***
One vibrant spring day, a solemn procession of mourners interrupted his meditations. Attended by grim guards, an elven nobleman and his wife brought the body of their daughter, who had recently been betrothed to a foreign prince. The wedding was to have been a grand affair come autumn. News of the engagement spread even to the reclusive Waimbrill.
The family said she died falling off her horse, and the bruises and breaks on her delicate body seemed to confirm that. But Waimbrill was left with guilt around her death, and he had a strong suspicion that this was the baleful Paradigm of her murderer, echoing in his gut with such potency he heard it even before the cleaving was complete.
He considered telling the nobleman and his wife, but didn’t know how, or what they might do in response. He had no way of discovering the murderer, and for all he knew, it was one of the parents. The thought struck him suddenly and he knew it bore truth by the pangs of heartbreak that rang deep within him: the young elven woman, whose pale blonde hair was soft and downy even in death, framing her bruised face, gentle slanted eyes and narrow, regal nose, had died knowing a parent’s betrayal. The emotion he cleaved from her was unmistakable, and it was followed by more: intense and loyal love, persisting beyond boundaries, love which Waimbrill could feel in his bones had been illicit.
Adrenaline pounding though his veins, he ran towards them with no preparation or plan, wondering whether his passion was truly his desire to see justice or her need for retribution, or if it mattered.
He caught up to the slow-moving carriages, pulled by white horses and accompanied by guards and servants. One carriage held the noble couple; the other was empty of life, containing only the beautiful, untimely corpse of the elven maiden.
“Wait!” he shouted, and the carriages stopped. The guards turned toward him, initially with hostility, then recognition and awkward politeness. One of them, a tall man, slender but bulging with ropy muscles and sporting a gritty glare in his eyes that belied the soft features common to elves, opened the curtain that blocked the carriage door.
The nobleman spoke to his retinue in elven, a lilting, sibilant tongue, and made eye contact with Waimbrill, then looked away, muttering under his breath. During that moment when their gazes met, interlocking like shaking hands, Waimbrill knew that he was right, that the nobleman had killed his daughter because she had taken a lover, and that a tiny part of him was ashamed.
“Wait!” he shouted, “What was her name?”
The nobleman wrinkled his face, squinting. “Countess Othallassah Verrabirrin,” he said, with a strong - but obviously forced, at least to Waimbrill - sense of grief.
After a long silence, the chief guard said, “Mortiss Waimbrill, if there is nothing else we can do for you-”
“Did you love her?” Waimbrill asked.
He scoffed, and said, “Of course. Mortiss Waimbrill, please leave me to mourn the death of my daughter, as I shall leave you to attend to your needs.”
The nobleman turned to enter the carriage, and Waimbrill shouted, “I know what you did.”
Silence filled the forest, and Waimbrill saw on the averted faces of the guards and servants that they had known, or at least suspected, as much. A sudden thrashing came from inside the carriage, and the noblewoman stepped out. She pushed her husband, and he stumbled. She spoke through clenched teeth, “What didst thou do?”
She hadn’t spoken, which wasn’t surprising to Waimbrill. Parents were often silent, still in shock, or not accepting their child’s passing. Mourners do bereave, and bereave again, and cycle, spinning through a spectrum, from comprehension refused, a stubborn rejection of borne truth, to an outpouring of rage, blame and frustration, blind, blanket hatred, overwhelming and unfocused, a compulsion to bargain or barter for continuance, even with us who can make no deals for death, and finally a deep despondency and dark depression which may remain, or return to earlier arcs, or perhaps, conclude with forbearant acceptance.
The noblewoman had watched the soulcleaving, as though perhaps in that first part of the cycle, still denying the truth of her daughter’s death despite her breathless body laying before her. The mother’s heavily made-up face concealed any emotions that might have been apparent on her bare skin. Her cheeks were delicately rouged, eyes lined with green that continued their slant all the way to her temples. Her raven hair hung in rivulets around her face and bosom, which was covered by an ornate white dress decorated with loops and circles of lace and soft fabric. Elven women rarely spoke much outside their home, or even left their home under ordinary circumstances. Only disreputable elven women would show emotion in front of outsiders, especially a human, so Waimbrill was surprised at the sudden shattering of her stony visage.
