tenth rune; frost; audio

[deadelfwalking]

[For once, Koltira isn't using the video function. Instead, there's just his voice, echoing and soft and toneless.]

Ashraf Salib has returned home.

[There's a stretch of silence. He isn't the only one in recent memory--the boy he met, Jack Frost, and Ashraf's friend, the monk--they're gone, too. Koltira hadn't known them nearly as long or as well as Ashraf, but he hadn't missed their disappearances, either.

Still, finding Ashraf gone was a punch to the gut. Despite their rocky first meeting, Ashraf eventually became one of the few people to fully and unconditionally accept Koltira for who--and what--he was. The priest's devotion to his beliefs, his essential goodness, his willingness to learn, his warmth ... these traits were uniquely his own, of course, but they also reminded Koltira of someone else he knew and cared for. Liadrin. A woman just as perfect in her faith as Ashraf, and just as determined to see the good rather than the bad.

She was gone from him, too, though, and had been for a long time.]

I suppose I should be happy for him.

[Another period of silence, and then the feed ends.]

Comments

voice

[goinbust]

"Sorry ya lost someone close. Ain't ever a good feelin bein left behind but back home times like this we'd raise a glass and toast those who went on ahead of us."

[deadelfwalking]

I'm not very good at toasts.

[he's got the drinking part down, though. and happening!]

[goinbust]

"Eh, maybe I've done it too many times. Still, have a drink in the departed's memory. Nothing's forever."

[deadelfwalking]

[he was definitely going to have a ton of drinks REGARDLESS.]

I wouldn't say 'nothing'.

[goinbust]

"Well I ain't never seen anything last forever."

[deadelfwalking]

I have. And I will. [personally, he means.]

[goinbust]

"Then you got my sympathies. No one should have ta go through that."

[deadelfwalking]

[There's a slight grin to his tone.]

Eternity, you mean?

[goinbust]

"Yeah. Can't even begin to think about it cause well, starin death in the face is different than when its just too hard to keep from blinkin in that staring match."