Astrid had never believed it before, though she had been in several fights where the outcome was in significant doubt. But she knew this was her last day on earth, and as she desperately fought for her life against the angel of the corpse god, images from her past rose unbidden. Like ghosts, she thought. Ironic, really, for a Humacti.
They had found two of the four keys, and time was running out, and clawbeasts were closing in on them.
She parried again, and again, never able to make any sort of attack, wondering where the rest of the party were.
She was four, and one of the priests was kneeling beside her, trying to explain that her parents weren't coming back. They were with the Triplicity, he said, which she didn't really understand, though she'd got the idea that they were gone.
She barely remembered her parents now. They were fleeting images in her mind, nothing more. And with Triplicity's death, they were not only gone from this world, but erased from existence.
The angel managed to land a blow on her, and the pain snapped her back to the world for a moment. She wondered if she had any chance of retreating to down a healing potion. But if she did that, Finn would almost certainly die...
She wonders what it must have felt like for the Triplicity during their final moments as they fell to the last pretender god to rise.
She remembers what it felt like for her- a deep, burning, almost-pain and then... nothingness, bleak nothingness, as the connection to her god was snuffed out. She had felt lost, untethered, and realised she no longer had any reason to stick around her temple, which had descended into infighting and backbiting.
And she remembers her flight from Norsca, funded by the sale of the temple's valuables. There had been nothing for her at home, and she had tried to run from the pain. It had mostly worked, too. Nobody asked questions of the wandering scout, especially when she had learned enough of the tongue of Albion to get by, and even less so when she brought down deer and rabbits for villagers to eat.
And she remembers her arrival in Grantabrugge, the city where all those with nowhere else to go end up. She'd gone to the Wessex Arms because interesting things happen there, and found it living up to its reputation. And on the same night she arrived, so did three Humacti from Wallachia, one of whom was distinctly attractive...
She looks desperately over her shoulder. Natterscrat is still standing. Natterscrat can cast healing miracles. There is still some hope.
She is still parrying desperately, wondering if Finn is still alive, or bled out into the floor.
It is three weeks later, and she has fitted in well with the other people who are mad, desperate, idealistic or dedicated enough to drink in the Wessex Arms. Fitted in so well, in fact, that she and Ivan are looking at each other with locked gazes that can mean only one thing...
She remembers kissing him, and then doing more than kiss him in the tiny room in the temple of Humact that he called home. She remembers how right it felt; with hindsight, there'd been a connection she'd never felt with any other man. She regrets, briefly, not realising it at the time.
And then she remembers hearing of his disappearance, then waiting for a few weeks, assuming him dead, and running from the pain once more.
The angel managed to get another couple of blows into her then. Her armour was falling apart, and she knew the next one she let through would bite into flesh. She was tiring fast, but was never going to give up while she had any fight left in her. This wasn't her death; she wass determined that her death would come screaming defiance to the corpse god as her her sacrifice lets her friends escape.
She is in Kernow. She's a terrorist, or a freedom fighter, depending on how you want to look at it. She is spending her days fighting the Fae who have taken over the place and are oppressing the locals.
She hears down the rumour mill that Ivan was rescued from his captors and is back in Grantabrugge. There is too much at stake in Kernow to go back, though she misses him desperately. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she writes him a letter, and manages to bribe enough people without giving herself away to get it sent.
She remembers hearing of his death a few months later. She hadn't expected anything else, really- Humacti paladins all fall like that, eventually. She'd come to respect the message of honour (without chivalry) and truth that Ivan had spoken of, and started to wonder if she might follow his path.
She felt a rib crack, and then another.
She is back in Grantabrugge, and has started to attend services at the Humacti temple. One night in the Wessex Arms, some clawed undead monsters attack. They seem to be aiming for her in particular, and eventually she falls.
She opens her eyes and Ivan is front of her. He wears the marks of an angel well, and his armour is shining. He takes her hand, and she feels spiritual energy rushing into her from him as Humact marks her as his own. Then he whispers a promise to her, and they go home to bed.
At dawn he vanishes, and she finally sleeps. When she wakes, she will discover that the gorget dropped to the floor the night before is still there.
She was fighting on one knee now, her left leg useless. She thought of Ivan, how he must have faced a situation like this, how he must have dug deep, for his god and for the world.
