(2022-02-25) Hellfire

Details

Author:	Jessa
Summary:	A new entry an in a new journal
Rating:	T for Teen

Chain: Ismene's Journal

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Schmoop

I have decided to repurpose my herbarium. I made it when I began to see how extensive my knowledge of herbs would need to be, and thought my diary wasn't really, well, professional enough. What if I had to show it to someone? Also, it's designed for rough handling and for traveling. Replacing the binding is easy enough if one of them snaps; even vines could be used in a pinch. I can add pages easily, especially if I run out of paper and need to use whatever is on hand.

So I have removed the pages on herbalism and set them aside. I packed this now-slimmer volume when I decided to go through the Dark Portal and find Ben.

I did find him. Or rather, I suppose someone found him for me. Going through the Portal itself isn't terribly odd. Different than going through a mage's portal, of course. The disorentation lasts longer, and there's a peculiar feeling of being watched, I think. One wouldn't suppose one could feel that way in a trip that lasts a mere breath, but it is there. I felt it, anyway, and for that time I also felt terribly alone. Small and alone, as if I were the only life in a vast, cold, empty darkness.

Well enough, for I suppose I was.

Then I was in the Hellfire Peninsula. It was familiar in a way I'd hoped nothing would ever be familiar. Demons attacking, people dying, shouting and burning and roaring and metal clashing, with the earth trembling around me from the impact of giant demons. Naturally my entry was timed for a particularly violent surge of demon attacks, and all my plans were cast to the sulphurus wind as I found my healing talents in immediate and dire need.

I asked for someone to find Ben of the Cobalt Company, more in blind optimism than actual belief that it could be done. The peninsula is vast itself, let alone all the broken and floating pieces of the world, and Ben could be on any of them. Then I heard his voice.

In that place and time, in that extremity, in that dust and blood and desperate moment, his voice was like the return of the Light. I honestly don't remember how I came to be in his arms, but I was there and he was holding me, and suddenly I was safe again. I was home again.

Now we share a room at Honor Hold, and tiny though it is, it is perfect. I sleep tucked up against him, with Hattie on his head or mine or at our feet and the sprite darter perched on a tiny shelf that Ben made for her right over our heads. He often smells of dust and sulphur, even after a bath, and that certain peppery/leather scent that is unique to Ben.

I have since met a naaru (of which I will speak later), but no place is more right and blessed than falling asleep and waking in the arms of my husband.