The Bedine

[PilgrimSoul]

Along a dusty plane...

His long, needlessly elaborate cloak trailed far behind him through the barren night, its constant flicker the only sound that kept him company as he walked alone into the sandy storm, the screaming winds muffled out all else amidst the isolation.

But then, he was no stranger to the desert. He was a Bedine.

At last, he found a sheltered place to rest and huddle up from the cold, a magical fire tiredly conjured unbelievilingly from the remnants of the power he once wielded.

Yet, all he could do was shiver, staring endlessly into the dancing flames that flicked before his eyes, his conscience asking "How did it come to this?"
Why, in the end, was he all alone? Why was he still here, just to suffer? Perhaps he knew it would always be like this; nobody to keep him warm, nobody to keep him from the coldness within.
For a moment, he even wondered if he preferred it this way.

"No."

But he couldn't rewind and he was too old to change his fate, the best he could hope for was that the suffocating coldness would smother him while he still slept, such was his loneliness; that his only prayer was to be set free...

[PilgrimSoul]

Shifting Sands

His eyes slowly opened to the glare of a new dawn. Another day, another sun in the sky.
But somehow, this one shined brightly just for him, scorching him with all its radiance -reminding him that yet another bitterly cold night had failed to claim him.

Disappointment only running deeper as the sunshine revealed the truth of what he had slept with in his hand.
"Oh curse... just a desert rock." But to him, it had been that black gem stone -the one foolishly returned so very long ago.
It had given him comfort when he had needed it -even if he doubted it had ever meant anything to her -there was no doubting that it meant something to him.
That black stone, that warm attachment, that desert rock. It was all he had needed to make it through another night.

The Bedine continued his aimless journey into the dusty planes, the storm had cleared, revealing the endless expanse that reached out into the far beyond, still no end in sight.

Even out here, he was haunted by the same ghosts that followed him wherever he went. Ghosts of him, and each one with its own name.
Deceiver? Traitor? Sorcerer? Spy? Saladin.

All his best days had been spent serving the Zhentarim, but now he was out faith, out of fire, out of everything. Was this his punishment? Was this the price of failure?

Then, it broke. He finally shattered. His whole world seemed to spin more slowly as it came crumbling down around him. Time froze still.

Crashing to his knees and falling to the sand, the howl of the desert wind blew over the wreck of a man who was once was.