She lays her first soul to rest, and feels more right than she ever has before.
She felt her other leg collapse under her. There was no time to see what anyone else was doing, no time to do anything other than concentrate on survival, to hope someone came to her aid.
She sells her love for the Triplicity to a Fae, so she can thwart a bigger, nastier Fae. More pain, but this time she doesn't run. She stands steadfast, as she has a new purpose.
Now she was doing little more than hold her staff out in front of her. The angel wasn't landing many blows, still, but that was going to change soon. She was so tired she could barely hold her arms up any more. She could hear Natterscrat shouting, though, so all was not quite lost. Yet.
She dreams of the corpse god Anhrefnus, and how she will aid in its destruction through her death in battle against it. She accepts it, though those around her do not understand. And she finds a man to spend her last night with, because some cliches are cliches for a reason.
She wondered what Ivan would do. When there is nothing else left but the power of your god, she realised, there is only one choice.
She dresses for battle, first her usual leather armour, and then Ivan's gorget. She is wearing Ivan's sword, Tanya, as she goes to meet her fate. She steps into the temple, ready to face the monsters inside with determination.
"Lord Humact, hear me! BY MY ULTIMATE FAITH, I CALL UPON YOU-"
-and the world slowed, and there was a voice in her head, questioning, demanding, yet comforting. She answered it.
Wounds closed and armour knitted back together as she was hauled to her feet by an unseen force. She could feel her arms reaching behind her back unbidden to draw Tanya from her sheath, almost glowing with spiritual force-
-The world sped up again, and Astrid felt herself moving as little more than a vehicle for Tanya, who pointed her towards the corpse-god beasts and dispatched them with a single blow. Natterscrat must have done something, as others of the party were on their feet again and fighting. She was allowed to pause for a moment to kneel beside Finn and pour a healing potion down his lips, and then she was off again, this time towards the angel which had knocked her to the floor. She was dimly aware of Taff pointing at it and it freezing in position as she ran, and then finally she hit it and it dissolved in a pillar of black smoke.
And then Tanya was pointing across the room, pulling her along with it. She shouted at the rest of the party and they followed her as she ran, down darker and dingier corridors until she could barely stand upright, and there was another clawbeast, bigger than the others, but right then nothing could have scared her. A swift blow with Tanya and it too evaporated as it fell, revealing the third key.
And then they had three keys, and less than five minutes left, and to add insult to injury the dead cultist Eleanor was dancing around them in incorporeal form, mocking them, laughing. They searched two more rooms and another long corridor, nothing showed up, and they tried not to let the despair show as they hunted, and hunted...
Then from across the room they saw Taf knock Pip over the head and search her, and find the fourth key inside her clothes, and then it was all all right, they could deal with Pip later, right now they needed to get the key in the door, and Taf was running and then almost diving at the door, and then the door creaked slowly open to reveal the sacrificial victim still just about alive.
They charged.
Still pulled along by Tanya, Astrid threw caution to the winds and ran for the priest tied to the altar. She had already given her life to the cause; saving his in the process was more than fair exchange.
She slashed at the bonds, watching them fall to the ground as a cultist priest froze her in place and cut her to the floor. As the world went black, she felt she had done her best, and it was no surprise when she opened her eyes again to see Ivan in front of her, holding out his hand, just as he had when she was awakened.
But she was still in the temple, the fight was still going on. She wasn't dead yet, and once again she felt the worst of her wounds close. Ivan looked into her eyes.
"One final charge," he encouraged her, and followed as she did just that, as the last cultists fell.
Then suddenly there was quiet, and only mopping up remained: execution and laying to rest of cultists, patching of wounds, and the final goodbyes, which were bittersweet, but came with few regrets on Astrid's part.
She wrapped her arms around Ivan, and kissed him. He gently took Tanya from her, and waggled his eyebrows, just as he always had when he was alive.
"Ah," he said, "Both my beautiful ladies return to me."
It was a terrible line, but she didn't care. Ivan had never been subtle, but that was part of his charm. As were the eyebrows. Besides, he'd called her a *lady*. Nobody had ever done that before.
Then he concentrated for a moment, and they disappeared from the mortal world to the halls of Humact, where they belonged. Together.