"Child of mine, someday you will die,

But I'll be close behind. I'll follow you into the dark.

The time for sleep is now.

We'll hold each other soon, in the

Blackest of rooms…"

Light as the autumn rain were his tentative footsteps, numb over the quiet forest ground, carrying him further toward final travesty. No more urgent calls came from the trees, no more the worried plea of the leaves, but rather a quiet stillness, where no sound could stay comfortably. Only the eternal blanket of the rain yet spoke, but said nothing, and Orpheus sensed from it a solemn hopeless finality. Too late, was the whisper. You are too late, dear child of the wood.

The call was heard mechanically and absent from his mind, as it was focused, like his glassy sea-foam eyes, solely on Raylin. She lay centered in the glen, centered of the world, of his every anguished heartbeat. Her body was callously strewn over the ground—testament to her rough treatment. Covered in blood and beauty, his cosain as a swordbitten maiden lay unearthly still under her moonless night, lost in a great lightless void. And Orpheus knew—he simply knew: it was a void no living soul could reach.

His steps halted; his strength faltered. He staggered, fell, dropping to his knees and the bloodstained leaf litter. His beautiful hands trembling, he reached for her, dreading to feel the ice of hopeless end. Hesitating, Orpheus stared down at the unearthly vessel, marvelous blue-green eyes hollow in his angular face, too frozen to reflect anything from out the torrent in his soul.

Too late, gentle nymph. We mourn with you.

Thawed somewhat upon hearing the voice of the forest, Orpheus was able to touch her. She was cold. He didn't recoil, but slid an arm underneath her shoulders and pulled her into his shielding embrace. And as he did, her head tilted back, so that he could see with awful clarity her face turn towards him. The sight was enough to break through his icy numbness. Tears erupted like a bursting dam and burned along the olive-brown skin of his cheeks. Her eyes were open. Her eyes, her brilliant golden-red amber jewels, whose light could rival the fires of the sun, were open. Glossed-over. Extinguished.

"Raylin…" His crystal-bell voice had been cracked under grief's crushing hammer. He reached down, brushing aside strands of golden hair, which had been tainted by blood and stuck her to face.

His slender fingers gently pulled her eyelids closed. "You are sleeping," he announced. He shook his head with a grimace of agony, trembling as anguish racked his body. "My cosain, you must awake…"

It was his only charge. To protect her, to watch for her, to swear his life before her own. He had failed her, failed the dílse and the dwarves, and committed a tainted sin upon all of Faerun. He had allowed such a light as the heavens envied to be extinguished from the world. Would that he could take her place, as it should be. She was supposed to outlive him. Lights were meant to shine.

She is come away. You must release her.

Orpheus clutched at his head, tearing at the wild sycamore leaves that grew naturally along with his pale brown hair. His slender fingers knotted into angry fists. "She is sleeping!" he argued fiercely. "Wake, cosain! Raylin! You…you must wake…" Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that this was vain. Vain and destructive. Never in his life had he felt anger toward the wood. Never in his 233 years. He didn't…seem to care.

Orpheus was changed. He was far removed from nymph—far from being a child of the wood. He could no more deny it, nor hope for better. For anything.

"I…I am sorry." He choked on the words, struggling to take in a full breath. Sorry couldn't even begin to amend anything. But though they could fix nothing, they were true words. Sorry to Raylin. To her father, and the Battlehammers, and the dwarven king. To the forest. Sorry to the world. Orpheus pulled her closer, burying his face in her shoulder. Her head fell limply backward, closed eyes toward the sky. The rain fell gently on her face, like she'd always loved so much…but she couldn't feel it now. It was heartless irony.

Orpheus could hold his strength no longer. He collapsed into the tears, racked with uncontrolled sobs as he clung to her broken body. "Please, Raylin," he whispered brokenly. His tears fell onto her frozen face, cutting clean streaks through the blood and dirt. "I—I cannot protect you from this!"

As he knelt with Raylin's body, consumed with his sorrow, another appeared behind. Cedric burst into the clearing. He saw nothing of circumstance, nothing of reason; he had only eyes for his daughter. His breath was blasted away in a wave of frigid horror. Impossible…it was impossible. Cedric's one working eye locked on his daughter's upturned face. His child…his only child, his shining Ray…

Here it was before his sight…but it was impossible.

As if for the first time, Cedric saw Orpheus. The nymphs back was turned as he held his dead daughter. But the fallen guardian's sorrow did not touch Cedric. This man—this weakling fairy creature—had been charged to protect her. It was his highest duty to preserve her life. Yet here she lay, bleeding red rivers, lost to the world of light and life.

