Chapter Text
Once there lived a brave woman, a warrior and scholar who travelled the world in seek of knowledge. From icy mountains in the north to endless deserts in the south, her path took her to distant lands and new gods. With time she was known across the world. Some feared her, some admired her, some tried to bring her journey to an end. But no matter how they tried, she always prevailed. Some say she was protected by the gods; some say she was a demon. What happened to her will forever be a mystery. But how she died wont.
In a diary found years later she wrote about the last year of her life during which she crossed paths with an entity she had never seen before. Black as the night sky and without a form it spoke to her, pleading, begging for help for it would soon wither and die. Not knowing whether to trust this being or not the warrior drew her blessed swords and told the being to unravel its origins. To her surprise it agreed and revealed that it is not a being of the physical realm. It lives between the world of the living and the dead, that thin line every soul must cross and the place where those, who refuse to venture on, eventually go. When asked why then it was so weak it told her that those who know they won’t join their loved ones rather stay in the world of the living, wandering the earth as nothing but shadows of their former self. That was the reason why the being grew weaker and weaker until it stranded outside of its realm in a last attempt to gather their souls. Believing the being the woman agreed to help and lent it some of her strength, offering to aid it on its quest. The being declined her offer, for the aid she gave it was already enough for it to grow. They then parted ways, never to see each other again. But the woman soon began to realize that her decision had cost her much more than a small amount of strength.
On the last pages of her notebook she wrote:
“Something’s not right. It may be a coincidence but ever since I came across this being my body began to grow cold. Slowly spreading, freezing my mind. I fear that if I won’t find something to thaw that ice within, I will rigidify entirely. I am trying my best to find a solution but it is too difficult to work with a numb mind. It starts to overtake me and spread into the rest of my body.
It began with my ears. I’ve started to overhear what the wind is whispering to them.
Then my eyes. I have stopped to see the magic around me, all its beauty.
After that, my hands. I have lost touch of reality, of fiction.
I fear my legs and feet will follow.
The energy of my body will flee to the ground until I won’t be able to move at all.
And finally, after holding it off for so long, the burning core of my very being will weaken. The air will be sucked out of my chest. Once I’ve crossed this point it will be too late. That little gleaming light left within will be vulnerable to the cold and eventually die.
I will cease to exist.
My only hope are small flickering lights, flames in colours of blue, green or red. There are countless tales and stories about them, each painting a different picture. Some say they are the souls of the dead, malicious people who are damned to wander this world for all eternity. Others tell tales of poor souls who were murdered or drowned in the marshes and can't come to rest. A few, however, speak about stillborn children. Or about evil spirits who lure you off your path and into your death. I, on the other hand, was taught they are the souls of those whose heart went cold and dark and eventually got stuck in the veil between the living and the dead.
No matter which version you refer to, in the end they are poor unfortunate souls, stuck between the realities, cursed to walk this earth and jump back and forth through the veil. Flames frozen in time, appearing and vanishing. Hurting and helping. Not many people encountered those flickering remains of what was once human. And those who did were either lucky or faced a horrible end.
I will try to seek them out. For they are the only ones left who can give me answers and possibly help me avert my fate.”
With that the pages end. Scholars believe this was not her only diary but no one ever found another.
That fierce woman has never been seen again, going down in the tales as one of the strongest warriors and greatest scholars of her time.
But hers is a story for another day.