The Life and Times of a Ruthless, Soulless Administrator

[very angry goose]

The Falling or The Day Her Other Half Died

So much blood was spilled that the snow turned red. Lysandra Blackwell didn’t notice, however, because at this point she saw only the man that she kneeled beside. He had the same messy short black hair, the same dark brown eyes, the same fair skin, the same straight nose. His helm rested just inches from his head. Her own gauntlets rested next to the man’s helm.

“Helm, O Vigilant One, I call upon thee to answer your humble servant’s plea,” she muttered. “Please, O Vigilant One, grant me your divine grace so that I may channel it into and protect your fellow servant.”

Nothing. Lysandra had lent her divinely granted healing hand to a foolish yet eager recruit during the thick of the battle. Her energy for such feats was quite exhausted.

“Tristan, just stay awake for another moment,“ She pleaded, her spindly fingers becoming bloodied as she unbuckled the straps of his breastplate. When she saw that his injuries were graver than she thought, she started shrieking. “Medic! Medic! Somebody! Anybody!”

Tristan’s eyes fluttered deliriously. He tried to say something but he only sputtered blood.

“Medic!” Lysandra cried out with such force that she tasted a copper tinge in her throat. Her trembling hands finally pushed Tristan’s shredded breastplate off him.

She looked up and saw two stretcher-bearers scuttling by, a groaning man lying on the board they carried. She started to get up, fully intending to fling the invalid off his stretcher to make room for her Tristan.

“Just leave him,” said one of the stretcher-bearers as they hurried past. “He’s too far gone.”

“No!” she called after them. “Come back here!” But they were gone. She dropped back down to her knees. All she saw was Tristan—Not the pile of limbs, entrails, cadavers, armor parts, and injured soldiers that surrounded her—Just her twin brother. And she saw that his face had taken on the grayish color of the recently deceased. His mouth, ringed with flecks of blood, was slightly open with the message he tried to give her right before his flame flickered out. His eyes looked black; in death, they lacked the sparkle they had possessed in life.

“No…” she said breathlessly, jamming her fingers against his jugular vein. Nothing. “No, Tristan, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”

Lysandra slammed her face against her hands and cried into them. Her shoulders heaved with the violence of her sobs, which escalated into frenzied screams, though her hands muffled most of the noise.

She couldn’t be sure if she carried on like that for minutes or hours before she felt someone pull her up by the arm. Snot coated the tip of Lysandra's nose and the area under it. Her cheeks felt saturated with tears. Her eyes, the whites of which were now pink, were so swollen she could hardly open them fully.

“Private Blackwell,” said a voice—deep, gravely, belonging to a woman of far greater age and maturity. “I’m terribly for your loss but we have to fall back this instant.”

Lysandra studied the woman’s eyes for a moment. Gray, the color of storm clouds about to burst. Those eyes and the woman’s severely sunken cheeks are the only features she remembered about this woman.

Lysandra nodded and started to stoop back down, reaching out to gather Tristan’s body.

“No,” the woman sharply. “There’s no time. We have to run or we’ll get caught in a double envelopment and we’ve already lost too many fine soldiers. And we certainly can’t afford to lose another holy warrior. Let the Kelemvorites do their jobs later. You do yours now.”

With that, the woman raced off, probably expecting the young will-o’-wisp to follow closely.

In one swift motion, Lysandra yanked the chain from which her holy symbol dangled right off her neck. She stooped down and tucked it in Tristan’s hand, arranging his fingers so that they closed tightly around the symbol.

Then she collected her gauntlets and got up, her long lithe legs shaking like a newborn foal’s. And she loped off in the direction that woman had just moments ago.


















More soon!

[very angry goose]

Three years later...



Lysandra Blackwell sat at her mahogany desk smoking a cigarillo and reading an inventory report but her concentration was broken by a loud knock on the door.

“Who is it?” she called, looking back down at the report.

“Private Wiltingly, m’am!”

“Come in,” Lysandra said. She gave the tall, burly redheaded man a cursory glance as he entered her office and he saluted crisply. “At ease, Private,” she said, looking back down at her report. “I’m down a corporal because Moore decided to open her legs and get pregnant. Congratulations, Wiltingly, you’re promoted. Now what is it? This paperwork won’t do itself and I don’t have all day.”

“Thank you Sergeant,” stammered Corporal Wiltingly. He was flustered but quickly pulled himself together. “Evangeline Cole is here to see you. She’s demanding that you speak to her now.”

