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Kali could still feel their blood on its hand. In some ways, it found the whole situation ironic, in some twisted way. Beren was the one who taught them to be comfortable with hands stained red, the one who introduced Kali, not that it was Kali then, to the world of violence. The one who intertwined every fibre of Kali’s being, every artery, vein, and muscle, with the concept of death.
It was only natural that the very same world would rip Beren away from it. Kali scrubbed at its hands, leaning deeper into the stream to try remove the unending stain.
The water itself seemed to be running red.
Kali’s eyes burnt, a firey orange that wanted to scorch every trace of loss or companionship away. It was to be alone. That much was clear.
Beren’s grave taunted it, the deep rumble of their laughter still present in its ear as if they had not died more than a month ago. The hazelnut brown of Kali’s skin, brown like the trees it was meant to draw comfort in, but never had, was rubbed raw. They were still scarlet.
Eventually, it returned to the town, as it had every other day since that most fateful one, since they fled the city where Beren would spend the rest of eternity. It crept into the hotel room won by a charming smile, and some sleight of hands in cards, and lay there.
Every night, it heard their voice.
“I’m here.”
Every night, it refused to cry.
“Please.”
Every day, it washed its hands clean. As if through enough scrubbing the very permanence of death could be undone.
It took another month before their money ran out. Before what Beren left was gone, so easily forgotten if not for the tattoo of blood that covered the white markings upon Kali’s skin.
Kali moved. Kali embraced Kali, the name that itself invoked misfortune and fate. And created the Priestess.
The con worked. Kali stopped hearing Beren’s voice. The blood faded, a ghost of a stain, no longer vibrant.
In the fourth town that it visited alone, visited as a voice of Beshaba, a Priest reached out to it. And he called it the name that only Beren used. “Valandia.”
On instinct, Kali pulled its knife, pressing it into the Holy Man’s throat until he stammered out his own explanation, “A ghost communes with us.”
Kali scoffed, but the red on its palms forced it to follow the man, a stout dwarf with a woven russet beard.
He did not ask for Kali’s money, and nor did any of the other Priests or worshippers in the small temple, which suggested that they were not con artists, unlike the elf in their midst.
Still, Kali kept its guard up, as it walked deeper into the building.
Eventually, they sat down in a small room, Kali uncomfortably large on a stool for dwarves, despite its own stature being short for that of an elf. The Priest shared none of its concerns, and was instead seated on a crimson tripod.
Without speaking, he took a drink from a bowl beside him, and gestured for Kali to do the same.
It stared at the vessel, filled with a rich, almost black, liquid, before meeting eyes with the Priest once more. He merely nodded towards the bowl.
Despite all of its instincts screaming to not, Kali drank. The Priest had took his own sip, suggesting a lack of poisons, and it did not care too much either way.
The liquid was thick and viscous, with a metallic tang that made Kali want to retch. Still, once it drank, it placed the vessel back to where it had rested, and resumed sitting.
The Priest inhaled, and Kali found itself mimicking his movements, closing its eyes in a copy of the man opposite.
It heard a shuffle, the sound of movement, and its eyes snapped open, scanning the room. The Priest remained seated, but his cloak had been rearranged, and he had opened his eyes, wide, green, and staring.
Kali followed his gaze, and then immediately dropped its eyes to stare at its hands. They were covered in the same crimson as the Priest's chair, a liquid than ran in rivulets down its arms.
Beren stood, just a step behind Kali’s stool. Their orange skin bore no traces of the scarlet that was all Kali could see. Their eyes were soft, softer than they had ever been in life, and Kali couldn’t bear to look.
Beren, or the apparition of them, opened their mouth, “Val-“
Before they could even finish the word, the utterance of Kali’s old name, it leapt to its feet, usually graceful movements unsteady, causing the black liquid to slosh onto the floor, seeping into the carpet like the blood on Kali’s hands.
It ran.