K...l...an
Kellllll...aan
Amber eyes flashed in the lantern's light as Kel raised his head, seeking the sound that blew across the water. There was no one within the small sphere of light he huddled in, but the voice - was it a voice? - sounded so achingly familiar...
Kellan...
"He... hello?"
It was probably just the wind through the cathedral, he told himself. A trick of the night air.
Come baa.... aack.... ...ell...nnn
A shudder ran through him as he rose, dropping his knife and the raven he had been whittling to the sand. "Mother?" he whispered into the dark. "Is that you?"
...eeeesssss...
Just the surf on the beach, sand sliding against itself with the waves, but... if Rance had come through then maybe...?
There was no light, out in the water. It was a midnight absolute and terrifying, but if his mother was out there calling to him, needing his help, he couldn't risk losing her again.
"I'm coming!" he called, shrugging off his bow and bone-armored shirt. He piled it next to his boots and quiver on the sand, stripped to his pants as he lifted the lantern and waded gingerly into the waves. "Keep talking! Where are you?"
H....ere... ov... ere...
He struggled through the water, stumbling as the sand dropped away beneath his feet, drenching him to the mid-thigh and a few steps later to the waist. His pants clung to his legs as he waded deeper, the current beginning to tug and drag at him. "Mom? I can't... I can't see you..." Fear began to prickle against his skin as he grew dizzy. No stars above to orient, only the fading glow of the torches behind him on the beach. He looked back once, his heart pulled towards the home he had built, and the man who had shared it with him for a few wonderful days.
The house that was empty now, that man gone to his own pursuits, the life he had made for himself in a world he had made a place for himself in, as Kel never had quite managed. There was nothing back there now. But ahead...
Ahead there was darkness. And all around him the crash of waves. And a voice--
O... er... he...errrre...
Desperate, hopeful and hopeless, he went deeper into the lightless waters.
A wave swept in from the reef, larger than the ones before, unseen until it was upon him.
The lantern winked out.
Dawn stretched gentle fingers over the beach for the first time in a week, light returning to the world with the promise of new life. The torches paled. The seabirds began to chirrup and stretch their wings again.
The little wooden raven lay beside a knife already showing spots of rust. A quiver of arrows rested a short distance away, fletching damp with saltwater mist. The bow beneath them hadn't yet begun to warp, covered in beeswax to keep out the wet, but it was only a matter of time before nature reclaimed or buried them all.
They had never truly been of this world to begin with. And soon enough no traces of them or the one who had carried them would remain, even in memory.
Easy come, easy go.