“Again?” Lysandra asked, tapping her cigarillo against the side of her ashtray. “I thought I told the receptionists not to let her in anymore.” Lysandra considered telling the corporal to have Evangeline physically removed from the guardhouse—violently if necessary.

“She won’t leave, Sergeant,” said the corporal as he produced an envelope from his breast pocket. “And she told me to give you this.”

“I don’t want it. Use it to wipe your ass the next time you visit the outhouse.” Lysandra waved the offered envelope away and the corporal put it back in his pocket.

“What do you want me to do about her?”

She sighed and looked at the massive portrait of Tristan which hung on the wall next to the door. It made him look noble, wise, and about eight years older than he was when he died. “She was engaged to my brother so I suppose I should talk to her. Bring her in here.”

Corporal Wiltingly nodded, saluted again, and strode out of the office.

Lysandra took such a deep drag on her cigarillo that she wheezed and coughed, pounding her fist against her chest a few times.

She was still recovering from her choking fit when Evangeline, looking frazzled as ever, rushed over to her desk. “Lysandra, please. Have mercy.”

Lysandra held up a hand to silence the frantic woman and said, “Wiltingly, wait outside the door and leave it open.”

“Yes m’am,” said the corporal and he walked into the hallway to assume his post.

“Please, Miss Cole, have a seat,” said Lysandra, her tone impatient. She flicked the butt of her cigarillo into her ashtray.

Evangeline sat down quickly in the chair on the other side of the desk and wrung her wrinkled hands together nervously. “Lysandra—“

“Miss Blackwell,” the sergeant corrected. “Go on.”

“Miss Blackwell, isn’t there anything you can do to keep Julia from the gallows, even for just a little while longer?” Evangeline asked. Tears began to form along her lower eyelids but she wiped them away with a tattered lace handkerchief. “As a mother, I beg of you. Please, Miss Blackwell, have mercy.”

Lysandra rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her words sounded more exasperated than she intended. “I understand your distress but my—“ She bristled as the other woman interrupted her.

“Please, can’t you do anything? Do it for Tristan. He loved Julia like his own.”

Lysandra scoffed. Julia was not Tristan’s daughter. She was the product of something Evangeline had done prior to meeting Tristan, and Lysandra felt no obligation towards Julia, not that Lysandra saw any reason to keep the little menace alive anyway. “As I was saying, my hands are tied—“

Evangeline cut her off again. “What happened in that stable was an accident. A terrible, tragic accident. She didn’t mean to start the fire,” Evangeline said, no longer bothering to wipe her tears away. “She just got angry. Nathaniel called her mother—called me a whore. She slapped him and he punched her. She had no control over the fire she started, trust me, I’ve seen it before but never so… Serious. It’s like she has an inferno inside her.”

Lysandra scowled. “You mean to say that this is a regular occur—“

Evangeline carried on, not even letting the sergeant finish that last word. “Please, Miss Blackwell, Julia is only seven. How could you allow an innocent child to be hanged?”

Lysandra flitted a hand above her head—a rather odd gesture she would perform when she grew annoyed. “Are you going to let me finish my sentences or not, Miss Cole?”

Tears poured down Evangeline’s cheeks. She nodded, barely.

“Thank you,” Lysandra said sharply. “Your daughter killed a nine-year-old boy, and a stable hand. She immolated them. She destroyed six horses and the stable they were housed in. And you just said that she has done similar previously, though on a smaller scale. For the protection of the people in this town, she must be—“

Evangeline interrupted her again. “This is because Nathaniel’s parents are patricians, isn’t it?” she asked incredulously.

Lysandra pursed her lips and took a deep breath through her nose. “No, this is because your daughter is a danger to the well-being of Yartar.”

Evangeline looked around the room. Her face grew distorted with the silent sobs she tried to hold in; internal sobs that were so desperate to get out that they racked her frail body. She said in a small, weak voice, “Then at least give her back to me so that she can spend her last few days with her mother. She must be so scared.”

“You know why we can’t do that,” Lysandra replied.

“Then have her sentence deferred!” Evangeline burst out, flailing her arms around in the air.

“We will not risk Julia burning down these barracks by keeping her in here any longer,” Lysandra said, running a hand through her short black hair.

“But—“

“The matter is quite closed, Miss Cole,” Lysandra said tersely. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Evangeline hopped to her feet and leaned over the desk. “You witch! You wicked, vile woman!” she yelled, spraying the papers on the desk with flecks of spittle.

