Work Text:
Riannoc had failed.
Alone he lay, the ranks of undead stumbling towards him. He thought, through the haze of pain, that he should perhaps be proud of how many he had vanquished. How many risen corpses he had slain and left to rot in the dark waters of the swamp. How many he had prevented from rising again to plague the good and innocent of Tyria.
But he could not be proud. Instead as the pain slowly turned to numbness, and the foul creatures tore at his body, he could think only of his failures. As the lich himself approached, the air around him thick with a scent of decay, he could not stop his tears.
He had failed to inspire Waine. To keep his young squire at his side, to motivate him to do what was right, what was good. The boy who he had trained to wield the sword at his side, to have the courage to stand with him at the darkest of moments, had fled. Perhaps he had been too young, too cowardly, too weighed down by his fears.
But it did not change the facts. Riannoc had failed him.
He had failed the Pale Tree. His gracious Mother, the one who had entrusted him with her thorn. She had placed her faith in his abilities, in his spirit, in his strength. Yet he had fallen. Mazdak would live, Caladbolg was lost, and he would never see her anymore.
Riannoc had failed her.
He had failed his brothers and sisters, his fellow sylvari. They had believed in him, had supported and trained alongside him. They had embraced him in his times of need, and he had embraced them in turn, and they had also entrusted him with this task, to help cleanse the world of Zhaitan’s evils.
Riannoc had failed them all.
He had failed his beloved. Never again would he be at Trahearne’s side, to hold him when thoughts and memories of Orr would threaten to overwhelm him. To dry his tears, to laugh beside him, to dance and to hold and to make love to him. He would never return to fulfil his promise, to present to him that beautiful bloom. To prove that he would not perish while his love for the other drove him.
Riannoc had failed his love.
And he had failed the Dream itself. He had been called to this task, this Wyld Hunt. His purpose had been to slay the lich, to halt Mazdak’s evils and to spread the bright light of the Dream out even to these dark parts of the land, where risen thrived and revealed. It had been his calling.
But now he had failed it.
As the monstrous lich himself hovered above him, Riannoc closed his eyes. Tears were heavy on his cheeks, the only sensation he could feel aside from an all-encompassing numbness and a deep sorrow within his heart. As his life flooded from his body, and all the foulness of the risen and the swamp covered his form, he could only weep.
Weep and beg forgiveness for his failure.