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She had not known him as a tiefling. She had known him as decay, as a chance, as the mingling of mushroom and muscle and sinew and spruce, under dirt and tree where he belonged, where he was meant to stay . She had put flowers in him, seeds which would have carried his ink and his skin to the surface, lavender and emerald and poppy for eternity. His friends would have returned, year after year, to see his colours in the field, in the trees, and in the skies, if they arrived at the right time of day. He would have ebbed and flowed like the ocean, like the seasons eternal.
But It took him, like a too-young seedling, crying out as harsh hands forced him into harsher pots, pulling and prodding until Mollymauk Tealeaf was something else, something that made Her leaves stand on end and set Her cleric's shoulders firm. She did not like what It had made him, no more colours and kindness and contentment. What he had become was angry, sharp and aggressive, a badly wielded scythe amongst the field She had planned for him. How cruel to deny a dead man his blooms, especially ones so kindly placed among his bones.
She had not known him as a tiefling, and did not yet know him still. The aberration stands too tall to squint back into mortality, growing and shifting and screeching and terrible. The newcomer snarls behind borrowed weasel teeth when the city denies him the chance to aid. The newcomer howls when the blue one falls. The newcomer spits and snarls until Her cleric comes to her aid.
She waits.
Her cleric falls. She flinches, but waits. Her cleric rises. She waits. The little blue one - they call her sapphire but She calls her forget-me-not, because isn't that why they're here, because no Nein left behind? - screams the killing blow. Perhaps Her desire to protect those who have always needed protecting is rubbing off on Her followers, Her cleric, who stares down the end of the world for the lavender spark trapped in warped ribcages and snide remarks. She can see the little light, bursting whenever his name is called, an undeath like no other. Her spine itches with the desire to free the light Herself, crack open rib and tear at flesh to pull the little seedling free. The little light swells, filling the arms, and She blinks as the light rends himself apart. Perhaps he heard Her, but She is not his to hear. Not yet, at least.
She had not known him as a tiefling, and when the diamond fails to hold onto what's left She thinks the chance lost, the soft light of life failing to hold on to the cracked body. The hooded, raven-skulled figure stands in the corner, one hand gently cupped to catch what remains of the little light, the other hand grasping firmly around a furious flash of something terrible and aberrant and somnovum. She does not meet the eyes of the hooded figure. She does not deserve it. Her cleric looks over his shoulder, as if he can see her there, watching, waiting. The Nein weep, the Stormlord’s angel red with grief and gore, the moon elf’s fury sparking like lightning. The newcomer presses his forehead to the shoulderblades of the forget-me-not, too-long hands curled around newly-healed wounds. She looks back at Her cleric. He looks at his hands, looks up. The words sit on his lips like the sacrament, the inhale shaky and the exhale desperate.
“Please."
She steps between the soft lavender light and the one waiting for it, scooping it like a fallen baby bird from the nest, and walks it back to the flower field body among decaying flesh. It is warm in Her hands, freshly laid goose egg and Eternal Flame and Erathis looking at her, curling around the divots in Her hands and among Her leaves. She kneels over the body, and lets it fall. It flows like smoke, like water, like sap onto the corpse and into the bones.
try again, little one .
She weaves a lattice of vine, forget-me-not and lavender and things Her paladin will remember, and pulls up against the chest, making room for the soul to find purchase. Her work wraps around the ribs, the forearms, the horns, filling in the missing muscle and missing muscle memory. How to walk, how to talk. She does not need to remind him how to love.
There is a moment of tension for the mortals, held breaths and whispered prayers to the gods who are not present, though She does not mind. She watches every inch of skin bloom with another chance, his colours more vibrant, his breaths heady, the twitch in his fingers and the curl of his toes. The exhale becomes a sob becomes a cheer as the tiefling sits up, then runs, so full of life that it must be expended at once. The hooded figure nods, just once, smoke and ash between one breath and the next, gone too quick to say anything, to apologise. She wishes She could have saved him too.
She does not linger on that thought. She is far too delighted to know Molly as a tiefling.