Dejan Damir

Dejan Damir

The Foundation
Weaver
dejanfuneral.webp

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A life lived, dug deep,
Hard Sworn,
Returned.
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There he stood, resolute, grounded. An oak that nary swayed even under the most violent maelstroms. A vigil now maintained hours long as log was stacked upon log; kindling stuffed between best as proprietary allowed. A squire's nervous glance cast his way yet found no reproach. This work should've been his own but they'd not be lighting the pyre until Hochtar's bloom were that the case. A call upon the Wyld would also make for short work and still he remained unmoved.

The Monastery courtyard had become akin to a void, reminiscent of Old Featherwind's tales of shroud spheres encountered in the Deeploch. A phenomena unrecognizable until one crosses the threshold of influence. Logic and reality told the knight that many skirted just outside the edge and yet his seasoned senses heard nothing.

Some time later Dejan realized he was alone, squires' duties now done.

He suddenly felt the need to flex the fingers of his one remaining hand, an affirmation he'd long found unnecessary.

Muddling of chatter and steps grew with increasing clarity. The Pursuant glanced down to the unlit torch rooted at his side. The hour had arrived.

There he stood, resolute, grounded. An oak that nary swayed even under the most violent maelstrom...yet now a bow bent.
 
"Syr Damir," Helena spoke softly. Voice almost a whisper over the stirrings of those Knights who had gathered round the pyre. For many knew Syrs Etivya and Torgan. Knights Sworn of Dawn and Dusk. As a sister. As a brother. Mentors. Friends. Family. Found as they may have been. Kin by Oaths sworn, and deeds done. Only to Dejan, Etivya was blood.

Kin by all the bindings of the world well beyond their Monastery. A niece. Born of those legacies so many left behind in pursuit of something... Helena could not find the words for.

Far from the first loss the Order had suffered under her Captaincy. The guilt. A thing she had need to keep packed under the mantle of her station. And yet. And yet she could not find the why of it.

Why did this loss tear a hole in her. Felt as raw as a welling wound down in the pit of her.

What a miserable Captain she was. To feel such pain for one knight. When two were lost. Two were taken.

Syr Etivya Damir. Knight Sworn of Dawn. Lost to their enemy. So close to home. Defending squires on patrol. There after she had found her Dusker, strung up and mutilated. She broke her seals. She turned Sentinel. She died at the hands of the same Squire she saved. Keston had carved the runes, and Helena was glad the youth could grant Etivya such a mercy.

And still yet. Still yet. Another of their number had gone missing. Snatched by some wretched thing.

She braced the older knight. Her mentor. That proud old oak who had raised her up time and time again. She held him tight. Cried against him. Hoped, by some small measure, that in her arms, tight as she held him, he would feel it. That it was ok to mourn. That it was ok to simply be Dejan on this day. That he need not stand his lonely vigil any longer. She was here. If he but need her.
 
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They stood by one another, Dawn and Dusk, like they had for years and yet unlike ever before. His hands were cold as he clasped them at front, shoulders lax and attention downturned towards the root of the funeral pyre whence a man so used to holding his head high diminished. Kaarle said nothing for it despite doing the opposite, and had the Dusker not volunteered to come Oliver should’ve well suspected that he detested them all for their weakness. Public grief.

He’d never seen Kaarle cry and never would. Perhaps he did so in private, that darkness after or in advance, holding fast where he couldn’t when others’ voices broke, as he had done to his very face many times. Still, there was a tightness to how the smaller man ground his jaw and stood now, that discomfort of one who knew himself a specific brand of alive and yet felt that being gnawed at. Who are we, really?

The weight he’d kept in the pit of his stomach had risen into his throat in the last hour, at the sight of two embracing in the middle of it all, Pillars as much as they were people with the simplest of task ahead. Light the pyre. A breath left him in a huff and he heard the dirt beneath them whisper a groan as Kaarle shifted beside him. Just a little closer, touching shoulders.

They’d not speak of this, just as they did not speak of the dead as it came to their going away. He’d known Syr Etivya through training he’d distributed more than friendship, didn’t truly claim to having known her, let alone Syr Torgan, and their joined exploits were known to him by what capacity he had as a superior. But Kaarle was a fellow Sworn, moved through the Monastery as such, and though he spoke little of his affairs on any given day, there were those old bits and pieces. How those two had smiled, laughed and misbehaved at the Knoll, just like everyone else. How he’d lost a bet to Etivya — and it isn’t speaking ill of the dead, mind, to posit that she emerged the victor by mere clever cheating — and been done a great favour by Torgan, one he’d not asked for.

