This Place Is Getting To You
Winski and Jelena walked ahead, like they had for a while now.
When they asked for instructions, most people just shrugged and said that they didn't know, or care for that matter. However, a few of them had apparently spent a little less time at this hopeless layer of the hopeless plane, and had instructed them in the right direction.
Also, a few ice trolls had attacked them. Jelena had been able to take them down with her clerical abilities, using poisons she had prepared in beforehand. But Winski suffered greatly thinking how useful he could have been if only he had his magic intact.
A trigger filled with flame arrows... and the nasty, regenerating creatures would never have been able to cause them such trouble. Now Jelena had had to prepare poisons for a long time, and it made her unhappy, as she rather would have prepared medicine for healing suffering people, as was usual for the servants of Ilmater.
The longer they walked the more desperate Winski started to feel. He just stared ahead, not talking to Jelena, who was shooting worried glances at him but so far opting not to bring the thing up.
What use is it to go through all this? Why make Jelena suffer and hope, to be away from the new purposeful afterlife she so likes and deserves? Winski's life had gone the wrong way from the very beginning, and it surely was too late now. He would never feel the kind of assertion and hope Ilmater would expect from him if he was to hope to get his magic back and be Jelena's companion. His chest was shrinking and crushing, just like it had when he had realized he had been unable to stop Reiltar from making Sarevok twisted and shattered, full of pain and consuming rage.
The quiet, forlorn pair stopped for a break, the humid, depressing air and blinding grayness suffocating them. Jelena spoke.
- "Winski. Please talk to me. I can tell that you are not well."
- "Jelena, my love. This is not taking us anywhere. I hate to disappoint you, but you are putting your hopes and efforts into a broken, hollow man who has no soul left. I was never any good. I don't know if I ever could have been, if the raw material wasn't flawed to begin with. You are seeking to make me moral and repentant of the wrongness I have done. Repentant I can be, but there is nothing good in me. You could as well try to grow an apple tree in hostile, poisoned soil. You will be better off if you just leave and forget about me. I am no more than one shadow of this place, and can hope nothing more than eventually forgetting so that my consciousness will be no more than passing, desperate gust of hostile wind." His eyes were dark with pain and the weight of the dark stony hand he felt crushing his chest.
Jelena's eyes filled with worry, love and resolve.
- "Winski. Listen. This place is getting to you. It works exactly as it is supposed to. It eats away your hope and your sense of ideals... your hope of a better future. You were doing so well... but then, this truly is the place of punishment and redemption. This is where it really is hard. I will never, ever leave you. You hear me? Not even if Lord Ilmater told me to, but he wouldn't. He is not a sadist. Come to me."
Winski did, pressing himself against Jelena. She embraced him hard, almost violently, holding and not letting go.
- "Feel it," Jelena murmured. "Feel the love and hope I feel. Let it flow into you."
Winski physically felt warmth flowing into his numb, aching body. The crushing of his breast started to ease, his breathing easier.
- "You had your share of hopelessness," Jelena continued. "In a way, hopelessness is a sin, but it is also something you have always lived with. We will make love now."
- "Now? Here? It is kind of cold and soggy."
- "Nevertheless. Making love is an act of hope and love and pleasure. We will do it so that my back is against the cold ground, anyway," she smirked.
- "I... I do feel the urge."
- "I know. I am praying to my Lord all the time. We will beat this. I will give you the strength to go on."
She wrapped her legs around Winski, causing them both to fall onto the ground.
- "Jelena... am I really worth this?"
- "Winski... the day you start believing it you have taken a great step."
