Chapter 25: Chosen, Chapter 27: Love and Death

Aidan

The Realms

Unknown date

Unknown time

Mistvale Highlands

Aidan's eyes snapped open, and he screamed for several long seconds. Slowly, slowly, it dawned on him that he wasn't in pain; his arms, legs, tail ... everything was still attached to his body. He wasn't being subjected to the sick, rhyming couplet equivalent of being drawn and quartered. He wasn't in the chamber beneath the hill in Ceallach Macht. Still, it took him long minutes for his breath to slow from ragged gasps of panic. Prompts pulsed all along the sides of his vision, and Aidan numbly checked each one—except the combat log. That he left minimized; the trauma was far, far too fresh in his mind to revisit even in dry text format.

Panic filled Aidan anew as he finished reading the death notification and remembered the old man's warning about death. System: Log out. Confirm!

This has to be a sick joke, Aidan thought desperately and tried again. System: Log out.

Confusion and despair warred in Aidan's mind. Had he actually been transported to another world? He had marveled at how realistic this game was, and Brighid had been far too lifelike to be anything short of a true AI. But that wasn't possible, was it? If he couldn't log out of the game, he would die within a week, real-time, of sleep deprivation.

To make matters worse, he was utterly naked. Not even his backpack was with him. He turned his head to look to either side of him. No chest of holding, either. Everything he had in this world was now gone. Aidan stared up at the gap in the canyon walls above, then realized with a start that it was almost, or maybe just after, noon. He had been dead for at least an entire night and morning.

Aidan lay naked on the floor for long enough that the sun vanished from his view. Eventually, he decided that his only choice was to treat the Realms as his new reality but to try logging off periodically just in case. There was no way to contact the outside world from inside the game—if game it was, now—so all Aidan could do was hope that he wasn't doomed to die in two weeks of perceived time. And, if that was his fate, he might as well make the most of the time he had left.

With that conclusion reached, he needed to return to the Starchaser village. Aidan rolled over and pushed himself to his knees and then his feet. He staggered and fell right back down as his muscles spasmed and cramped. The pain was intense, and he curled up into the fetal position, waiting for the cramps to fade.

Another fifteen minutes passed before he stood back up, much more slowly and gradually this time, testing each muscle one at a time. The cramps left sharp lingering pain in Aidan's limbs, but he couldn't wait for the strain in his muscles to heal, and nothing on his interface indicated that Patch Wounds would work; he was at full Health with no Wounds. Slowly, unsteadily, he placed one foot in front of the other and once more walked out of the canyon. Aidan remembered which way the village lay in general terms, so he started to hobble along. He didn't know how far it was exactly, but he knew it took most of the night to be marched there from his resting place on top of the hill in front of him. I'm moving a lot slower now, but I'm starting earlier, too. Maybe I can get there by sunup.

Aidan

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The Realms

Unknown date

Mid-morning

Outside the Starchaser village, Mistvale Highlands

It was mid-morning before Aidan and one of the village guards mutually spotted each other. He was so relieved to be able to stop and so drained of energy and emotion that Aidan fell onto his knees, head bowed, and waited for a centaur to draw close enough to talk to. He didn't have the energy to shout. It took a few minutes, during which he stared half-brokenly at the muddy ground under him. Eventually, he heard hoofbeats approach, and a male voice called out in Northern Trade-tongue, "Who are you, and what is your business here? Speak quickly; trespassers are not tolerated in these lands."

Aidan laughed hoarsely at the centaur's words and rasped out in Highlands Gallic, "Oh, believe me, I know all too well the price of trespassing in Starchaser lands. Take my life if you must, but please first tell the Council that Aidan Lostlorn has returned from Ceallach Macht and has important information that they need to know." The centaur gasped and took a step backward, and Aidan lifted his head to look at the guard with a rictus grin. "If you're not going to kill me here and now, may I at least have a blanket to wrap myself in and a dry corner to rest in until they deign to see me?" He let his head loll back down.

The guard didn't respond verbally, but the killing strike failed to come, and Aidan could hear rapid hoofbeats heading back towards the village, then raised voices. He wasn't sure how long he waited there, kneeling in the mud, but a familiar voice broke him out of his daze.

"Aidan? AIDAN!" Brighid's mezzo-soprano washes over him, and he struggled to look up, to get to his feet and greet his love, but suddenly she was there, kneeling in the dirt in front of him, wrapping him in her strong arms, his head pressed to her soft breast, her hair flung all around him as she bowed her head over him and sobbed. She stroked his hair and croaked out, "How? How are you here? How, you bastard?"

All of the emotions Aidan had been trying to ignore caught up to him as Brighid held him in her arms, and tears flowed freely from his eyes to soak his friend's shirt. "I died, Brighid. It ripped me apart. Limb from limb. It hurt ... so much." Brighid's arms tightened even more around him, and he felt her tears fall into his hair. "I told you... I had a trick up my sleeve. You... you can't tell anyone. Please, promise me. I'll make ... something up about how I got out. But I can't lie to you. I can't. I love you and I can't lie."

"Shhhh, Aidan. Hush now," she said soothingly, "you do not have to say anything more. Your secret is safe with me. You came back to me, Aidan. I thought you were just telling me a sweet lie to make it easier for me to leave, but you came back." Her voice dropped to a rough, coarse, emotional whisper. "You died, and still, you kept your oath to me."

Brighid straightened a little and pushed Aidan back away from her so that she could look him in the eyes. Her beautiful emerald green eyes were rimmed with red from crying, and he couldn't help but to slowly, carefully reach up and brush a tear from her cheek. She captured his hand and held it against her face. Her voice was still coarse and emotional, but was filled with a core of solid steel as she spoke words with the air of ritual about them. "Your honor is my honor. Your life is my life. Our hearts beat as one. Together we will meet what Fate has to offer, for from today we are Companions."

Something deep inside Aidan compelled a response, and he repeated the words back to her as he stared into the intense green flames of her eyes. "Your honor is my honor. Your life is my life. Our hearts beat as one. Together we will meet what Fate has to offer, for from today we are Companions."

Brighid's arms encircled him again, this time one around his shoulders and the other carefully threaded behind his knees. She stood and lifted him up into her arms, cradling him against her as she strode into the village. Aidan's eyes closed and the last thing he heard before drifting off to sleep was Brighid snarling at one of the guards, "If you point that spear in this direction, Owena, I swear by Brigantia's flames that I will take it from you and stuff it point first up your officious twat. This man is my Companion and any threat you make to him you make to me. One of you go tell the Council that he will be recovering in my home and they can speak to him after he wakes up on his own, no earlier."

Zurai

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