Blood of the covenant. They’d both understood that, it’d meant more than the water that made them for how there was no love lost there. And even had there been, the garden hardly cares for whose ashes rest on it’s soil. We go on. Time will pass either way. We grow older.

It was fucked to bury younger people.
 
Now they number three fewer, when the count was already too little.

That which had been Syr Etivya and Syr Torgan, soon to be brought to ashes; and Syr Solon, fallen into the enemy’s hands. The Killing Light, wielder of Cursebreaker. One of those Knights you come to believe, as you grow up within the monastery, as simply invincible. Syrs Etivya and Torgan had felt a bit like that as well. Osytha had just assumed she’d watch their faces grow more wrinkled and their hair more grey, until they were, well — were another couple of Dejans. Sort of, permanent fixtures in monastery life you almost stopped noticing altogether, like the goading peak of Vayd’s Lookout, or all that ribald graffiti carved into it by daring squires.

But today, three unshakeable pillars of the order have just… crumbled away, and nothing here feels as certain as it once did. How? How did this even happen?

Osytha stands within the bubble, hands clasped behind her back. Syr Kenneth at one side, a frequent partner in Dawn, to the point now they feel that bond well past each mission’s end. And Sazia at her other; a friend since prospecthood, though her path has since led her to the role of Scribe within the Sanctum of Operations. Nonetheless, they had all been trained up by Etivya and Torgan. Each of them feeling indebted toward those knights for so much, a debt which cannot now be repaid. Kenneth spends half his time here watching the proceedings, and the other half falling into a daze. Sazia cries as she stares at the pyre, sniffling quietly, tears flowing in a steady stream.

Osytha doesn’t weep, and she doesn’t disappear off who knows where into her own mind. She glances around from face to face, at all those gathered here. Syr Dejan, Oakfather, as stoic as ever at first glance — but still to lift that torch there beside him. How much heavier is it to bear for one’s own flesh and blood? Their young Knight Captain Helena of Dawn, shedding tears the old man can or will not. Syr Bebin of Dusk, that shrewd Loch-diver, perhaps there with Dejan much the same as Kenneth stands with her. The parsimonious Sworn, Syr Kaarle, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Knight Pursuant Oliver, of unflappable yet perfervid demeanour…

… and there, next to the orkin: Hector Rookheart. Him and Keston both, Osytha’s eyes linger upon them more than most others. The ones who had been with Syr Etivya for that clusterfuck.

“I hate this,” she hears Sazia whisper. “Every time. Syr Etivya, Syr Torgan… why them? It’s not— it’s not fair.”

“No.” Osytha replies. “It isn’t.”

Wealth, power, influence; there are far better orders to join than theirs for people interested in such things. The Knights of Anathaeum tend to attract and keep those who are more interested in doing right in the world. Maybe that’s why our numbers are always so small, Osytha reflects, bitterly. And why their loss is always so keenly felt. Not only because they’ve become our kin. Because they’re also the ones this world can least afford to lose.

No, it isn’t fair. It never is. She knows that, and she knows Sazia knows that, too. It’s her way of coping, Osytha supposes. Some people let the things which need not be said go unsaid, others, feel compelled to speak them regardless.

She finds herself staring at Hector again. Eyes boring through the back of his dark whorls. He and Keston — they’re both a few years older than her, but somehow, haven’t made it to knighthood yet. What’s holding them back? And, despite that, they’d been the ones chosen to go on the search and rescue mission with Syr Etivya. Had sending her out with a couple of squires truly been the best decision?

Had they held back again? If it had been Syr Osytha out there with her instead, Dusk and Dawn as it ought to be — would there be one fewer on the pyre tonight?

Osytha’s gaze slides off of the squire, back to Syr Helena. And that was your call, at the end of the day. Seeing her up there, crying against Syr Dejan… there’s something kind of sickening about that. It was your decision, your responsibility, and now the man’s trying to figure out how to pick up that torch. Does he need to shoulder your grief, of all people, at this time and place? As well as his own?
 
A bottle sloshed inside it's bottled cage as Monroe upended it and drank deeply. She had kept to the edges, hidden from view as best she could because no one wanted to see her like this. The Dawnling was too angered by what happened, in need of something to burn away her fury, but her gaze was trained on the pyres. The reflection of hit took up the majority of her eyes, already a molten hue of honey, now burning with grief she knew too well.

This business of serving the people did not come without costs.

Monroe of Cathmore knew early to not learn the names of squires for how frequently they could fall, and learning their names became fragments of memories that would haunt her. Of course, despite this, Monroe remembered their faces. Remembered what they might have said that one time.

