Lynesse

Ghosts, or, Licking One's Wounds

Helion Gloamingdawn had been a good man. Even tempered, strong, and steady. Good with people and animals. Quiet in all aspects; mind, soul, and body. His love had been this deep, unfathomable wellspring that was always tangible. There had never been any question of it, even if some other woman did occasionally catch his eye.

Ysirien Van’aen, on the other hand, was his opposite. After Helion’s death, opposite was what she needed. Gone were Helion’s broad shoulders, replaced by Ysirien’s wiry, lithe frame. Instead of gold, cream, and brilliant azure she indulged herself in decadent chocolate, caramel, and fel tinged green. Where Helion had been constant, Ysirien was mercurial. Helion was her equal, Ysirien her subordinate. But, where Helion’s protective spirit had been his downfall -- Ysirien’s had been hubris, and he’d taken five other good souls along with him.

She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Andaeros that it had been a while since she'd "settled down". She wasn’t interested in one night stands or romance. He was a charming distraction, wasn't he? They got along alright. There weren’t any pretenses to what they were doing! Why did they need romance when that wasn’t what their friends-with-benefits-and-occasionally-great-breakfast relationship was about? They didn’t. He didn’t want romance, neither did she. His other friends were the ones being pushy about it.

Lynesse couldn’t explain why she’d been so annoyed at their prying. Normally it wasn’t a problem; but that might be the problem entirely. There was never anyone around that cared enough to pry. They were his friends; surely they were just doing it because they cared about him and wanted to see him happy. If not happy, they probably just wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to tear his heart out of his chest and stomp on it, or feed it to the lynxes. Still, it wasn’t their business.

At some point she’d punched through something glass after having imbibed quite a bit of alcohol, that much she knew. Her knuckles were a bloody, bruised mess that she’d had to tend this morning and they pulsed in time with her head each time her heart beat. Whatever she’d wrecked hadn’t been anything she owned, that much was clear. The spartan little all-in-one room she was renting for a gold a week and favors was more or less pristine save for the flecks of blood that had, presumably, dripped from her hand to smear on the door knob and spatter on the floor here and there as she’d shambled her way to bed.

Undoubtedly someone, somewhere, had seen her put her hand through a mirror or a window with violence. She wasn’t exactly inconspicuous and her one saving grace was her temporary unemployment. There would be no leaving the small flat today and she could stifle Helion, Ysirien, and the rest of her crew’s ghosts from where they’d been uncomfortably roused with another bottle of scotch.