A Thousand Stars

Part 7 of A Hellrider’s Fond Musings

[Author’s Note: Thank you to EurydiaArt for allowing me to use your piece, most especially its flowers, as inspiration. You can find the tweet containing their stunning Zevlor art here ]

Where was I when last we spoke…

Ah, yes. That sweet first taste of a lover’s lips as we stood in the home we were building together.

Do you know it took me years for that thought to truly settle into my thick skull? That we could be lovers? Years. I would be ashamed of that fact were the years not so beautiful. We spent those years sleeping side by side when we were home together, curled around one another for comfort and contentment. One morning early on she woke me from a dead sleep as she put these silly mitten-like creations on the sharp tips of my horns. They were lined with thick leather like that of a blacksmith’s gloves but covered over with yarn of various shades of red she’d crocheted together herself. They were not made to be the most beautiful things, but I will say they were functional.

And yes, they were the precursors to the array of finer made ones I have now. It would have devastated me to have harmed her with an accidental brush. She was clever to come up with a simple if deeply humbling solution.

It had been such a shift in the dynamic after that kiss that I remained reticent about pushing further. It was not a lack of desire. It was truly a lack of readiness, of certainty. I needed to come to a place of peace within myself. I know that now, looking back, but at the time I was so tangled in the weeds that I wasted so much time.

She knew, though. She never pressed. There are so many types of intimacy, and I reveled in learning them all. She curled in my lap as we sat draped in a thick fur blanket before the fire on cold winter nights while I read to her from whatever book I was reading at that time. I sat in one of the kitchen chairs while she carefully brushed and braided my hair in complex styles more suited to fine, silken tresses like hers than my horsehair mane. She favored my hair mostly loose though and would just use small braids weave playfully through it. We cared for each other when we were ill or feeling low. We shared the good, the bad, even the ugly.

I had spent decades dedicated to a life that consisted of the rigidity of a regimental existence alongside its chaos as we got sent into battles or on patrols. I obeyed the laws that governed a soldier, then a leader, then a paladin. Every moment was dictated, every choice not mine alone to make but for a spare few in those days. I had to exist as a man who was not his own but consecrated to something greater.

Those years just before and just after that first kiss, they made me see what I had been blind to when I first found myself alone after the great battle in Baldur’s Gate: Life has many chapters, and I had more to write. My life was not over for the sins I punished myself for. It was just beginning in a way I never could have foreseen for myself.

It was on this notion I was thinking when one late spring sunset Ena found me sitting on the bench by the back door. My tools were put away and I simply enjoyed the fading sound of birdsong and buzzing bees as I took in the sweet scents of our beautiful blooming garden. She tilted her head as she stopped then reached out her hand without a word. It took me a moment to realize she had done so as I opened my eyes and with great curiosity took her hand to follow.

The garden had whimsical paths that divided it into different sections yet all wound eventually to the center. I had never worked in the center of the garden at her request and honestly, I had barely even looked at it. I think that is why my curiosity piqued as she led me straight there. I paused as I realized the wide circle on the ground was made of so many mismatched stones. Some were large, some were small, all were different colors and shapes, yet they fit together like an abstract mosaic. It was the flowers that bloomed around the edge and at the center of the circle that truly got my attention though. I let Ena’s hand go as I inspected them, so curious about their unique beauty. They had petals of the most striking blue-violet, like the color of darkest midnight with no moon to light the world, yet the petals were flecked with white like distant starlight. They were marvelous and surreal all at once.

“Night sky petunias,” Ena told me, her voice hushed and solemn. “They mean as much as the stones.”

I stood straight once more and turned from the flowers back to her, not sure about her meaning.

She stepped away from me and gestured to the stones at our feet. “These are from Elturel, from the Emerald Grove, from Baldur’s Gate and so many places in between. Every one is from the hands of someone whose life you have touched. Every one. It took me years, but I found this many lives changed for the better by your touch.” The words were slow, steady and recited with great care. The hours she must have spent not just on laying these stones but making sure words would flow smoothly made my breath catch. I did not know how to react beyond shock, so I just listened.

“The flowers, they are so you can always see each point of light you have created with each life you touched. Thousands, Zevlor. Thousands of stars fill your sky and guide you home. Now every day you can touch that truth, feel it and breathe it in.”

I am not ashamed to admit I was shaking as I took in those words. My mouth was dry but my cheeks damp as I studied the stones and flowers. Such ordinary things, weren’t they? We walk by them every day without a second thought. These though, so carefully arranged and planted with so much love.

It was an incredible act of devotion like the so many that had led me to where I now stood.

“Wait,” she bid when I moved to speak. I wavered. What more could she do or say?!

She reached into the pocket of the loose pants she wore and pulled out a stone the size of her palm. It looked like a strange sage green kind of marble almost, or maybe a raw gemstone. I couldn’t identify it beyond noting that it was semi-shaped into an oval but not quite polished. “Beryl. I found her.”

The sound I made was of both anguish and shock as she stepped close and put the stone into my hand. It was warm from her grasp, veined with greys and whites if I looked very close but I could not see through my tears as I studied it. “She survived. She is cared for by an adopted son and daughter-in-law and their children. Her years are not long now but she is happy. I helped her choose this and she wishes you well.”

I am secure enough as a man to admit I sobbed. I held that stone and I cried, though I drew Ena in with my free arm and buried my face against her hair. She held me in return and rubbed my back as I let so many emotions wash over me. How had she found so many people? Was it all real? And Beryl? And…

“Love is an action just like devotion,” she said against my shoulder. “I love you.”

“I have done so little for you,” was my weak counter as I drew back to look into her eyes. That blue that so often disarmed me then gave me peace.

“You gave me a home. You have made my house a home, and you have loved me even when you were too scared. I waited so many years for you and you’re here. What more do I need?”

The way I kissed her then, well, it was as clumsy as it was breathtaking. Her heart, her soul, all of her, tasted on her lips as though they were the sustenance I’d longed for and never before found. This fae creature, this delight of a companion, and she loved me. I felt it as she kissed me back, as she clutched at the back of my shirt and as we clung to each other in the fading sunlight.

“Let’s go inside?” I only nodded and buried my face into the crook of her neck and shoulder to take in the scent of her skin. I wanted no more than that, even when I lifted her to carry her inside.

That night I held her fast, the beryl set upon our mantle. Our mantle. Our home.