Her arm fell near limp at her side, the bottle's neck slipping through her fingers but Monroe caught it just barely before it would fall to the ground.

No, this time she knew the names. New the souls behind them too. It was surreal to be here, present and amongst others, but now knowing there would be less of their brother and sisters in-arms standing with them. She could almost refuse to believe it, even if she was staring into the licks of flames that were their pyre. They could be asleep, or simply on a journey that would take them some time to travel before returning to us, but such a thought only gave Monroe cause to chuckle dryly.

She lifted the bottle, feeling the weight become easier, and when she drank did she realise there was barely any left to fill her mouth. And now, what else was there left to do but return to her vigil of watching that fire and feel it's presence stay with her alongside the effects of the alcohol she had drunk.
 
A chill wind blew as the brethren gathered to bid farewell to two of their own. Cruel, uncaring, it stung the skin about Faramund's eyes, numbing him to the scene unfolding in the Monastery courtyard. Dozens had come together to see Syrs Etivya and Torgan into the next life; Sworn kin, Pursuants, even the Captain herself. Helena of Dawn. A bright light in the darkest of times.

Grief had a way of unravelling even the strongest threads, and Syr Dejan was certainly no stranger to loss. Resolute, he stood, in the wake of yet another blow to the Order and its people. Two Knights slain, one of a them his cousin, and yet another lost to enemy action. A gut punch to even the most unfeeling of bastards amongst their ranks.

Here's looking at you, Kaarle, mused the dawn-thing, turning his attention towards the assembly of knights, squires and aspirants. To the youngsters that thought they knew it all, and their elders that knew too much.

Faramund's fingers curled into fists, then unfurled like banners in the wind. Whatever sense of loss he should have felt, of sadness or longing, was eclipsed by something else, primordial in nature, and all the more powerful for it. 'You're doing it again,' said Gruki, hovering at his shoulder, fleece-lined cloak billowing in the breeze. 'Gettin' angry, I mean.'

'I'm not angry,' lied Faramund. 'I'm... I don't know what I am.'
'Livid. Incensed. Full of wrath.'
The Knight grit his teeth. 'I s'pose so,' he nodded, looking down at his hands, unsure of what to do with them. 'I s'pose...'

Faramund felt Gruki grip his shoulder, understanding writ in the way she stared at him, not unkindly. Never that. 'Vengeance can wait,' she told him. 'Still your thoughts, syr, an' look t' those what needs you,' the she-ork smiled wanly, before letting go. She gazed heavenward.

'I've always hated funerals.'
'I know.'
'It's going to snow soon.'

The dawnling huffed, unable to suppress a small grin. 'I know that, too,' he paused, reaching into the folds of his cloak. A glimmer of light, smothered by the cup of his hand. Gruki glanced down at it, curious. 'What's that?' She asked. Fingers flexed. Unfurled. 'Coins?'

'Silver bask,' explained Faramund, his expression distant. 'Souther currency. Hard to get hold of.'
'What are they for?'
'Why, for spendin',' he smiled, 'and for payin' the Boatman.'
'Syr Torgan was from the South, wasn't he?'

'Aye,' Faramund nodded, handing the coins over to Gruki. 'Silver symbolises renewal. Rebirth. Gold... excess.' Tentatively, Gruki reached out to take the coins from him, brow scrunched in bemusement. 'Why six?'

'Two for Syr Torgan, two for Syr Etivya...'
'Two for Syr Solon...' Gruki blinked away the tears in her eyes. 'He could still be alive, syr.'
'I hope so, kid. Really, I do.'

Slowly, the knight threw an arm about the squire, held her close as the tears flowed free and true to dapple the stone between her boots. Syrs Torgan and Etivya had meant more to Gruki than they had him, it seemed. And here I stand, intruding on your grief, the dawnling sniffed, the cold stinging his cheeks and brow, drawing moisture from a gaze set in stone. 'Gruki,' he said quietly, 'would you do me the honour of placing those coins upon the pyre?' The she-ork shook, stifling her grief.

'Amongst the flowers, syr?'
'Aye, lass, there'll be fine.'

'Don't you want to do it?' She looked at him, then, resolute, grounded, despite the tears marring her face. 'The coins, syr... You acquired them. It should be you. I think... I think they would both like that.'

Oh, Gruki! Faramund swallowed the lump in his throat. 'My hands are stained,' he forced a smile, shook his head. 'You do it. If you've words, now's the time t' share 'em. They helped raise you, after all. It should be you.' He met her gaze. Whatever light she saw in him was false. An illusion. Deceiving.

'Aye, aye... it should be you.'
 
