Jular 10, 1444
Quiet fills a small library room on the ground floor of 259 Haft lake as an aging woman of 64 years eases herself into a sturdy wooden, high-backed chair behind a large oak desk. She leans back into the chair, a sheathed rapier lain across her lap clutched loosely by her aged and wrinkled left hand. Her right hand drawn up to a small black stone with white speckles hanging loosely in a cage of gold on a chain worn about her neck. The now silver-white hair of her head bunching in a smooth wave at the base of her neck as she tilts her head upward against the back of the chair, staring into memories of days gone by that hover above and which only she can see.
She is tired. A simple, but apt description of how she looks as she sits in the chair, wrinkled eyelids laying softly over the edges of eyes that stare into those unseen memories. Her breathing is easy, quiet. The barest whisper of air circulating in and out of her tired, old, but fit body.
Memories are pushed aside for a moment at a slight sound from upstairs and she looks curiously, perhaps aprehensively to the door at the far end of the library. Her thoughts, for a moment go to wonder about her aging husband whom she left sleeping soundly in bed a short time ago. The sound was too tiny though, he was not stirring. She thinks of her loyal friend and servant, the halfling Marianna, but remembers Marianna left to return to her childhood home near Haven in Mistone several months ago. She could not have made the noise. Neither could Calvin have, since she'd checked his room before descending to her library, noting he was not in. Most likely Calvin wouldn't be in for days, given his usual pattern of carousing and traveling. Perhaps the sound had been made by her daughter, Melanna, who was eight years old now and full of all the energy and vigor of that tender age. It wouldn't be unlike Melanna to be stirring even at this early pre-dawn hour. The entry remained still, and no further sounds from above broke the quiet of the home, so her thoughts returned to memories of all the years gone by.
She remembered her youth, playing with her younger brother at the lake near her childhood home. She remembered her tender first love, Erathim, and how they had been betrothed to wed and never would. She remembered how her whole family, and Erathim as well had died when the goblins and orcs came in a joint force on a cold winter night and had removed her hometown from being. This was a painful memory she didn't wish to dwell on, so her thoughts moved forward in time to a kindly, nameless paladin of Toran who showed her compassion and re-woke her desire to live. But she never saw the old, knidly fellow again. Next her memories recalled her friends of the days in Hlint, the beginning of her adventuring career after the dragon Ozlo summoned her to aid in the war against Sinthrar Bloodstone. There was Rhynn, the angry, pacing illusionist who also had a soft side hidden in her somewhere. There was AnnaLee who'd shown a great kindness and gentleness to her in the beginning, but who'd grown distant after tragedy struck her life. A few good memories of her twice betrothed Talan S'gath, and a few more of their heated arguments. There was also Addison... Too many things to remember of her. First a friend, then a lover, then a warrior lost in the Deep saving others and leaving her to raise Calvin. Years skipped over, not worth remembering the pain of mourning for so long over Addison. Bright, new, fresh memories instead mingled with some not so new. Memories of freindship with so many others, adventures, long-lost places... Elohanna, Storold, Lewis News, Honora, Amireanna, Freldo, Dalan, pirates and the Freelancers Tavern, the guardian of Estibana, the spirit of the lake, the bloody failed defense of Pranzis... and so many more memories that slipped by, a lifetime randomly displayed in pictures of the mind over the course of fleeting moments.
Her eyes gazed upward into those memories hovering overhead. She needn't look upon the old dusty journal sitting open on the desk before her in which many of the memories were recorded with long-dried ink. She considered for a few moments more all those memories, and as she did she realized again how tired she was. Her slender, wrinkled fingers gently turned the smooth black stone with white speckles inside it's tiny gold cage once more. Just once more.
"Spirit of the lake, if it's within your power, I call on you now to bear my soul to a heaven where it's ever morning, and the songs of the loons echo new awakening from the mists over those peaceful shores," her lips parted in quiet whispers of her final request.
The old woman's body gradually slackened, eyes fixed on the heaven of her imagining. Eyes that were peaceful, reverent, expectant, joyful, yet still ever so tired focussed on a point above and beyond until a tiny last exhalation let out into the otherwise still silence of the library and her spirit was at last gone.
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Treana Min Poetr, Janra 5, 1380 - Jular 10, 1444
