Letters from The Empire - Part 5

Notes twisted into knots that would unfold like a flame lighting and smooth out for the reader to see without wrinkles or creases. Speckled with glitter and painted with a kiss at the top, it reads:

For those who find themselves questioning these times,

What makes a creature evil? Bad? Wicked? What turns them into that or makes them those things?

Is it our own set of morals that we all collectively agreed to, or is there something higher and grander that tells us what is right and proper? Or are we all just guessing and deciding based on the majority?

I never questioned my morals. Never for long anyway. I know what's right to me and others have their ideas too. I can and have always accepted this. But damned it all to Hades, I question it now.

We fought the Dracolich Lyrid'rosvilmirev. I knew we would eventually. We tore through undead lackeys and monstrosities and fought her. We healed each other, held each other up, allied together, and brought her down.

And then we fell apart.

There were maybe 20-25 of us there? All willing soldiers in our fight against our common enemy. The one coming to enslave or kill or do gods knows what else worse to us. Then we had to decide if Lyrid'rosvilmirev was going to die or if we’d allow her to continue her unlife.

She made promises. But in my experience, when someone is against the ropes and about to lose everything, they’ll say anything. 

She said she wanted to stop Ra’altherus. That she was going to atone or… something. A lot of it didn’t make sense to me, but I wasn’t there at the beginning like the Princess of dragons or Queen of the city. 

But even they were at odds. 

We voted. Fae’run has become a democracy of sorts in many respects. So we voted. The majority, including me, voted for her to die. Our logic, my logic anyway, was that once we’d kill Ra’altherus, what was to keep her from turning on us again? What had she done to allow such a trust?

It was shocking that anyone wanted to spare her. The Princess and Archon, The Baron, and a few others felt she should live that we should be above what she would have done. Some even thought she deserved the chance to atone. Some wept for her. 

I did. And I voted to kill her.

The Baron offered her a last drink. Because the Baron, of all people, would be the one to understand or at least sympathize with her. I remember thinking… What was wrong with me that I hadn’t done that first? I’m the brewess. I’ve offered the last drop of my Shine to people about to stab me in the back. So, why then did I not think of that very thing at such a moment?

Because I forgot something, the Baron may never. I forgot the Universal truth I’ve stood by for so long. I forgot that every life is precious, every moment special. I forgot my empathy.

Lyrid'rosvilmirev was a monster who did terrible things in her quest for power. But she didn’t do it just for herself. In the story from my Ebon, I lost that detail.

See, she felt that knowledge was to be preserved no matter what it was. And she chose to do what she did, to kill her own and become an unholy Dracolich to preserve the knowledge she had to give it to others. But because people didn’t like how she chose to do that, and probably rightfully so, she became embittered, angry, withdrawn, and eventually turned into the very thing we all fight against; The worst version of herself.

Did she deserve to live? Was it right that we stood there and watched as the Queen unleashed radiant energy from her chest and eviscerated perhaps one of the most enlightened and knowing minds of our time?

I don’t know anymore. 

It’s easy to talk from this standpoint. I can call out all the “borrowed immortals” in Toril, tell them all they’re cowards and fakes. But that's pretty godsdamned easy when I have all the time in the world. When, just by virtue of my hatching, I’m allowed one of the most extended lives known to Torialians. Perhaps even known to other Universes. I don’t know.

I don’t know a lot these days. In these trying and confusing and conflicting times, of course, I don’t know nearly anything. How could anyone? 

Watching the Princess scry over the enemy troops' movements to alert ours baffles me. So studious and focused. Not detached but so attached to her task that it’s singular and purposeful. Or to watch the Queen stand so regal and proud, speak to the people of all realms as the diplomatic strategist she is. At the same time, inventing all she can between battles to better our chances. Or to view the Archon in his complex and steadfast mission to preserve what’s right and build his lands to flourish. To bring the gods' light to Hem Malduris and all people while leading his own with a laurel of morality and truth on his head. To watch the countless others who live every day still as best they can. Who work and spar and love and live still every day.

All while still fighting this war.

And meanwhile, I, the eldest, the oldest, the ancient, flail under the pressure. I crumble my morals and lose my love of all life under the thralls of this war. 

As some cried, others watched coldly, and Lyrid died her final and True Death, I contemplated all this.

Who are we without our armor? And what are we turning into under its weight?

War breaks us down to our most basic selves. I fear I don’t like the person I am very much at the base, and I fear others feel the same.

I know I’m not the only one questioning the morality of what we did. What we voted to do. A vote we didn’t have a right to cast because a life is not a ballot. 

But I know this much; We did what we felt we had to. We could have quarreled, fought, crossed blades at the results—the nearly godsdamned split votes to kill Lyrid and not spare her. But everyone accepted it with grace. We gave our words, and I spoke a prayer with the Princess. The Baron and others wept. The Queen used all the energy she had to kill Lyrid as we had decided together.

And I know this, under my armor, when this war is over, I won’t be the same I was when I put it on over a year ago. I don’t think anyone will be. But that’s okay. Because if watching the results and finalization of Lyrid’s life flash before me, so many emotions and opinions that clashed but stayed fast together still taught me anything… It’s that at the end of this, no matter who we are when the plate and chainmail comes off, we’ll still be hand in hand. 

We all have different ideas of morality, different ideas of empathy, and the greater good, but at the end of the day, we all want the same thing; To protect each other.

As the final battle draws near and Ra’altherus’s history is revealed to me, to all of us, I understand that now. That no matter what happens or how we sway;

We will sway as one. United and together. No matter who or what we are at the end of all of this.

Signed,

The Shinemera

There’s a doodle at the bottom of a ring of people all with their heads down around the dusting away corpse of a half Dracolich who was smiling and shedding one last tear as she was given a drink from an oozling creature. Some had tears, others cheers above their heads, but they all remained connected in their hands.