A hand snatched up the bottle from Monroe's loose grip. Deft as it was, and drunk as she was, it was an easy thing to do. Easy as pouring a drink really. Not that Monroe would know anything about that.

"To the poor sods," Matvi said to the Dawnling, just there between them. Drank the last sip down. Scrunched his nose at it. Almost coughed. "Toils, Cathmore, of all the bottles you snagged, your sticky little hands had to go and grab Pikeblood Whiskey?" he hissed at her beneath his breath. Shook his head. "Absolutely dreadful stuff," he whispered. Movement caught his eye, and he slipped the bottle there into his greatcoat. "Fucking Torgan loved the swill," he said with some fray to his chords. Sighed. Shook his head. "Idiot bastard," he muttered. "Didn't give poor Etivya much a choice in drinking it most the time they hunkered down at the Knoll,"

Set his eyes back up to the pyres. Clasped hands behind him as he stood to some manner of attention.

"Still remember that time the four of us went up the Glass Coast?" a dumb smile there on his lips. "A right and proper mess that was, wasn't it?"
 
Selene had spent long days and nights weaving the funeral shrouds now draped over Etivya and Torgan's bodies. Linen was traditional, white lined with silver thread. A fresh bolt not used for any purpose prior, a sacrifice of labor given to the gods. There were others who could do such work, but Selene had asked to take the task over. She needed the rhythm of the loom, the hours spent in solitude, the weight of the fabric. Otherwise Torgan and Etivya would float there in the Loch forever, stuck in her mind as memories unfinished and unreal. Syr Torgan would always be standing at the corner of her desk, reminding her to take care of herself while he was away. And she would always be waiting for him to come back and give her that half-assed report. The one he scribbled on scrap paper against the wall at the last minute. No, better to leave those thoughts behind in the fabric, and let them come to an end in the fire.

There was a third shroud unfinished on her loom. One of golden hue.

The young Sworn's absence tore into their comrades so because, more than a loss, it was a failing. A failing to bring home safely the kin they had set out to find. A failing to predict the twists and turns of Sightless minds. And a failing to understand why any of it needed to happen at all. Etivya and Torgan had fulfilled their oaths as a Knights of Anathaeum. They were the only ones here who could now rest with no regret.

The rest of them, had to find a way to carry on.

Selene had been immersed in her Pursuit for so long, she forgot that sometimes. What grief looked like on people's faces.

She moved between them like a spirit in her white robes, own face obscured by veil and mask. Tonight, she was no one's Captain, nor even a friend. Only a servant of Death. She would prepare the place of rest, perform the rituals, and keep them on schedule. But it was not time to ring the bell. They had enough time yet for words and giving of gifts. The Mirror Moon was new and slumbering in her dark robes; only ones versed in the stars could point out which shadow she was in the sky. And without the tidal pull of the Mirror, spontaneous reanimation was unlikely.

So the others could hesitate, and spend a little longer in that in-between.

Maybe not this much, though, Selene thought as she noticed two voices speaking softly about something. She placed one hand on Faramund's shoulder and the other upon Gruki's. "The both of you, now," she said sweetly, pushing them not so gently towards the pyre. "Go on together. There's one coin for each of you, isn't there? And no excuses from you, Faramund. I do not know why you insist on snuffing out every good intention that finds you."
 
Matvi Iramene said:
"Still remember that time the four of us went up the Glass Coast?" a dumb smile there on his lips. "A right and proper mess that was, wasn't it?"
Click to expand...

"I drink Pike's so no one else could steal my drinks... except Torgan always did..." And Monroe would always call him a prick for doing so. This time she couldn't. It formed a lump at the back of her throat, making it difficult to even form the word. "We were a mess. Fools who thought we could even catch up with them both."

But that trip had been something special for Monroe, who had missed a home by the sea of where she grew up, and each and every time she saw the coast line, she was happiest. Torgan knew this of her, had pried that information from her nails dug into her palms, and never made it a big thing to invite her to the Glass Coast when they could.

"I wish..." She began, straightening her spine and pulling strength to herself, but the words could not be said. In her mind, she knew a plethora of ways to express what she was feeling or thinking, but the moment to say any of it aloud was too... confronting. Too real.

Monroe shrank, leaning back until she felt the wooden pillar she had been sulking by this entire time. "I wish I had more time." She whispered, her brows furrowing to keep away the tears that threatened in her eyes.
 
Matvi eyed the Dawnling, and all the wreck that she was.

Took bets with Etivya once that the pair of them would come back hitched after one of their little trips. Huffed at that. Let his eyes settle to the pillar, and all the old guardians carved there into the dried body of it. The fox, and the wolf caught in their tussle and chase. Whilst the raven flew over them, and the vulture there above it.