Cedric's calloused fists curled into shaking fists at his sides. He'd known. He'd known from the beginning that tragedy was the only end. And this Orpheus—curse his foreign name!—pledged a solemn vow to protect her life with his very own. The nymph had sworn, upon his life. What father would send his child to war? But Raylin had pleaded with him—she needed to go, she said. She threatened to sneak way without his permission. So had Cedric allowed his daughter to become a cosain.

To this horrible end. Trust he had given this man, a foolish thing to do, and foolish to listen to Raylin, who was but an unlearned child. She was just a child! A life only just beginning! She didn't know…how could she have known? She'd done nothing to deserve this massacre. It wasn't her fault. But Orpheus—he was supposed to protect her. Upon his very life he'd sworn to protect her. They'd had an agreement...

That agreement was broken. Upon his life.

Cedric's hand moved to the sword sheathed at his side. Eyes burning tears, he drew that blade and stalked forward.

Rise, child. You are threatened.

Child. She still called him that?

Orpheus didn't move, didn't show any signs that he heard at all. Instead, he did the strangest thing—raised his melodic voice in song. "The moon is full, but wolves below are…quiet in the fold…" It was a song of the dílse. Just three days ago, Raylin had overheard him singing it to himself, and had immediately insisted he teach it to her. He planned to, but… never got around to it…

Cedric gave no care for the nymph's sudden voice. It is the right of a dying man, if he so chose, to die with a song on his lips. Cedric took another step forward.

Rise; he comes from behind. Defend yourself.

"The forest sighs her lullabies, and…stories are not told." He supposed it didn't matter that he hadn't taught it to her. He'd meant to, after all, and the thought counted.

Moving deathly quiet, the rain streaming down his scarred and grizzled face, Cedric raised his sword. Orpheus paused in the song. He didn't have time for the first verse. He'd need to skip to the chorus; Raylin loved it best. "Broken brothers scatter to the wind. Token lovers are delusion kin."

Standing directly behind him, Cedric paused, sword held at the ready. He could do it, at any moment easily, but he stayed his hand. Raylin would want to hear the end of the song.

Orpheus's beautiful voice wavered and stopped for just a moment. He took in a shaky breath, raising his head to the sky as he closed his pale blue eyes. Raindrops caressed his face. Again he heard the call of the forest: You must live, nymph. She is lost, but you are not. Rise!

Orpheus continued the song. "Let us be…more than dream…"

Cedric's eyes gleamed as did the metal of his sword. He gripped the hilt, drawing back his arm. He pointed the sword's tip at the nymph's back, right about where his left lung would be.

"Let us stand…"

Rise, seed of the wood!

Orpheus opened his eyes, drinking in the sight of the clouded sky. He took in a deep breath, savoring the sweet taste of forest air. It was the final breath he would ever take, and Orpheus spent it on the last word of the song. Though quiet, though solemn, it was the clearest, most beautiful note he ever sung in his two centuries of life. "Loyalty."

Cedric's arm sliced forward.

His body jerked violently as the sword plunged straight through, bursting cleanly out his chest. There was pain—pure and burning agony. Cedric's sword was removed just as quickly as it had entered. He straightened up, staring down at the nymph's shuddering body as a blacksmith looks at a newly forged blade. As a stoneworker inspects his freshly laid sidewalk. As a worker views a job complete.

Orpheus fell, but didn't even feel the impact with the ground. His eyes now stared across the sodden forest floor, falling on Raylin's vacant, beautiful face. Done. His charge was done—and, at the same time, ongoing. He would be there with her, floating out in the ultimate sea, the end of decadence and the goal of this ever-progressing decay all beings called living. He would be by her side, where he ever swore to be. Always.

Orpheus closed his eyes. The forest's grief was silent to his ears.

Cedric stood for a short moment, staring vacantly at the gruesome pair. Wordlessly, the old man stepped over the nymph's body and kneeled over that of his daughter. He gently reached around her neck, unclasping the chain that held her jeweled cúram. Then he stood, stepped over both bodies again, and simply walked out of the clearing. He didn't allow himself to look back.

The empty glen resounded with the song of rain. Never again to move, Raylin and Orpheus lay side-by-side, the fallen guardian's arm protectively wrapped around his fallen cosain's shoulders.

Too late…too late...

Lyric heading: "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie