Post Bout Blues

Bel’ameth Diary Entry

25th Day of Kaldore, Autumnal Equinox

Under Amirdrassil’s supernal canopy, a cool night breeze swept through the village of Bel’ameth. Serilda allowed it to jostle her forward, gathering up the skirt of her gown and taking a few more anguished steps before finally coming to rest in her chair. Swathed in a simple gown of silkmoth fibres, the Priestess curled her lithe limbs up into herself as she sagged with audible pleasure: Aaaah. The intoxicating thrill of combat ran rife in her blood, but with it came the pain of injury. The Commander didn’t pull any punches, nor did she have to: Serilda expected no concessions for her age.
But mortality had been chafing the Priestess of late: she felt the indifferent cruelty of aging, something she had long witnessed in mortals but had never thought too deeply about herself. She cast her languid eyes out of the window, sighing deeply. Had she been foolish in not accepting healing at the bout? Pain was illuminating, it forged a sharper mind if one could train themselves to bear it, or so she believed. The tenets inculcated in her by Elune’s teachings were so deeply embedded that they had become instinctual. And yet her body was now succumbing to the inexorable passage of time, and she now agonized over the message her stoic rebuttal had sent to the other Kaldorei. Divorced from immortality, could she really hold on to such relics of the past, or did she risk looking like some arrogant pastiche of a different epoch?

Pain is illuminating. Smothered by painful thoughts, she found them as unbearable as the physical pain itself. That is the lesson. She unfurled herself the way an insect battered by gale winds would: slowly, cautiously, before leaning forward and murmuring a short incantation to Elune. Within seconds her body was overcome with a warm sensation, a weightlessness that made her momentarily euphoric and she gasped audibly. Her pain had vanished, her bruises receded. She rose effortlessly from her chair and walked to the window, leaning out to inhale the cool night breeze.

It was time for her to adapt to a new cadre, which meant that there were new lessons from the Goddess. Serilda made it her pledge to be attentive to those lessons when they should next present.