At hearing Evangeline’s sudden outburst, Corporal Wiltingly poked his head in the door. Lysandra gave him a curt nod. He strode forward to collect Evangeline by the arms and tug her out of the office. The hysterical woman struggled pointlessly as she continued to yell. “I’ll make you regret this! It should have been you who died that day! It should have been you! Nobody would miss you! What the hells happened to you!? You used to do the right thing.” Then she unleashed her histrionics on the corporal who pulled her into the hallway. “Ow! You’re hurting me! Unhand me, you brute!”

“Lock her up until she calms down,” Lysandra called after Corporal Wiltingly as he took Evangeline towards the jail cells. Her tantrum could still be heard from down the hall so Lysandra got up to shut the door of her office.

Tristan’s portrait caught her eye. He seemed to be glaring at her from his ornate gilded frame. Lysandra stood frozen by her desk for a moment.

She reached into her pocket for her cigarillo case.

“Don’t look at me like that, Tristan. I wouldn’t have let you marry that strumpet anyway.”

[very angry goose]

Two weeks later...

Lysandra entered the guardhouse shortly after sunrise, which was earlier than she was officially supposed to come in but she always made a point of arriving before the hustle and bustle began.

"Sergeant Blackwell, Captain Keenan wants to see you in his office immediately," the receptionist said sleepily.

Lysandra nodded curtly to the tired woman and strode into the hallway. She thought that this must be about another promotion, and the idea made her brim with pride. Oh, how quickly her star was rising.

She found that Captain Keenan's door was already wide open.

"Siddown," he grunted, motioning to the chair across from his desk with a meaty hand before she could even salute him.

Lysandra did so, clasping her hands together in her lap.

Captain Keenan opened a drawer and took out a folded parchment, which he passed across the table to Lysandra. "This arrived several days ago."

Lysandra unfolded the note.

Dear Evangeline,

I hope this letter finds you well. I miss you so very much. please give Julia all my love. I can't talk about this to anyone here, but I am worried about Lysandra. When I was promoted to Corporal a five-day ago, she revealed to me that she was extremely envious and she began a row about it. She thought that since we joined together as a pair of paladins, we should be promoted together. She told me to watch out and with that, I left her to calm down. You know how my sister can be. I fear she will do something rash and regretful.

As always, I love you.

Yours truly,
Tristan

Lysandra looked up aghast, folded the note back up, and put it back down on the table. "She forged it, sir," she insisted. "You know that I am anything but rash."

Captain Keenan nodded. "I know, Blackwell," he said sternly. "But the word's spreadin' like a fuckin' wildfire that you killed Tristan and made it seem like a battlefield death."

"That's slander, sir," Lysandra said defensively. "And though it hasn't been dealt with in this manner since two-hundred years ago, the constitution states that such warrants the pouring of molten iron into her mouth. I'm certain we could--"

"They're demandin' blood. I'm sorry. I have to dismiss you from service. We can't have this scandal tarnishin' our record--not with Cranford's stunt last spring."

"What?"

"You heard me. You're discharged, Blackwell," he said. "Life's not fair. Suck it up."

Lysandra blinked twice and gripped the armrests of her chair. "Sir, all because some wench was running her mouth about me?"

Captain Keenan furrowed his brow. "Blackwell, it's more than just that. She sent off a note to the Waterdeep presses about Julia and this. And she mentioned your name specifically; a copy of the letter was included."

"Can I see the articles, sir?"

"You don't want to. And to be perfectly frank, Blackwell, I think you should disappear for a while. That's why I'm dismissin' you. The best I can do is write you a letter of recommendation. I think you should go to Sundren. I used to have a few buddies in the Legion and they're always lookin' for capable, ambitious new recruits. Pick up that letter from Myra at the reception desk once you've cleaned out your office. It was nice knowin' you, Blackwell. You were one of the best we had. Oh, but leave Tristan's portrait. I think we'll move it to the main hall."

Lysandra considered telling him that he couldn't do this, that she nothing else left, that the Yartar militia was her family. But she was too proud to grovel. Instead, she rose to her feet, snapped her usual crisp salute, and left the captain's office.

As she packed what few things she kept in her office, all of which fit into one box, she found herself relieved by the fact she didn't grow teary-eyed. It was like she forgot how to cry. Or perhaps her emotion at that moment was not one of sadness and resignation but of anger at the injustice of this.

She walked up to the portrait of Tristan and raised her arm, poised to punch it. Much to her surprise, her fist ripped a gaping hole in the canvas where Tristan's chin and neck had been. She hadn't meant to punch it that hard. The paladin, immortalized in oil paints, was irreparably damaged. She wondered if Tristan felt pain, wherever he was, because his likeness was maimed.

Then she picked up her life, contained neatly in a single box, and left her office like a bat out of hell.