A field of Blooming Asclepias Sinka

[mat13295]

For a couple of days, the Gloomlight clinic has seemingly been missing one of its most senior of staff members walking throughout its halls and wards. Today, they have been found elsewhere.

-

Within Gloomlight's rural countryside, a traveler through one of her fields uncovered a strange outcropping of flowers. Flowers that seemed to weep with droplets of blood that trickled onto the ground below. 

Within the center of the field...

-

Was Galena Altha.

Her arms folded across her chest with palms resting atop her heart while the magnificent wings of vitae from her unusual draconic heritage were sloughing off of her body to feed the roots of the flowers surrounding her. There was a look of tranquility and peace on her face as she laid there.

In the coming days her body was recovered and delivered directly to the city of Gloomlight where she was given to the Montelione household for funeral rites.

-

In the end, the old adage once more rings true;

A doctor cannot cure herself.

-

-

(OOC note: It was a VERY long and fun ride fellas but the time has come. Between a mixture of burnout and work ((Related)) starting to ramp up again I felt it was time to gracefully dip out. I'd like to give a big shoutout to everyone that had helped Galena reach the pinnacle of her career as the bloodhound medic and Flayed Drakanite. I hope she was as fun for you to interact with as she was for me to play.)

[BerylFlint]

"...You coward."

The missing presence of a certain doctor would not ring unnoticed. Ripples that would flow through co-workers and one Ivory figure alike. A strange mournful searching would fill the time of one Dragon, led by bonds that flow beyond blood, and a message from another.

"...You didn't even give me a goodbye."

The report would come in from afar. A few hours later, a large flying ivory figure would land near the field of scarlet flowers to find the peaceful corpse of an old woman, finally at rest after a long painful life. Yet even beyond, she still gives.

"...Did you think I wouldn't miss you?"

BUMP
Ivory talons would pick up a cooling corpse, her body held to the dragon's chest. In the silence of a field of wind-blown Sinka flowers, crimson ichor would drip into the soil and against pale skin, teardrops of life flowing into the earth below as the flowers would surge into whirlwinds of scarlet color.

"...Did you think I would have been angry?"

Life would fill the air, powerful and pure. Yet despite all of her skills, her influence, and her nature, there is one thing that even she cannot heal. For while she could force her dead heart to beat, trying desperately to fix starved flesh, the spark that once filled this woman is gone. She is powerless to fix it.

"...I just wish you had not died alone, my old friend."

The Body of Galena Altha would be flown by dragon back to Aphros, the city where the Doctor had spent most of her life. Given honorable Aphrosian and Montelione specific funeral rites, she would find a resting place in the Montelione graveyard, one for all but last name. Her coffin would be lowered into the ground, 7 decades of friendship and care, laughs and troubles alike, ended in a matter of days. A friend, a family.

For a single second as the dragon stares, the noble mask breaks.



It is not seen again.

[Skellytoon]

The news in the city of Duality spread quick, the finding of the Bloodhound, the collection of her body done by her Ivory Mentor...


But the mourning dragon is not the only one who visits the spot the body had been found, for while the preparations of the Flayed One's funeral are done in private to their knowledge another comes to see the sight. To collect something to help keep the memory of the doctor alive...

A single, yet most blooming of the Asclepias Sinka.

And a prayer to her.

"...."

"As always, I knew a day would come were a noble and old soul like yourself would depart for the lands beyond...

Yet I did not think it be in such a manner, alone, your body out in the fields, yet here you were found.

I thought you'd pass surrounded by those who held you dearly, who held you in high regards.

But what truly matters at this moment is you have finally found rest, old friend... A well deserved one, in a manner very few magi ever see in their lifetime.

May the guidance of the Pariah take you were you happily deserve to go, and may Lady Death greet you with open arms as well for the work you have done...

But most importantly...

...

Thank you for everything, you will be missed, Galena."

After this, any who find the spot feel a lingering presence of comfort and love, a small blessing of faith preserving the flowers which allows them to flourish for a time.

[DirectorBright]

... Dead..?
What was the cause?
... heart failure...
No, she never said a word of it, not to me at least.

---

News branched into the republic, to the office of the Knight-Captain. A quiet word sent towards a friend within Gloomlight, to see about a ceremony, as the old man sits and recollects. A chisel is lifted to stone, a hammer readied, as he carves another remembrance for another dead friend.

Though Ksceniya knew her far better... her passing will be missed by many.
The Shadow of Goldlight leaves an aether-touched sinka upon the grave, it's thorns stained with drops of black blood from a hand that gripped too tightly.

---

Another of the first of those I was fond of, has moved on, and I remain.
I had not known you as much as I would have liked to.
That seems to be the case more and more these days, for people lost.

Yet, known enough to care.
Known enough to grieve for.
Known enough to remember well.
Known enough, trusted enough, to be my choice for the most delicate of work.

For tending my wounds.
For understanding when I had fallen.
For buying me four more decades of time with the people I love, working what was oft thought impossible.
For being the reason I can pick my grandchildren up over my head even in my age.

Thank you, Galena.

---

It stings, and burns, to see you go on ahead.
One more good soul I knew, moving on.
Though it hurts to know you're gone... 
I am glad that you were ready.

I hope it's peaceful there.
I hope the times we spent together were good to you.
I hope, at least once, a smile was given and remembered.
I hope you were happy.
I hope you still are.

I will remember you.
Goodbye, friend.
I will miss you.

[Lostborne]

Twice now. That I've had the last moments to speak with someone like that.

To hear someone's last words in this life.
To remember what our final moments were like.

'Goodbye'

Oh how I hate that word... But sometimes it does not always need to be so negative.

Time is indeed cruel my friend.
Even if we did not know each other well, you were one of the few figures here I could look up to.

'Farewell'

To think I was the only one to hear you say it.
I wish you had managed to find the time to speak to the others.
That they were made to know before your time had come.

But alas, some things were not to be.

My hope is that you lived your life the way you wanted.

To pass on happily knowing you had done as much as you could.

Know that we will continue on, to keep our home safe.
Whether it be in this life or the next.

"May we meet again."

"Ad Astra per Aspera..."