How twined it all was. The Dusker found himself thinking. Life and Death.

"Can't give you that, Roe, hate to be the one to tell you," he said softly voice quivering with something like regret. "I do, however," cleared his throat, and wiped a bit of moisture away from the corner of his eye. Stepped a little closer to her ear and whispered. "Know where they keep a real old bottle of Pike's Cherry Caske limited run," his brows rose in all their invitation.

Was a special bottle Torgan had pilfered from one Lord Trendonmudi of Hidden Spear Cove on that same trip up the coast.

"Was actually hoping the four of us could share the damned stuff, before," it was his turn to get choked up. But he only sighed. Shook his head the more. "Well, you know," set his shoulder gainst the pillar. Even bumped Monroe some. "Bloody Knight business I suppose," just muttering nonsense.
 
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He stood there by the two men he called his uncles. Syrs Oliver and Kaarle. His own brow set firm, as his eyes were set steeled. Face felt cold. Ears felt full. He stood how he thought a Knight should. Straight backed. Sure. For what else was there for them to face, but that truth that awaited all?

And was it not theirs to do, despite it all? To keep going. To keep being. What he thought he needed to be. For others. To atone. For himself.

He had cried enough. Screamed and shouted and hurt enough. Scrawled in pages. Hammered against iron and steel. Enough at least to leave him feeling like a coal turned husk. Brittle and chalky. Like any little give or take from the day to day took some trace of him. Broke off another part of him. Small. More oft than not. Smears and dust trails. But now.

Seeing Syr Dejan. Seeing all those gathered. There was nothing sure about him.

He swallowed hard. Went on, setting himself sure as he could. While all the things inside him swirled and sparked with each whisper and hush and sob that found his ears.

He could have done more. Should have done more. Wanted to do more. And as soon as he let himself think that. Feel that. He felt just how much it really was. And just how much of nothing he was. Hand gripped tight about the hilt of his bladewand. Wanted armor. Wanted shield. Might be, their weight against him would have him remember. Might be, hearing his own breath swirl before him in the cold air, feet crunching against snow, and all the darkness of his eyes losing light as breath failed him. And a single Red Eye stared upon him from on high.

His throat felt dry enough to choke. He found his shoulder jostle that broad span of Syr Oliver. Found his head keeling toward him. Eyes too ashamed to look up, stayed at their feet. And Kaarle's.

Then all was trembling. Loose. Hot. Didn't matter how much he grit his teeth. It all just cracked out. Dropped tears against the floor.

And he was just that stupid little boy again. There before the pyres.

"Gods, I'm so sorry," he whimpered.
 
Despite the pyres she had studied every crackle and every flame's dance, Monroe found herself smiling. Sad as it was, her cheeks twitched with guilt for finding a moment of happiness when she was coming to terms about mourning.

She looked up at Matvi, the same smile fighting between staying on her lips and receding back into a flat line. Her brows remained with their furrow, and Monroe slowly shook her head at him. "Ah, fuck." She took a sharp inhale of breath when she felt her eyes sting and she looked away, back to the constant of the pyre. Blinking rapidly, she let out that inhalation and sagged into the pillar. "You just know they both would want us to have that bottle now." The time definitely called for it, and Monroe was feeling particular towards Pike's now more than ever.

Perhaps it was her grief, or that faint whisper of a tear he had wiped away, but Monroe could see it in her friend's face. This tragedy would stick with them both, for a long time to come.

Her hand moved, brushing against his before threading her fingers through and holding their hands there. It was unlike her to hug someone much less hold their hand, but when she found it hard to put thoughts into words, Monroe saw the need to show what she meant to say to him.
 
"Helena," he replied gruffly, voice barely his own.

Dejan stood there for a few unflinching moments as Dawn's captain shed the tears which he could not, or dare not...not yet. Slowly he came to recognize the form at his side, his charge from all those years ago; bright, talented, and ready to bear the burden of the world. The Pursusant tried to prepare her for these moments, the ineffable weight of responsibility and ensuing loss. He stood there, just as he did now, for every funeral since Helena's appointment.

It was in this realization that Dejan came to truly comprehend the gift being offered.

He placed a hand on Helena's shoulder and slowly guided her gaze back to his own. "If you would, Captain." The Pursuant leaned over and reached for the unlit torch, holding it aloft in front of the two.

Once lit, the Pursuant strode towards the dual pyre waiting only a moment before bringing torch to wood.

Only when flame caught did he step back to not find a void, but family.
 
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