Reunion
Part VI
— Present Day —
It wouldn't have made a difference if he'd come any earlier, Heacha had said. Although it was certainly possible that she was simply saying this to placate him, Calsh felt that his sister believed what she'd told him.
The messenger had come during pub. A quick entrance, a short whisper, and a rapid exit, and Calsh was now aware of a situation that he'd hoped would not happen — Rissh's condition had rapidly deteriorated. The medic that Farie had promised she'd contact had apparently examined Calsh's brother, and found the situation to be worse than they'd previously thought.
Calsh had hastily scribbled a message to those who had not been present, left the pub with a quick apology, and hired a gryphon to take him home to Menethil Harbor.
He'd arrived home late at night, with only a few hours remaining. Rissh, his younger brother, Heacha's twin, had been laying in bed. To be certain, this was nothing unusual for Rissh; he usually spent the majority of his time in bed, if not sleeping. What was unusual was the twitching. The muscle spasms made his rest seem very unnatural, and indeed, the doctor seemed to have very little optimism for the situation.
His sister, although more willing to move about the house, rarely left it more than a few times a week for supplies. But despite her prior insistence that Calsh should go about his own business and let her worry about their brother, he could tell that she'd been working herself to her admittedly low physical limits taking care of Rissh.
"You wouldn't have had the opportunity to communicate with him," Heacha had continued. "He's not spoken a word since I first notified you something was wrong, and he's barely been conscious enough for me to feed him and give him water. Coming earlier would have gained you nothing. But as he doesn't appear to have much time left, it's appropriate to have you present now."
Yes, it was good that she'd notified him of this; in this current state, if something didn't change, Rissh couldn't last long. But there wasn't a whole lot he could do but wait and hope. It was obvious from Heacha's physical state that she'd been doing her absolute best to take care of her twin brother, but there was only so much she could do when she wasn't capable of moving him out of bed, and though she'd obviously been cleaning, there was still a bit of a musty odor to the house. He noted that she'd already prepared food, leaving the meal and a pitcher of water sitting by his bed so that if he did wake up, she could help him immediately. Fortunately, as he'd found out, the doctor Sayanas had insisted that Heacha take a rest, and it was obvious that had done his sister a lot of good, but she was still more exhausted than usual.
He should have come earlier, despite what his sister had been telling him. Now that he was here, all he could do was hope that either his brother began to recover on his own or that the doctor could work a miracle.
That very night, it turned out that hope hadn't been enough. The spasms only worsened; and as had happened during the original illness that had sapped both of his siblings' endurance for the past few decades, his brother began coughing up blood. He didn't last long after that; soon, he was still.
There hadn't been much ceremony or many people in attendance; the only evidence that anything was any different in Menethil harbor was an extra stone in the graveyard and a few notices that a house was for sale.
Heacha was the only family he had left, and he wanted to be closer to her. With her full agreement, was taking Heacha to Stormwind.
((Posted 18 November 2008))