Jodiah Ayreg was not one to mourn.

The murder of Am'thyst may have affected him deeply, but the death knight's core was made of solid steel. He was a hard man -- which is not to say he was a strong man -- because Rhy'Din was a hard land. He had known that since his birth, and had experienced many things in his life.

A life of good, and charity, and virtue, and value. A mortal death, and a rebirth into darkness. A life of evil, and heinous crimes. Another death. An unlife of strife and chaos in the Shadowlands, and then? A strange new ressurection for which he did not know the cause. He had almost stopped trying to find out, too.

Jodiah Ayreg had duties.

Jodiah Ayreg had responsibilities.

None of that mattered without the nymph there, in the darkness. Waiting in the shadows for him to leave the eye of those around him, wanting to find sanctuary and comfort in her arms. She was so full of energy; so full of life, and love. It made him want to vomit when he first met her.

Recently, he could think of nothing else.

In the Dragon's Breath, he had taken a hammer to a stock of iron. It was supposed to, eventually, be the framework for a flanged gate at some lordling's palace elsewhere in the city. Yet the longer he stoked the flames ever-hotter in the forge with the billows, the more she seeped into his mind. Iron was hard, and yet iron bent when the right heat was set to it, and the proper strength applied through the hammer.

She was allergic to iron; she confided that in him, once, when he had just left the forge and was heavy with the filings and the dust, and they--

No. No time to mourn. He had duties, and responsibilities, and he had to stay focused.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

The hammer continued to strike at the stock of iron atop his anvil, and before long it met the much firmer resistance of non-fired metal. Ayreg blinked, almost in surprise, to realize he was holding the smithing hammer with two hands like it was some kind of axe. The stock in front of him, on the anvil, was ruined: hammered nearly in twain from the blows.

Zorbenastrocalipermeneotullis (otherwise known as Bob) was standing to the side, near the engraving table. He had been hard at work on the pauldron of the soulsteel armor the death knight had been commissioned to make in the name of Alysia Skye, though the wizened old gnome didn't know exactly what it was made of. He just knew this particular brand of metal, whatever it be, was considerably harder to etch and engrave (and such strange symbols Ayreg had told him to make, as well) than a normal suit of armor should have been.

"Ye' need to be calming down, mate," he said, in his gruff voice. "Ye've been all out of sorts lately. Be something vexin' ye, lad?"

"I am fine," replied Ayreg, coldly.

He was not, though.

As he threw out the ruined bit of stock and found a new one, Zorbenastrocalipermeneotullis (otherwise known as Bob) returned to the engraving table with a shake of his head. Jodiah Ayreg was not one to shed tears for those he killed -- but he did not really kill Am'thyst, did he?

He could just do nothing to stop it.

Still, he had duties. He had responsibilities. He was a man of his word, and his word kept him going. His pride. Hammering away at a new brick of iron stock, the death knight began to feel an emotion that had hardly ever touched him before.

Abject self-loathing.

'Cause if it's really all just physical, then my memory's immaterial
So why then do I remember you at all?
But I do, I do, my friend, I seen your face
We shared a cup, I know the taste
Its sweetness is relentless on my lips.
- Bright Eyes

Red Dragon Inn

He could not hide this from her. She felt this tragedy for some time, though did not realize the specifics or the severity of their loss.

Their loss. The realm's loss. Amthy was truly beloved.

For days, she had whispered things to the air, to her friends, both real and imaginary.

To be, or not to be, alive. Someone I know is quite dead, isn't she?
Greenery. Stars
I dun understand it! There are people within a man, you say?

Tara had a unique ability to feel her prophecies out, so a brief conversation of such with Victoria left her uneasy.

"I saw a Death today. It wasn't my Death but somebody else's, only he wouldn't tell me who. And then that man over there played the flute, so I danced, but for Death, because it seemed a lovely thing to do."

But now, she was entwined with none other than Jodiah Ayreg. To the casual observer, their embrace looked a little more than suspicious. It was common knowledge that the seer and deathknight had parlay prior to this one, but never had they been so close. Their proximity was to hide only what need be hidden, and that was their tears, her muffled sobs.

"Evagna drill naut gotfrer." Forgive but not forget.

She made an attempt to ease out of the embrace, but found herself stumbling, as if the grief had poured into her legs and rendered them useless, and she caught both his hands into hers as she fell.

How would she keep something like this from Tara? How could she agree to this? But in her heart, she knew it was the right thing, for she saw everything, and Ayreg was not to blame. No, the true murderers lived for a moment inside of his head, even Ayreg himself did not understand when she tried to explain it to him.

She was often so very hard to understand.

"I can't.. I can't.." Her eyes were wild, and she doubled over. Yes. Sick. She would be sick.

"Victoria?" He eased to the floor, bending to one knee as she began to collapse.

You are making a scene.

"There are little bugses in the walls!" Her eyes had the hint of clarity, but she needed a release. If she had to scream something, then let it be nonsense, and she would keep her word well.

She would tell no one. And nonsense was always expected of her.

She'd sniff and sob quietly in this secluded corner, and mutter several other things in matched strangeness, before slinking back against him. If one could stumble and slither all at once in one quick movement, it was she, 'fore in this feigned delirium, she would act out the grief that shook the core of her. One arm coiled 'round his neck. The other's hand gripped his shoulder. Both legs ensnared the warrior's waistline. And now they were very much attached.

"Need to be.. in the air," she whispered to him, like a lover still, but there was no love between these two. No, they were quaint acquaintances, and every now and then their feelings may have bordered on fondness, but any sort of friendship was complicated by the alliances they forged.

Ah, yes, Travanix. Did he kill him yet? Or is now not an appropriate time to ask?

Jodiah Ayreg carried her to the door and onto the porch with little effort, as she was light enough, though the way she had wrapped herself around him was quite awkward indeed.

As they reached the porch, she would calm, and whisper things in a near gibberish to the stars, which were consequently hidden by storm clouds.

"I like it out here because the shadowed one gave me a present." She blinked at him, expecting a blink from him in response, and slowly began to uncoil herself from his body.

"But now I must go down to where things go to die so that I will make sense of all of this.." She added, half-stumbling to the porch steps, casting one quick glance over a small shoulder. The tears still apparent in those brilliant eyes.

"What present?" He did indeed blink, watching her strangely as she went, and he shook his head.

"The past in paper," was all that she said. It was another riddle for another person. Soon, she disappeared beneath the porch completely, where things go to die.

She lay sprawled beneath porch, half squinting through small tears up at the cracks in the wood. They were casting lines of light down her face - lamp light. She thought she could see him above, surrendering to his own grief, pipe in hand. Yes. He was there. She could smell the smoke.

It was here where she wept, finally, audibly, and loud.

Her fingers had dug into the earth at her sides, deeper and deeper still, as if she could somehow become one with the soil, and commune better with friends long lost.

But all she felt were little pebbles and things, biting at her fingertips and delicate palms.

"You were born inside of a raindrop.." She murmured beneath the stairs and curled to one side in a fetal position. Her eyes fell upon the world outside of this one she created, in the earth and in the dark.