Whitemane was resting softly in her own private chambers within the halls of the Scarlet Monastery. The hallowed halls with their massive pillars of stone that she called home once again surrounded her. Yet they felt different, empty. Fairbanks was gone. Her master was dead, and the void where he had once been was there.
No longer did the soft and wise words of wisdom that came forth from his mouth fill the halls with his older voice, or his firm hand of guidance rest upon Whitemane's shoulders. Gone were the soft and loving hugs he bestowed upon her. In their place a simple plaque was now bolted onto the wall of the chamber where Whitemane now made her home.
She looked up at the plaque as she rested, her back lying upon the stone cold floor lined with soft pillows of silk and shelves of books, all of them too advanced for her to read. She was the High Inquisitor now. It was all she wanted; to be the leader of those who fought against those who had taken those lands that belonged to mankind. Yet now, it felt so lonely. Now… All she wanted was Fairbanks back. Fairbanks…
Her eyes became lined with the silvery sheen of a tear as her thoughts tried to leave her master. But it was impossible. Lining the room which now belonged to her were rows of flowers, each possessing a tag around the steams of the flowers with heartbreaking letters of fairwell for the beloved priest. A black shawl and specially designed black outfit, identical to her normal dress aside from the color, hung in a nearby closet, swaying back and forth softly as soft breezes flowed through the room. Resting upon her belly, clenched between her fingers, was a letter. The seal from the High Crusader had been torn through not with the grace and ease of a letter opener, but cut hastily with a anxious fingernail. Inside it acknowledged the death of the man who had been Whitemane's mentor, a hastily scrawled apology and explanation that Fairbanks had been lost when a feral ghoul tackled him down into the sewers to his demise, and a paragraph later informed Sally that she was to step up to take the role of High Inquisitor.
When she had received the letter, she had still been recovering in the infirmary from when the High Inquisitor had carried her back to the army. That had been three weeks ago. The letter still remained, now tattered and crumpled in her hands. She was too tough a woman to cry herself to sleep, but for the first time in her life she wished she could do so.
Outside, the evening sun slid behind the curve of the earth, it's reddened light cutting into the room through a open window. The soft howl of the nightly winds blew in, causing the priestess to take her first, and likely only, action of that day. She stood up, her legs uneven and her steps lopsided as she made her way to the window in her room. For a moment, she looked out over the walls of the monastery. The setting sun caught it's rays in her eyes, filling the stopped tears with it's ruby light and causing her eyes to seem to shimmer as if lined with blood. She looked into the edge of the disk of silver that now slid beyond the limits of her vision, almost as if questioning the light cast from its body.
She reached out to grab the black iron knob that functioned as the handle to her window and started to pull it shut, sliding it in and over the heavy stone and closing herself off to the outside world once again. Then, with uneven step, she walked over to a bed wedged away in the curve of the room and flopped down onto the mattress, her head buried in the pillow as she did her best to forget just long enough to pass through the night.
The room around her grew dark with the night sky, illuminated only softly by the glow of the stars and moon above. The noise outside of the crickets chirping away through the stillness of the night masked the sound of the window she had closed being pried open by determined hands. Only the soft noise of a breathless drop down from the windowsill rose above the ambience of the night. Not enough to stir Whitemane from her remorse.
A soft finger sliding across the small curve of her lower back was the first sign she was not alone. A moment later, a firm hand rested upon her shoulder, gripping it softly. Whitemane's body went taught, the very hairs on her skin and head standing rigidly on end as she realized she was not alone in her own chambers. Her head lifted up from the pillow, uninhibited by the stranger. She slowly turned about, rising up to look at the intruder.
She could not make out his features well in the dark, but she did not need too. She could see the outline of the man, highlighted against the stars. The soft and firm build of his body and the sheen of the starlight glinting off the bald spot of his head and illuminating the dark hair that hand not yet fallen out. That, combined with the manner of just how he had touched her, how he had rested his hand on her shoulder, told her all she needed to know. Her face light up as she pitched herself forwards, embracing the man in a massive tackle-hug as she screamed out his name in joy!
"FAIRBANKS! YOU'RE ALIVE!" she exclaimed as loudly as she could, a wide smile covering her face as she tackled the man firmly to the ground. She happily rubbed her cheek against the mans chest as her cheeks turned a soft pink.
