Elegy for a Star

 

“Okay, so I don’t know shit about the Heroic Divine,” Tess panickedly reported to Miri once she closed the door to her room, “What was I thinking?! You gave me no time to think!”

“What was there to think about? I’ve got this.” Miri replied, appearing on the bed, “You wanna fuck again?”

“No, I don’t wanna-..” Tess sighed, “Well, yes, I do, but first I want to make sure that we get this figured out. Like, you know… I want to make sure I know what I’m talking about.”

“I’ll just say it to you at the time.”

“I do not trust that you won’t get me reported.”

“What? What do I say that would get us in trouble?” Miri demanded answers.

“Really?” Tess raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah! Give me one example!”

Tess sighed and adopted an impression of Miri, higher-pitched and seductive, “‘She wouldn’t know ‘useful’ if useful shaved those disgusting noodles off her head.”

“Okay, that was about Pava,” Miri said, floating into the air and rolling over onto her stomach. Her feet were crossed at the ankle behind her, her elbows propped up onto nothingness and resting her head in her hands. “She deserved that one.”

“Alright, how about ‘I’m going to rip this bitch in half?’”

“What? I never said that!” Miri guffawed.

“Remember, in the Void? Mairaela?”

Miri laughed, “Okay, once again, well deserved. She was trying to kill us!”

“What about when you said you could do ‘naughty things’ to Scirocca when she couldn’t see you?”

“Oh, please, that was a joke!” Miri insisted.

Tess rolled her eyes, “Well… what about…”

There was a pause.

“Ha! You can’t think of one!” Miri cheered, “I win! I’m kind and well-spoken!”

Tess sulked, “I wouldn’t go that far. And still, I’m not going to let you teach me in the same moment. There will be awkward pauses between statements. And what if I misunderstand you and say the wrong thing? I want to know what I’m talking about.”

“Fine,” Miri rolled her eyes, “What do you want to know?”

“Well,” Tess started, looking around the room for inspiration, “I don’t know, who were the Heroic Divine? I don’t know anything about them, except that they… I don’t know, they saved the world?”

“Almost,” Miri said, “Well… they did their best, and probably bought us some time.” She waved her hand in a circle, “Still, we call them heroes.”

“Wait,” Tess said, cocking an eyebrow at Miri, “How do you remember this stuff? I thought you didn’t remember anything before we merged.”

“I didn’t include the fact that I know my alphabet and my numbers, either. But I do! I remember things about history, just not who I was, you know?”

“Alright,” Tess nodded, “So who were the Heroic Divine?”

“I’m so glad you asked, Miss Tess!” Miri replied, floating from one side to the other. “Extra points for you! But don’t be a teacher’s pet.”

Tess groaned, “Just keep going.”

“Okay, so, the Heroic Divine were three people,” Miri explained, “Maeros the Mad, Krahe and Harkroth Firmheart.”

“Why did they call him Maeros the Mad?” Tess asked.

Miri smiled and stuck out her tongue with, “Good question! See me after class for some special instruction!”

“By the gods, Miri, stop being so horny and just get on with it! The sooner you teach me, the sooner we can have fun.”

Miri scoffed, “Sourpuss.” She shrugged, “Maeros Whitecross was his real name. They called him Maeros the Mad because he heard voices in his head.” Miri’s eyes sparkled, “Sounds familiar, yeah?”

“Did he have a demon in his head, too?” Tess asked, shocked at the similarity.

Miri shrugged and thought aloud, “Nah, he was probably just insane.”

Tess was a little disappointed about that, “So what about the others?”

“Well, Harkroth is still alive today. You could go see him. He’s probably a week’s travel from here, and like.. Three months awaiting an audience with ‘em,” Miri explained, “He’s a Valkyrie of Morro. Used to be an inquisitor and turned into an errand boy.”

“How do you know about all of this?” Tess asked, raising an eyebrow.

Miri furrowed her brow, “Cause I’m smart as fuck, Tess!” She groaned, “But mostly because it’s pretty common knowledge, this part.” She shrugged, “Harkroth was set on an errand to go ask the Summer Court for help in fighting off the Winter Court when they invaded the Empire from the East.”

Tess leaned in, listening closely. She wished she’d been writing this down.

“But he ran into Maeros and Krahe and ended up joining them. Besides, the Summer Court told him to fuck off,” Miri laughed, holding her stomach as she flipped over in the air and onto her back.

“So who was Krahe? You skipped him.”

“Her. Krahe was the coolest of them all. She was this badass thief. They wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without her. I mean, yeah, Maeros and Harkroth were the muscle, right? But Krahe was the talent,” Miri said.

Tess could hear the admiration in Miri’s voice. She really liked this person.

“Anyway, that’s the common story,” Miri explained, “You wanna know the truth?”

“Um.. yeah, if I gotta teach it,” Tess replied with a nod.

“There were more of them. It was this whole group, but a lot of ‘em died or… well, worse, in some cases,” Miri explained, “The others were Dolen, Rahberon, Elnaril and Henry.”

“Why don’t people talk about them?”

“‘Cause they got fucked up, Tess.”

“Well, who were they?” Tess asked, urging Miri along.

“Alright, so, Dolen was this guy working for the Underking. He was like… his right hand. Or whatever hand the Underking used to jack himself off. That was Dolen,” Miri replied, “He was some priest for some god. I don’t know. There was something special about a ring he had, but fuck if anyone knows what it was.”

“What about Rahberon?”

“Summer Fey. I don’t know. He was probably useless. Next!”

“Um.. Elnaril. That name’s familiar.”

“Strongest Wyrden in the fuckin’ world, that one! Everyone knows Elnaril. They just forget that he got his ass handed to him by Arlen. You know, in the permanent sense,” Miri groaned, “Smartest and dumbest bitch in history.”

“See, this is why I’m glad we’re going over this now, so that you don’t make me say stuff like that.”

“Whatever, I can be proper,” Miri groaned, “Anyway, what else?”

“Well, who was Arlen?”

“Arlen Daerora. That’s the Great Betrayer. Some human fuckface that brought the Black Sun here,” Miri shrugged, “Mommy probably didn’t give him enough attention. You know how humans are.”

Tess laughed, “Bitch.”

Miri smirked, “Finally, a sense of humor! Alright, so Elnaril and Arlen were buddies. They studied sorcery together. They were two of the strongest Wyrden alive.”

“But Elnaril was stronger?”

“Yeah, by a decent bit,” Miri replied.

“So how did Arlen kill him if Elnaril was stronger?”

“Cause Arlen was a heartless motherfucker,” Miri said with a roll of her eyes, “And Elnaril wasn’t. He wanted the old Arlen back. Arlen wanted Elnaril dead. Those are two different things and one ended up being easier than the other.” Miri nodded, thinking for a moment in silence, “On that same day, Arlen killed Dolen and Rahberon, too.

“So the only survivors were Maeros and Krahe,” Miri concluded.

“What about Harkroth?”

“He hadn’t joined them yet,” Miri replied.

“What about Henry, then?”

“You know when I said some of them underwent things worse than death?” Miri asked.

Tess nodded.

“Yeah, well,” Miri replied, “That’s Henry.”