This wasn't the first time the young woman had buried a parent. Sybri, her mother Muriel and her father Duncan had all contracted the flea borne disease, angurth, just before the girl's eighth birthday. Father and daughter suffered for days and recovered but the wife and mother lingered in pain for two weeks before she succumbed to the fever.
Duncan was a taxidermist. There were stacks of hides, skins, skulls, horns and antlers in his shop in Trestlebridge and the small family lived in the rooms above the shop, likely the source of the fleas. Sybri looked after her father as well as a little girl could. The child adored her father and wasn't unhappy that it was just the two of them, though she never ceased missing her mother. The artisan loved his daughter but thought it would be best to have a woman to help raise the child.
Two summers after Muriel painfully passed from life, Sybri's father took another bride. Andrea was a childless widow who's husband had disappeared from the Greenway and was later found beheaded, disemboweled and hung by an ankle under the bridge. His head was never recovered. Andrea was a stupid woman, but she was a good housekeeper and kept food prepared, their small quarters and shop tidy as well as everyone in clean clothing. The new bride was bitter, cold, short tempered and ignored the girl. Eventually, however, she did what Sybri thought was the most wonderful thing she could have done for her, she gave her a brother.
Clay was the joy of everyone in the family and Sybri worshiped her baby brother. The little curly headed boy followed Sybri everywhere like a duckling after it's mother. Most young girls would have probably complained, but this big sister beamed with pride and love for the baby in the family.
The years that passed in Trestlebridge were happy but things began to change. Orcs were crossing the chasm, Cirith Nur, by way of the covered bridge. They seemed bent on either destroying the bridge or burning the village to the ground. Duncan decided it was too dangerous for the family to remain and decided to move the family to Archet. Ironically, the family left Trestlebridge because of the constant threat of fire and orcs only to find their end in a fire in Archet after having only been there a few weeks.
As the mason drove away on his cart, swirls of fog followed behind him. Sybri dusted some of the loose dirt off the bases of markers while shedding final tears. Her obligation and duty to them was complete. They received a proper burial, even her step-mother, because that was what her father would have wanted. The end of three lives was the beginning of a new life for Sybri, a new life completely alone.
(Original art created in CS4 by Sybri's player.)