"They told me you were dead! They told me a ghoul tackled you down into the sewers! They tol-"
Then the truth slammed into Whitemane like a ton of bricks. A heavy stench had entered into the room, the stench of foul sewer water and death. Fairbank's body was not dry or cleaned, but rather covered from head to toe in the foul-smelling concoction that had brewed down under the city of Stratholme. His skin no longer felt alive, but instead was waxy to the touch and starting to rot through in places. Worst and most definitive of all, no heat came from his body.
Yet the man still moved. Whitemane could feel the muscle still contracting and stretching in places as Fairbanks slowly sat upright. As his face slid into the light of a moonbeam, it reflected a clouded over, dead eye instead of the bright eye of life. Almost as fast as she had become overjoyed, the blood drained from her face once again. Fairbanks was not back. Not back at all.
"Sally…" whispered the corpse of her mentor, his dead eyes looking with a lifeless stare into her own. "I've come back Sally… Back. But not from the dead. I'm sorry… I… I tried my best, Sally."
Whitemane bolted upright, shoving her monster of a mentor back down to the ground as a repulsed and revolted look replaced the one of joy and shock. Her hands glowed in the soft light of the divine as Fairbanks was pushed to the ground.
"You are a foul being of death and damnation!" she hissed, her teeth gritted in rage at the mockery of what had once been her teacher. "You're nothing more then a foul mockery of a man I once called teacher! A great man! A honest, pure, clean man! A better person then anyone I know, even myself!" she screamed. Hot tears streaked down her cheeks, staining them with their dampness as Whitemane's eyes closed shut, too infuriated at the monster to even look at him! "And what have you done? You've become something that… That I cannot even describe! A monster! A demon! A eater of children and devourer of all that is good! May the light damn your soul to the deepest reaches of Hell!"
She opened her eyes to look at the man as her hands glowed with a white hot blaze of holy power that illuminated the room with it's golden light. Through tear-blurred eyes, she could see the abomination before her. He was sitting, her head turned down to the ground in shame as he bowed before her wrath. He could not cry. Being undead prevented the shedding of tears. But it took no need for interpitation of what he was doing. She looked down at him, at her master, intending to smite him down to the ground with her fury.
"I'm sorry Sally… I'm so sorry for failing you… Go a head, burn me in a Holy Blaze… I forgive you."
She intended to do just so. She could not let this man live. He was an abomination, a mockery, a fraud… He was… He was… Fairbanks.
The light in the room dimmed as Whitemane fell to her knees, her hand reaching out to his cheek, still aglow with the divine light. She touched it softly, her face covered in emotions she didn't know how to express or name.
"You don't deserve to live! You don't! You don't!"
Her hand slid across his neck, brushing into the marks where her hand had grasped his neck and drowned him.
"You're undead! All undead are enemies of the light! You don't deserve to live! You deserve to be judged by the light and destroyed!" she said, her sobs clouding her voice. At last, the light in her hand faded as her head came forwards to rest against Fairbank's forehead.
"The light has spoken." She said in a weak voice, laced with the soft sound of her crying. After a while, what seemed and felt to be a hour, she stood up. She couldn't abandon him. He was her master. He was her friend. He was Fairbanks.
She grabbed his clammy hand with her own and pulled him upright to his feet. She quickly pulled him along over to the bookshelves and quickly pried one forwards just enough for Fairbanks to hide behind.
"Hide here for now. Don't worry. I will protect you and keep you safe! Tomorrow, I will order a addition to be built onto the side of one of the chapels and I'll hide it so that you can stay there." She said as she pushed him behind the shelving. When he was behind the shelf, Whitemane quickly ran around to the front side and pushed it back, evening it out so it wouldn't be noticed before she slumped to the floor, looking to the heavens. She felt lighthearted, as if she was somehow down a path to redemption.
"I will make sure this undeath… This plague… This Scourge is defeated!"
"And anyone who stands in your way. Anyone at all, is someone who wants that plague to persist. Someone who wants it to remain. Someone who wants it to last forever and plunge the world into the peril of the Scourge."
This marks the end of the original, core, story. I plan to continue and expand upon this post though and, hopefully, will have a new segment up next week!
