They sat along side the road, shoulders sagged, clothes ragged, all desire to even live... gone. What good is all this power, this magic, if they cannot save even a single, innocent, child from dying? There is a soft purring at their feet, a gnome next to them patting their knee, and an elf comes up, holds out their hand, and states "You did your best no matter how good you are, you cannot save everyone." -- The New Guy
Semephis glared up and Wraithvine. "How dare you," he whispered. "How dare you come here now. After I gave everything I had. After I sold my soul for the power that failed them. How dare you come when I'm like this... and all is lost."
"There are times when you try everything and nothing works," said the Gnome. Bibrid. "My own power has caused me troubles... endless troubles. It's made me prisoner and slave and worse. Yet even I could not prevent what happened here. Wraithvine hirself would have spent all ze had in trying, and still failed."
"It's true," whispered Wraithvine, taking a seat on the ground nearby. "I've seen the like before. I know, too well, that I would have spent every waking instant in tryine. I'd have also spent my soul if the gods hadn't already claimed it. I'd have shattered my heart into pieces, just... trying. You've done no less than we could do, even if we were here."
The cat, plush and purring up a storm, invaded Semephis' arms. Smudged up and rubbed against him like he was a long-lost and well-loved friend. Here was one life. One living thing, that loved him. Thought him worthy of its simple attention.
Semephis held the animal. Let her rough tongue lap up his tears. And howled in rage and fury against the unfairness of the world. Sommetimes, you can't save them all, that was true.
What was worse were the times you couldn't save anyone.
"The whole hamlet," he said, stroking Lilbit's fur. "Sickened and withered and died. The babies and the children... then the old... and then the young. No food could sustain them. They were always sicking it back up. And the boils and buboes... and the shedding skin. Bones... rotting inside their bodies. They just wasted away. They all just... wasted away."
"Cursed stones," said Bibrid. "A relic of the earliest of the Xenophobia Wars. Places where no life will grow. Where the water seems fresh, but leeches life away. Where picking up a rock will burn that hand into blackened, dead flesh. My gift would only make such stronger. Make it worse."
"Then why am I still alive?" said Semephis. "Why didn't it burn me? Why am I unscathed?"
"The demon's bargain," said Wraithvine. "What did you wish for?"
"The power to undo the sickness, of course."
"And it was granted in the cruellest way possible," said Bibrid. "You have the power, but only for yourself. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
They held him, and helped him mourn.
It was the most they could do.
[Photo by Sheila C on Unsplash]
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