ramirus. But the high elve would not sacrifice her body and risk Ramirus’ own regret for forcing his soul to endure this. The soul was the most important part of them all. A decision on a whim, after such an emotional journey, was not wise for either one of them. This was not something the warrior sister had to teach the artist sister, it was something that Val had known even better than Mir’solas. Grace, strength and adoration had been her sister’s, but at least wisdom had been the younger’s.

“You’ve had time, but not your memories.” She came forward, looking regretful and sad but there was steel in her eyes. Val’shira was finally firm on her choice. “You are whole now,” She said with with fervent energy, emphasizing her words. An elvhen could not lie, and so this Val believed. “The soul is who you are. You will know yourself better now and you have the time to make that decision. No danger to find you anymore, no confusion and memory-bloke to weigh on you… You need to be sure you want to sacrifice the possibility of peace. Forever. And while you do decide, I swear to you, I will not abandon a true friend in need.”

But I also need to think of myself. No one in my life has ever put me first but myself.

RAMIRUS:

A laughter blooms from the back of Ramirus’s throat, and his body shifts as he grows larger and larger, and larger. 30 ft towering above, a Greater Demon of Pride with a crown of many jewels stands over you.

“Well done, keep your wits about you. True tests are never done.”

You awaken in the stadium, the trial is over, and the people are all gone. It’s very late.

There is a note from the Master of Games: Well done.

There are illusionary images playing around the stadium of a great battle between you and your fellow combatants. A crowd cheering, a stadium in an uproar as your name and the names of the others are chanted. The world was not privy to your encounter.

VAL'SHIRA

If Val’shira had beef with Lysaran games before, she really did now. The demon emerged, and the high elve was so struck with such complete and utter shock that it suddenly occurred to her how much of an idiot she was. Naive, inexperienced in so many regards despite her age. She had been so close… SO CLOSE to trusting a complete stranger. It was nothing but her own self-boundaries that had kept her safe. Not even the consideration that this friend she had made, the first new friend in a long time, was a whole ass demon. She should have considered it. The emotional walls came up higher now. Trust would come even more hard won, coldness and indifference grew within the elves’ heart. Disillusionment with her love for Lysara. She might have learned to contend with her own history through this experience, but Val’shira had come out a colder person than before as the stadium came back into view.

She looked around at these cheering people, all these people that didn’t know what their leaders had just put her and her teammates through. Or they did. She didn’t know which one was worse.

Val’shira had always loved the world outside the Moongate, but maybe it was just naiveté that she hadn’t been outside long enough - not as much as others like Tianyou, who always preferred Avalon. Rose-tinted glasses of an elve who had never felt at home with her family so she had found home in the world outside. Maybe Tianyou was right about this place. Maybe she had to add another reason to why she needed to find a way to return elven-blooded to the safety of Avalon, not just the impending conflicts. This place… it was cruel. These were the thoughts that ran through her mind as she went through her emotions quickly: confusion, shock, hurt, denial, hot anger… cold rage. Maybe the crowd couldn’t see her face, but she knew where she was mentally as she felt her expression lock into deadpan. For a second, she hated every one of these people. And she hated that she hated them.

Val’shira looked down at the note in her hand. She let light burst from her skin. Light did not produce heat, only the eventual absorption of it. She made the light brighter, it soaked into the paper until she watched it begin to smolder. She stood there until it was ash in her hand. “Fuck you and your tests,” she muttered, glare piercing towards where she hoped the Master of Games was. Even if he couldn’t hear her, it felt good to say it.