Conflicted Conspiracy [Beryl POV]

The sound of running water, of dozens upon dozens of rushing streams and cascading falls, is almost deafening.

Yet it isn’t enough to drown out Beryl’s thoughts.

Her long, Elvish ears twitch and turn their tips downwards as she buries her face into her hands.

“{Why...?}” She whispers in her mother tongue, grimacing as the use of that language draws old memories to the forefront of her mind. Memories only exacerbated by her isolation.

Thin, grasping vines coil around her ankle, sprouting leaves as mana flows through them.

“Ah... Ah should be ‘appy...” The tanned Elf quietly laments, lifting her head up to stare off into the darkness above. Her fingers idly touch at her neck, brushing across the bare skin where a collar once sat. Her jaw sets and her hand clenches into a fist.

She hates that collar. She hates how it, or at least one just like it, had ruined her life. She hates how she has it to thank for what she has now. She hates how it has tainted the joy and love that she, against all her expectations, gets to experience each and every day. She hates... She hates...

She hates herself.

Beryl knows full well that, were it not for that accursed collar, she would be living a miserable life.

There is no denying that detestable fact. No matter how much she may want to.

Had Krvavy not impulsively enslaved her... then Beryl would barely even exist. For years she did little more than survive, living on only as a form of self imposed penance. The only reason that she isn’t still suffering in solitude, doing naught but wallow in her sorrows, is because she was dragged by **** away from that fate.

A mercy that she did not and still does not deserve.

That she wasted so much of her life, and would have continued to waste even more of it, proves that much. Each and every moment, whether she was awake or asleep, was spent on accomplishing absolutely nothing of worth. She was stuck in a spiral, swirling deeper and deeper and deeper. She did nothing but circle the drain. She did nothing but... She did nothing but continue to disappoint her lost love.

The hundreds of vein-like vines splayed out on the ground twitch and shiver as this melancholic Elf’s sorrow flows through them. Yet those plants still sip from the trickling streams of magical hot spring water, continuing to live and to grow despite the pain.

As loathe as she is to admit it, Beryl owes her current life to that accursed collar. She owes all that she has to... to that thing... even more than to Krvavy herself. It hurts to even think that way, but it is true.

Krvavy saved her, yes. Had her dearest love not intervened, then Beryl’s life would be infinitely worse right now. She would be property of that fire mage. A man who was, to a degree that she is still not certain of, involved in the enslavement and defilement of her lost love.

But that wonderfully greedy Dragon kept her from that fate, enslaving Beryl in his place.

The vines go still as a long, sighed breath crawls past the Wood Elf’s lips.

A spur of the moment decision... A spontaneous choice... Beryl owes everything to that one impulsive moment. Because without it... without that collar...

Beryl would never have willingly let her misery end.

She would have thanked the Drakling for keeping her from experiencing a truly nightmarish fate, and then disappeared in search of an even more remote forest for her to wither away in. A place where she truly could have been alone.

But because of Krvavy, because of her dearest love, Beryl was given a second chance at life.

And she is ruining it.

The tanned Elf pounds a fist into the side of her head, before grasping at her tussled brown hair and curling into a ball.

She can’t let go of the past. She can’t let go of the past. She can’t let go of the past.

Even now, the sight of her last love in that... that wretched state... It haunts Beryl’s dreams. It haunts her when she is awake. Beryl sees the... the decrepit shadow of her lost love whenever she closes her eyes. Whenever her mind wanders.

She saw... she saw her lost love’s face in Raseyne. Again and again and again in the crowds. But whenever she looked... her sweet Eirlys was gone.

Beryl can never fully forgive herself for what she did to her lost love. Not the mercy at the end. Not... not the failures at the beginning that set everything in motion.

Even had her last love never been enslaved, then... then...

The two of them would have remained separated.

A soft leaf, a reminder of the past, brushes against the Wood Elf’s caramel skin.

The first love of Beryl’s life was not torn from her arms. Beryl did not even know that her snowdrop had been taken until more than a month after the fact. Had she not pushed Eirlys away... Could Beryl have protected her...? At the very least, her lost love would not have been in the borderlands that day.

All the pain and suffering that Eirlys had to endure... it was all Beryl’s fault. All because Beryl was afraid.

And those fears... those fears are back.

Beryl is doing it all over again.

She thought that... that the collar would keep her in line. That it would keep her from being... self destructive. But Krvavy, that softhearted Dragon, has given her too much agency. Too much free will. None of this would be happening right now had Krvavy broken her like those bastards broke sweet Eirlys. It isn’t too late. Krvavy can still put Beryl in her place. It would only take a few words... a few orders... and Beryl would never need to worry again.

But... Does she deserve that mercy? Does Beryl deserve to get the easy way out just handed to her like that...?

Does she... does she want that...?

It would make everything so much simpler.

Beryl wouldn’t need to feel the stab of guilt, like a knife wedged between her ribs, whenever she earnestly smiled. Whenever she felt joy. Whenever she feels loved.

She wouldn’t need to hide her sorrows beneath false smiles that taint the rest. She wouldn’t need to live her life with this... mask. She wouldn’t need to worry so much over letting it slip. Because it wouldn’t slip. It couldn’t slip. She could find peace in that. In living a lie.

It is easier than what she is doing now. And... not that different...

The thin, creeping vines spread across her clammy skin, undisturbed by her slowly rocking body.

Since returning from Raseyne, Beryl has been avoiding the others as best she can. Beryl has spent as much of her time outside as she possibly could. Beryl has skipped meals. She has been late to bed and early to rise. She has... she has not even so much as kissed her dearest love in days.

And she hasn’t been subtle.

The others have noticed. She can see the worry in their eyes.

Inanna and Adeline have even confronted her about it. Not together, but individually. And while Beryl couldn’t bring herself to... to share what pains her... Both the Dwarf and the Halfling had wanted to help her. And they have been helping her, in their own ways.

The deliberately placed mounds of soil and countless sproutlings that fill this hollow can attest to that. As can the dozens of quartz crystals scattered around the self-hating Elf, each one held in place by vines and roots.

The earthen beauty of this corner of the cave has been despoiled. At Beryl’s behest, the land above has invaded the land below.

A grove will sprout from the stone, surrounded by revitalizing mists and healing waters. A place to heal ones body and mind. A place she desperately needs.

A place she never wanted to make.

Beryl is an exile from her homeland, an exile by her own will. And now she is considering bringing a sliver of that land here. She is considering doing what she should have done decades upon decades ago.

Hopefully... Hopefully Krvavy will see reason and forbid her from continuing this work. A few words and the grove can be merely a garden, nothing more. Nothing... more...

A tear rolls down the Wood Elf’s cheek.

“Ah’m so... so pathetic...” She whispers, voice drowned out by the water flowing around her shivering, curled up body. “Ah’m... a coward...”

Beryl shouldn’t **** this decision onto Krvavy. That is... cruel. So very cruel. But that is exactly what she is going to do. Beryl simply... cannot help herself. She is stuck between extremes. It is worse than before. Far, far worse.

She couldn’t make half this decision herself back when doing so would have fixed everything. She just pushed her last love away, even as she desperately tried to cling onto what they had.

She can’t let that happen again. She can’t... she can’t...