The legend of Yew

There is a sort of restlessness to a place once ravaged by war. The battlefields are full of the stillness of corpses long after the bodies have been cleared away. Even the air feels warped, a gaping hole torn into the natural distribution of life. You can tell immediately when you have stepped onto land that was once drenched in blood, no matter that the overturned earth has since blossomed into a field of flowers and wild grasses. Amongst such lovely scenery, the chill of death persists and trails its fingers along your spine. Listening close, the wind carries forward the echoes of countless final breaths with every brush.

In such a place, is it really a surprise the dead would rise again?

Although it has been several centuries since the various wars that once raged like an unforgiving storm across the now Empire of Fraxinus, wandering spirits remain anchored. Whether they chose to remain or have been trapped somehow, only the heavens could tell you. Whichever it is, it isn’t particularly important. The true crux of the issue is that such places have a nasty habit of reanimating corpses.

They also tend to be near the best preserved of the ancient ruins, which is what draws one wayward young researcher into their presence.

Covered in a simple wool cloak, the frayed edges might cause her to be mistaken for one of the undead herself. Beneath the hood her ashy brown hair is twirled into a rams-horn bun on each side of her head, the occasional stray strands falling free beside her face. More notably, each step is accompanied by the soft jingle of bells that hide somewhere under her cloak; they mark her path more than her feet do, calling out her coming and going. To those awaiting rescue in the ruins, they are the sound of hope. In one hand she carries a thin shepherd’s hook made of rowan wood, towering two feet over her head, and in the other a carved stone suspended from from a fine chain. The pendant swings in slow circles where it dangles, guiding her to her quarry.

If you find yourself lost, never fear, for the sound of bells shall soon be along to ferry you away to safety. In the city of Oakwood, there lives a young woman, who may not be merely a woman. What is she, you ask? Why, she’s a heroine, my dears. She will find you when you are most in need of her, for her pendant shall guide her to all those in need of her saving. She stand before you with her rowan wood staff held high and fend off the darkness. There is no place she cannot reach you, traveling tirelessly across the earth.

Beware, keep your coin purse full, for those humble coins are all she will ask in return for saving your life. And while no harm will befall you if you are found lacking, wouldn’t it be a terribly rude thing to do to your savior? After all, she did not have to save you.

The Ghost Shepherdess swathed in the light of the full moon, will descend on invisible wings for you. She strike down any monster that threatens you, she will grant your wishes, she will gently guide you home.

The legend of her has taken many shapes in the years since her time.

But not many know of the woman named Yew, who was a humble researcher of Ancient magics and runes. They don’t know of the life she lead beyond her days adventuring, of how her family grew, or of the apprentices she trained. There are many untold tales of her days. Not all of them are so extraordinary as the vanquishing of the arch-lich. Nor so invigorating as her discovery of the sunken ruins on the coast. Not even her battle with the giant skeleton on the boarder of a small village, which as stories go, was already a footnote hardly worth mentioning.

If one were to ask Yew what story she would have you remember of her life, she would leave you with this.

***

Yew’s life began in pain and darkness. If only, because she could not remember anything else.

Her first clear emotion was confusion. But her first sensations were pain and cold and hunger. Yew was so so hungry. Too cold to move, too hungry to stay still. She had to leave the bright room that was now pitch black. There must be a way out, there must be something to eat outside. Her body felt so heavy. Every muscle and limb was pinned under a mountain. Gravity had turned all its attention to her, dragging her toward the center of the earth. Each movement felt like an eternity without the sun or moon to tell her if time was passing at all. Did she spend minutes rolling over and pushing herself up, or days? Hours, or weeks? How long did it take to crawl down from a stone table that was colder than she was, and much bigger?

She was completely ignorant of the world that she found herself in, completely and utterly alone. She was so small then, smaller than even she understood. But she had survived, against all the odds. She once existed only to survive, but even then she found something that gave her a place.

She didn’t always like [the runes]. One of them had cut her arm off; it was okay, because she could just eat and get better, but it hurt. But there was one she like a lot; when she touched it sounds came out. They were pretty sounds, much louder and more varied than what she heard in the woods. None of the animals or bugs made so many sounds; and none of those sounds filled her ears so pleasantly like these ones. It was still a cold stone floor, but this is the place she liked to sleep most. She often hummed the sounds when walking around and hunting.

Her song from the ruins of her beginning had stayed in her heart until the end. No matter what bad experiences she sometimes had with it, there were just as many good memories. The song and exploring ruins had made those empty days bearable. Until the day she had met her sister and joined her family. Once she was feral, roaming lost wherever her feet and stomach would take her.

Ulma knew the correct course of action was to purify the girl. Regardless of what she was, it was better to send her on to the other side. But when she was close enough to touch her, magic at the tips of her fingers, the child had flinched away. She couldn’t have been older than eleven, poor thing. Yet here she was, undead and terribly afraid. Undead and without the only mercy granted to them. All alone.

She took the child home and washed her off. Her parents really hadn’t known what to do with this one. This wasn’t some innocent woodland creature. However, they, too, acknowledged the bizarre circumstances and condition of the child.

