The cold did have its benefits.
For one, it prevented the rot.
In a warmer clime, she would have smelled the bodies before she spotted them, and the stench would have been great enough to even trouble the mightly lords living on the higher terraces of the city. Instead she found them, limbs twisted in death, and frozen fast by the frost. Slicks of blood turned into black ice. As Evangeline walked through the gates of Ishgard and into the city, her heart became as heavy as stone.
The ruined dwellings of those in the foundation and Brume. The weakest of Ishgard, as always, having received the most punishment. The flickering flames, the cries of the wounded and hungry. The dead, the dying, the mad.
Was this what she had betrayed Ishgard for? Was it for this cause, that she had been exiled? So that Dravanian might prey upon them? She had heard Lady Iceheart speak, in what seemed a lifetime ago. Words of freedom, of hope, of ending war, of rising up the weak and powerless. Words that had set fire to her heart, words that she had carried with her, even in exile.
Yet this is what those words had brought. Death and ruin.
She breaks off from the Flames and storms into the Brume, fury in her eyes. Her former comrades would answer for this, if any had survived.
For one, it prevented the rot.
In a warmer clime, she would have smelled the bodies before she spotted them, and the stench would have been great enough to even trouble the mightly lords living on the higher terraces of the city. Instead she found them, limbs twisted in death, and frozen fast by the frost. Slicks of blood turned into black ice. As Evangeline walked through the gates of Ishgard and into the city, her heart became as heavy as stone.
The ruined dwellings of those in the foundation and Brume. The weakest of Ishgard, as always, having received the most punishment. The flickering flames, the cries of the wounded and hungry. The dead, the dying, the mad.
Was this what she had betrayed Ishgard for? Was it for this cause, that she had been exiled? So that Dravanian might prey upon them? She had heard Lady Iceheart speak, in what seemed a lifetime ago. Words of freedom, of hope, of ending war, of rising up the weak and powerless. Words that had set fire to her heart, words that she had carried with her, even in exile.
Yet this is what those words had brought. Death and ruin.
She breaks off from the Flames and storms into the Brume, fury in her eyes. Her former comrades would answer for this, if any had survived.
