The Tale of Morin

Chapter 4: The Three Refugees

Silently we made our way to the South Gate of the Noble District. My heart heavy with guilt and grief, I couldn't imagine how Laura felt. It wasn't a question of whether she could forgive me, I knew she already had, but how could I forgive myself? My cowardice caused this. My actions and inaction over the last four years of my life led to these moments and I was powerless to stop it.

 Powerless? That is not entirely so. I am a mage. The realization hit me like a kick to the groin. I've become an abomination. I murdered two people today. I didn't know their names. I didn't know if they had families, perhaps even children. I knew nothing about them yet I had taken their lives. Even now I felt no remorse for these heinous acts, just knew that I had done them. This morning I thought myself clever and free of the problems of this world, now I've become a murderer and a monster.

How quickly our perceptions can change.

"You're not an evil man, Morin." Laura said, reading the thoughts and worries clearly etched on my face.

"I killed two people today. I nearly killed my own brother." I said shakily. "I feel no guilt for those deeds. I'm a monster."

"Was my mother a monster?" She stopped and turned to me, sudden anger igniting her face. "Am I a monster?"

She turned and walked away before I could answer. I followed, drawing the hood of my cloak over my face as we reached the gate. The guards weren't entirely unused to people carrying bodies out of their domain. A few silver pieces across their palms and they let us pass.

It took us hours to get through the Merchant District without incident, by the time we reached the hospital the night was nearly spent. I could tell Laura was as exhausted as I was, but she made no complaint as she retrieved the spade from the garden. She made for the door to go inside, but I stood in her way, shaking my head. She understood.

There was a field not far from the hospital where we buried the patients who didn't make it. I was never comfortable at these makeshift funerals. I attended two, then made my distaste for them known. Laura was angry about it at first, but in time she forgave my selfishness despite never understanding it.

We reached the cemetery, the moon lighting the field as though it was day.

"Ask." She said.

I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn't know what she wanted me to ask.

"Ask why we let them die when we had the power to save them." She threw down the spade as tears streamed down her face. "Ask why she couldn't save herself. Ask why I couldn't save her. Ask."

She fell to her knees next to the spade. I walked over to her and laid Diana's frail body down. I picked up the spade and began digging in silence while she cried over her mother's corpse.

Three hours later I finished the grave. Covered in dirt, I climbed out of the hole and sat next to Laura. Her eyes were red and dry, unable to produce a single tear.

"If killing two men in an attempt to save someone you care for makes you a monster, what does that make us?" She asked me. "For years we hid what we could do at the cost of lives we could have saved, all to keep us safe from those who would have us dead for simply trying to help."

"If you were caught, you would have been executed. That would help no one."

She gave a wry laugh. "That's what mother always said. Thank you, Morin. For everything.

She hugged me close despite the filth clinging to my body. We stood and picked up her mother's body. No tears fell from her eyes as she placed the old woman into the grave I had dug. Eyes closed, we grieved in silence for a while. Laura reached for my hand and held it.