“I did not-” said the nobleman.
“Do not lie to me! I can see it on thy face,” the woman shouted, “What didst thou do to my little girl?”
“You act improper in front of commoners!” he said, slapping her face.
“Don’t forget who hath the title in this family,” she said, “I demand thou tellest me what happened.”
“Fine!” the nobleman said, “She was not a virgin. Your daughter was a harlot. We would have been humiliated after the wedding. This was the only way to preserve the family.”
“Thou hast killed her!” she screamed, and her hoarse voice cracked through tears. She rained down blows upon her husband, who pushed her roughly.
She fell backwards, knocking over one of the guards. They both tumbled to the ground near the yoked horses, who whinnied and nervously stamped their hooves. The guard grabbed her and rolled away before they were trampled. The other guards returned to their master, who gasped for air, yellow bruises blooming on his cheeks.
He stood, and turned away from his wife. “Mortiss Waimbrill, ye have acted in a manner most unbecoming-” His words stopped suddenly, blood dripping from his mouth. He fell to his knees, then collapsed to the leaf-littered ground, a knife protruding from his back. Behind him stood his wife, scarlet spatter sprayed on her pristine white dress.
The guards and Waimbrill looked at each other for a long time, not sure what to do. Waimbrill walked forward, knowing at least that his first step needed to be the cleaving of the elven lord.
When he got close to the body, she grimaced and blocked him. “Mortiss Waimbrill, he deserveth not your ministrations. Let him suffer for eternity, I beg you.”
Waimbrill sputtered, shocked, trying to think of a response. One of the guards said, “Lady Ballardrine, ye know we can not do that.”
She grabbed the knife - which she had taken from the hilt of the guard she had fallen to the ground with - and pulled it out of her husband’s body. She snarled at Waimbrill.
“I can not let him merely die after what he hath done to my daughter. Our daughter,” she said, turning to the guards, “And our title hath always been in my lineage, not his. Ye are loyal to me. We shall leave his body here for the vermin, and none of you shall speak of this day again.”
“Lady Ballardrine,” Waimbrill said, “If he is raised as a zombie or wight, it shan’t undo his evil, nor prevent any more. It would only ensure that his malefaction continues its march, in the murder and mayhem he would make as an undead beast, and in the hearts of all of us here, who would allow our spite and malice for one man to lead to an even greater evil than a mere man could ever accomplish. No, my good lady, I can not stand aside. As is my duty, I will soulcleave your husband. What you do with his body after that is of no concern to me, so show your contempt for him then, not now. Every moment we palaver is a moment that a necromancer may find his uncleaved soul and raise it for some nefarious end.”
She nodded, tears leaking out of her shut eyelids, and a servant stepped forward to lead her back to the carriage. Waimbrill mumbled through his prayer. This was the first person he genuinely did not want to cleave, even counting the unpleasantly rotten blacksmith’s apprentice. He knew that the Paradigm he was about to gain would be acidic and bitter like vinegar.
And it was. Rejection and hatred overwhelmed him. He couldn’t articulate his fears into coherence, but paranoia thundered through him. The rustling of the leaves of the oaks around him was a sign from some terrible god, the chirping of crickets was a sonorous threat, and conspiracies cavorted in the eyes of the elven guards. Images of blood, offal and gore, and intense lust washed through his body. He forced himself to meditate, searching for serenity over the cavalcading urges that flooded his mind.
By the time Waimbrill came out of his trance, the moon had risen, and his stomach was empty, heaving with discomfort. He wretched and gagged before making his way to his hut, where he collapsed in bed, assuring himself that tomorrow he would have his lamb kidney stew.