Ddaear (Gaming)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Sunday, January 29, 2017, 16:43 (2855 days ago) @ Ragashingo

This was the first of a couple of side stories that picked up on a small bit of Sparks' conversations about her past with the other characters and expanded and fleshed out a sentence or two of conversation into a full scene. Here, we have Sparks and her mother exploring the forest in which they live after a powerful storm had passed through. The bit of text that inspired this story was Sparks mentioning that she had a dead body before and was thus able to deal with seeing on several years later during the time the main story took place.

Ddaear

The storm had come and stayed and stayed and finally gone, but had left so much changed. To Mkali Moto Kipande Njia’yawzai's young eyes, each new downed tree, flooded lowland, and reshaped hill was an adventure that called, no demanded, to be explored. The eleven child, appearing no more than eleven or twelve human years of age, seemed only to know how to laugh and run as she carved a curving path from her parents' small, sturdy home. Trailing far behind, the child's long haired mother walked slowly, her steps somehow regal, her face calm but for an occasional smile at the antics of her offspring, as she too surveyed the damage the swirling winds had done during the long dark day and even darker night.

The scene proceeded as such for over an hour with few words spoken between mother and child, excepting when Mkali Moto Kipande would come running back with some curiosity in hand, eager to show it off and win some small amount of praise or rebuke from her parent.
Then came the odd stillness.

"Where have you gone, my child?" U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele Malaika Njia’yawazi, called to the surrounding woods when the sounds of quickly moving feet and awed giggles did not soon resume.

"Mother, it is awful..." came her child's reply so very soft and sad.
For the first time in their morning outing, U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele Malaika picked up her pace. Her regal, serene walk gave way to speedier movement far too elegant to be termed a mere run or dash. The worried parent soon slowed once more as she caught sight of her grief stricken child kneeling and crying on the now smooth, washed out slope of what had the day before been a notable hillside. Beyond her crouched form, bones and still decomposing flesh half emerged from the soft soaked soil.
U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele's right hand moved to cover her mouth as her child turned and looked up to her with eyes made large and glistening by fear and despair.

"It is Ddaear," Mkali Moto Kipande informed her mother before she brought her own hand, shaking as it was with grief, up to her face forming a miniature mirror image of her mother.

U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele knew the name well, better even than her daughter though the gnomish boy had been one of her child's closest friends. She had counseled the Dymestl-aeron family to allow her to attempt to heal their sickened eldest son, but very little could be done to dissuade gnomes of their traditions once their minds had been made. Ddaear had passed not two months before and both elven mother and daughter had attended his burial just weeks earlier.

"Do you remember, my only and dearest child, what you asked me the day he was laid to his final rest?" U'tulivu Nyeupe-nywele questioned gently as she moved closer.

The tiniest shake of a head was the only reply she received.

"You asked why we buried our departed. This is why,” the mother told her daughter. “Because the body rots once the soul has moved on. We respect the life that was but place the body out of sight so we can remember our friends as they were, not as their empty shells become.”

For a long while Mkali Moto Kipande sat and considered her mother’s words. Eventually her gaze returned to the remains of her friend only to be soon turned away once more by her mother’s gentle hand.

“I miss him,” she told her mother.

“I know. But it is not right for us to look upon him as he now is. Instead, we shall take a trip to Dymestl-aeron's and inform them of what has happened.”

Now, daughter and mother journeyed side by side, small fingers gripping tight to offered hand, in saddened silence.