Ragnarr: Home Again

It's been a long, long time since I've been back to Pelor's Beacon.

Ulf looks a bit older than I remember him. Children who had been dropped by the side of the trade route, the tiniest babies, freshly realized mistakes to their mothers, have grown up, moved out, and gone on to lead their own lives of adventure. Many, it seems, hoping to follow in the example of some dwarf imbecile they've heard stories about.

All of the children are different, but it feels the same. Quiet. Peaceful.

Home. This place feels like home.

I walked outside this morning, and felt the sun on my face.

The sun. It's been twenty years, twenty long damn years, without feeling that warmth on my face. Twenty years of a dull, gray chill that hadn't a damn thing to do with cold seeping into my bones. A chill that no amount of ale would warm, though Pelor knows I tried.

But ale can't make colors like this. Not even that damn Pandemonium crap can match the green of the grass, the orange blur of a little boy's hair, the rich browns of the earth beneath my feat.

I couldn't stop smiling. I couldn't stop laughing. Poor Arcadius must have thought me mad, lying giggling in the sun with a pack of children playing "King of the Dwarf" on top of me.

It's strange. Yesterday, we killed an Aboleth, ended a great threat to the whole bloody planet. Yesterday, it hardly seemed like it mattered. It was just one more damn thing that needed doing.

And today it still doesn't matter. Children play in the streets, the breeze blows through my beard, and the sun... by the gods, the sun.

The sun was here the whole time. Pelor was always here, watching over where he was needed most.

And as long as he's up there, we'll be fine. Some of us may not see the end, not alive, but we'll get through this.

Because Pelor's up there. And he's in here. He was here the whole time.

And I'll not be deserting him again.