To say that Dravvin often thought about his past would be an understatement. Growing up he didn’t know how he truly came to be. He knew he had control over certain things, ice in particular. However he never knew it was thanks to his parents. If Alina and Dyfri hadn’t met, and fallen in love Dravvin never would have existed. And for that, if nothing else he had to thank them. He had a loving family that meant more to him then anything else ever had or ever would.
He thought it was somewhat funny that he’d be thinking about all of this now. He was dead after all. Looking around in the void surrounding him, Dravvin wasn’t sure what to do. He knew he was dead. That much he knew for a fact. He was dead, and had died trying to save the lives of those in Mystic from that horrible plague. The Ice Man had sent his daughter Cerridwen away to be safe, in a goddess’ temple. How safe she turned out to be he wasn’t ever really sure. But he knew she’d be better off there then in the main city with the looters and thieves.
Especially once Maxim Redmont started his mob in town. The Elemental wished he could be mad at the once slayer, however he couldn’t hold it against him. It was his job after all. Maxim was an avatar to the goddess of war. So, it was only natural that he try something like that. Dravvin on the other hand was a much more peaceful type. In order to slow the mob down without killing or hurting anyone, Dravvin had created a large ice wall around what he’d come to think of as the hospital ward of the city.
What came as a true surprise was when it actually worked. For a while at any rate. But that was enough. It’d given him time to go back to the store front he’d taken over and start deep freezing as many sick people as he could. His hopes were to be able to preserve them until a cure could be found. He’d started with the most sick, and moved on from there. This took it’s toll on him however and soon the Elemental found himself tiring. He’d never been forced to do anything like this for this long a time. And soon, he too fell dead.
He’d contracted the virus as well, but had been keeping it at bay with his powers. However when he started focusing on freezing the others, his mind couldn’t control both, and at the risk of his life, he tried to save several more. How many of these people did he save? He had not freakin’ clue. That was one of the worse things about being here. H e didn’t know if his actions saved anyone or just made them die a slow, cold death?
It only seemed fitting that he’d be thinking about how things happened at the end. They were after all the most vivid in his memory. One’s death should be something that stuck out in your mind. After all, what’s the point of having a post death flash back if you can’t remember what reason behind it? The one question he hadn’t asked himself yet was, why was he remembering these things? As far as he knew once you died, that was it. You were done. Unless someone brought you back. It hadn’t occurred to Dravvin that someone would try to bring him back. Part of him hoped that they didn’t.
Life had become strange for him those last few months. He kept having these dreams, sometimes even when he was awake. He’d have flashes of images. Things he didn’t do, but remembered doing. Some of them were fine. Others however…weren’t. Not to put too fine a point on it, Dravvin had somehow caused Dravvin’s from other realities to cross over into this one. He was experiencing what they were doing. One of him was talking to his daughter-in-law, Valhalla about coming and living with the rest of the family. Another one was hitting on his step-daughter LilyRose. And as it turned out another one had been here for far too long and was the one pulling the strings behind the “Dark Father” figure. That one had kidnapped his son and daughter (Lysander and Isa) and pretended to have killed them. He had also gotten Kilowog to work for him, hoping the fire elemental would kill the Ice Man before he had to.
All that and it was a plague that took Dravvin out. He chuckled to himself at that thought. Of course there were worse ways to die. He remembered once when he’d been turned into a child again. Only he had all of his memories as an adult. That had been Kilowog’s doing as well. He was dead now too though. So many people had died. Was his family truly trying to bring him back? Were the families of all those others trying the same thing?
There had been so much death that it almost made one sick to think about it. He was glad that he had been able to speak to Maxim after all the problems they’d encountered and convince him to take his family with him. It wasn’t actually taking them with the Redmonts, but allowing them to know what Dravvin’s plan had been, and where they should go to fulfill his plans. They’d made it out of Mystic that much he was sure of. He couldn’t feel them around him any more. So either they were gone or they’d forgotten about him that quickly.
Part of him felt very sad at the thought of them forgetting him that quickly, but another part told him that his family would never be able to do that. He loved them more then anything, and he knew that they felt the same towards him. It wouldn’t be easy to forget him, and he’d never forget them.
Was that why he was still here? Thinking about them? But then, where was “here”? He looked around for the first time and saw…nothing. Nothing at all. It wasn’t black, just…nothing. That was very interesting.
“It is isn’t it?” a voice spoke from behind him.
Dravvin spun around to stare at the speaker and stopped for a moment, dead in his tracks (so to speak). Kilowog stood behind him. “You’re dead.” He said flatly.
“Yes, and you killed me. Now you’re dead.” Kilowog looked better then Dravvin ever remembered seeing him. The Elemental remembered that Kilowog had only joined with the evil Dravvin to prevent his mother’s death. And apparently his time with the twisted Ice Man had taken it’s toll on him. Now he looked healthy, well rested, and dare he say, happy.
“I am, actually.” Kilowog said as if reading his mind. “Happy, that is. I’ve not been this at rest in a very, very long time. Thank you for that. Yes, I’m thanking you for killing me.”
He wasn’t sure how to reply to that. “You’re Welcome.” He finally said. “I don’t understand though. Where are we? And why are we here?”
“We’re in the waiting room. And I’m here to keep you company. I was asked to come over and talk to you while you were here and see if we couldn’t re-build some bridges.”
“Asked by who?”
In answer Kilowog just looked up. Then he looked back to Dravvin. “They apparently work in mysterious ways.” He said in a campy creepy voice. Then he laughed. It sounded almost alien coming from him. It was so…natural. Not forced like it had been the whole time Dravvin knew him.
“So, why am I in this ‘waiting room’? Was there a problem with my paperwork?” he chuckled at his own joke. But Kilowog wasn’t laughing, instead he just nodded slightly.
“It appears so. Not only that but we’ve got to deal with the move as well. They weren’t sure which afterlife they wanted to put you into. If you’d stayed in the Mystic one, then your family wouldn’t be able to contact you or try bringing you back later. However you’ve never been to the new home before and that caused a little disturbance as well. Resident spirits don’t seem to like new people from other worlds just popping in.”
“So…someone is working on my spiritual green card?”
“Pretty much.”
It was Dravvin’s turn to laugh. He laughed the full body laugh that he’d done so many times before in the pub, while talking to friends, or hitting on women. It was familiar and felt right. Now that he’d thought about it, it seemed that Kilowog wasn’t the only one who had stress on them during life. He hadn’t laughed like that in a long time.
“Well, where do we go from here?”
Kilowog shrugged, “As far as I know, we wait.”
Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:04 pm