There, in her family’s home, she had gained identity and insight. She learned to speak, to read, to write; all the important things that let a person truly connect with the world. It was there that she became Yew. The child of ruins was not gone, had not been forgotten; she had been given a new kind of remembrance. An existence in the lives of those around her. And in learning how to love, and be loved, and be human; she had experienced great loss.

Ulma rose up one final time, sure that this would be the decisive blow-

And was promptly blinded by the runes in the room. For a single moment, everything was frozen; the flash as they activated all at once turned the whole room white with light alone.

Then Ulma was gone, and so was the light, and so was the lich.

But not Yew, Yew had to stand in the dark and not know if it had been hours, days, or weeks before she moved. Yew had to stumble home and tell her parents that Ulma was never coming home again. Had to face all the people that loved Ulma and tell them that she disappeared because Yew couldn’t wait for answers that she did not even get. And somehow, she had to make peace with that.

Yew had carried the guilt of that loss and day with her for many years. No matter how others tried to absolve her of it, she couldn’t bring herself to believe them. Even worse, she had hurt others that were also grieving that same loss, in their own way. She had avoided and pushed away people that cared for her countless times.

“If that’s true then you’d better respond to at least one of their letters instead of just leaving them in an unopened pile like you tend to.” And so begins the nagging. If she let him start he would make a fuss about her diet and sleeping habits next.

“Why do you care what I do or don’t do, anyway?” She snapped at him to cut him off; she wanted to finish their obligatory interaction and move on with the night.

“You know why, Yew,” his expression softened, tender, but a smidge bitter at the edges. As if his feelings were rolling honey and citrus rind across his tongue simultaneously.

“Do I,” Yew challenged. She wanted him to say it. Hated that he refused to.

“Yes,” his own voice teetering on anger before catching himself. “You do,” he finished, barely audible. Dark gray eyes sought hers out, sorrow searing into her and collapsing the world all around them into an endless field of falling ash and memories Yew could never forget. She tore her gaze away in the silence between them. Her hand clenched the skirt of her dress, worrying wrinkles into it that only escaped notice because of the layered coloring of the fabrics.

Heliot looked away too, towards some spot on the floor, eyes unfocusing as he tried and failed to keep a congenial smile on his face. Yew swallowed, took a deep breath, and felt a wave of all the nasty awful things she had been avoiding wash over her. It was so tense in that ashy world and suddenly Yew desperately wanted out of it. She hated his unaffected grin, but she hated this more. It sat heavy inside her and reminded her too much of her older sister’s disappointment. She pursed her lips, tensing and un-tensing her hands, grasping for any thread of hope to smooth this over.

Even though she didn’t truly want to. And she denied her self the things she loved and needed from all the different layering guilts and frustrations inside her.

It had been a long time since she last felt so much hunger, but it wasn’t a bad thing.

In fact, her family had been the ones to teach her that the hunger meant she was alive. She had learned to live with it. It seemed to return in full force with her song. Astilbe told her it was a sign of recovering from sadness, and that he was happy for her.

But even so, she always loved and cherished what they had given to her. She kept those pieces near to her heart, no matter how upset she was otherwise.

Heliot reached over from his place on the floor and grasped onto her old ratty cloak, which he distantly recognized as one that he and Ulma had gotten her for a past birthday.

She had worn it to tatters and still wore it even now.

Heliot realized that for all she pushed him away and been mad at him, she had never stopped seeing him as family, not truly.

Yew had spent many years lost in her work, thinking only of her career and little of her life. She would risk her life over it. But doing so had lead her forward in unexpected ways and given her a purpose, a task to complete that felt accessible in her time of drowning. Through it, she met someone else that had drowned too, but made a very different choice than Yew had.

He looked around at the chambers, and thought about all he had done and hadn’t done, and deeply regretted the trust he had placed into the being. In fact, he regretted several of the choices he made throughout his life. But there was one choice he regretted above all others. Was it the choice to let his daughter roam off into dangerous lands? No, that could never be a mistake, despite how it had ended. It was not a mistake to let her grow.

His mistake had been his inability to remember her in a way that would let him grieve properly. Instead of making peace with death, and accepting the end of life, he had clung on to it. And in doing so, he had failed all his people that had followed him into this mess. Even worse, there was not much the mummy king could do about his mistakes. He did have the ability to free his people from the influence of the arch-lich, and he did not have the knowledge or strength either.

What he could do, was pathetically limited. What he could do, was interfere with the chalice and the role it played in the lich’s plans to turn his people into an undead army. It was all he could do to control the cups power; he gave it every last piece of himself and made it so it would not work for anyone that did not have a heart as least as noble, true, and brave as his daughter had been. Only someone with a truly upright character would be able to refuse the control of the chalice and the implicit brand caused by using it. And in doing so, they would absorb all the power the chalice had been storing, thus preventing it from falling into the lich’s hands.

That person would die, it was unavoidable, and the king added that to his many regrets. However, it was the only way to release the magic inside that he knew. Perhaps, if he were a master of the arcane, instead of a foolish king, he could have spared the loss of that life.

Yew knew then, that she would have to choose different forever after. She would have to choose different and mean it. And so she had. And continued to, all the rest of her life.