Serpentis Family/Erik Eyolf/Welcome Home
"I cannot remember. Csopa. Caqueta. Predera. I feel the sand in my throat. Stuck in my body, soaked with my blood. My armor is in pieces. My sword. I feel my sword. I have my sword in my hand. I died with my sword....... I'm dead. Where am I? Where are the Great Halls? My old enemies waiting for me to challenge my sword!? Those that I killed in battle. Where's my Lord? My brother. I saved him. Where I am? I need to go..."
Sleep don't visit, so I choke on sun
And the days blur into one
And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done...
His body had been cremated years ago in Parm. Just a piece of flesh of what he had been. Karl stood up on the dead battlefield. Under a scorching sun and the sand all around. Flies and maggots devouring the carcasses of those who were warriors one day. Unfortunates who had died without the sword or without the proper rites. Karl should not be there. His mind was a violent whirl of shattered burning memories. His last moments defending Erik against the arrows and scimitars. The Stormwalkers dying around him. This was worse than any nightmare. He was arrested and cursed to walk between the worlds. The shadow, the light and the shroud. He was awakened and he answered the call he couldn't hear.
Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline
Like a row of captured ghosts over old dead grass
Was never much but we made the most...
Ships are launching from my chest
Some have names but most do not
If you find one, please let me know what piece I've lost...
She was looking at the yard outside her window. A widow expecting her husband who will never return. Whining and waiting. Sometimes angry she wondered if the damn elf felt the same pain. One was alive and one dead.
Karl marched until the frontiers he never imagined before. Leaving behind the sand and a scorching sun. He entered into a silent evening. Karl saw a dark blurry world. He couldn't interact with that world. He could only feel and resist being pulled by forces greater than himself. Karl realized that he was in Parm. People passed like shadows into the foggy streets around him. There was a square and a large statue. Into the darkness he saw an aura of intense silver light. He could hear the whispers of a strange language. A prayer. There was an inscription.
Karl felt his armor down in front of him. He left his sword at the imposing statue. He looked at his brother one last time and entered the darkest night. Through the tenebrous branches he could see sparse stars. He rushed and stormed the grove. Slimbar. The city inside the forest. He could see the moon. He could see his house. His wife behind a window. Karl left the fury flows within him. He crossed the worlds tearing the shroud that kept him away. He was there again.
Heal the scars from off my back
I don't need them anymore
You can throw them out or keep them in your mason jars
I've come home
He crossed the stone walls and iron gates. The garden, the square with a small fountain and finally the doors. Home. A hug. Desperately tight. Warm. The warmer than a ghost could feel.
Karl: "All my nightmares escaped my head. Bar the door, please don't let them in!"
Wife: "You were never supposed to leave. Now my head's splitting at the seams. And I don't know if I can..."
Karl embraced his wife. He felt her so warm she could melt the cold in his soul. He felt her lips and the life within. The dead hero guided her hand.
Karl: "Here, beneath my lungs, I feel your thumbs press into my skin again..."
Wife: "Welcome home!"
And that night the Dark Mother returned one of his favorite ones back to Elune. After years, Karl awoke from his sleep. He certainly fought in the Great Halls and drank more wine and beer than he could remember. But in the end he was called. From the depths to the light. And with his wife, in a place that was no longer Slimbar, they walked by an effusively and beautiful garden into the stars.
They rested in peace.
