''Just a crow''

-Hellebore-

Hellebore.

A plant poisonus to all, people and animals.

Some people have a mild skin irritation reaction after touching the leaves, sepals, or flower stems of a hellebore plant. 

This plant contains three toxic ingredients, one which can cause the heart to slow down, another which acts on the nervous system to cause drowsiness the last in the roots that may cause vomiting or diarrhea when ingested.

A perfect name for such habinger of death.

But all she cared for was that it was her master that chose that name.

No matter how far she flew, what she saw, where she rested, that name would always follow her.

"I hope your travels have not been harsh on you."

While the Hellebore never loked older then a young human barely of age, several decades had passed since she came to think, since she came to know life and not just instincts governing her, since she became herself. She owed more to the old mage then what she thought, saved from the waters of gods and given mind, given teachings, an unrepayable debt to her master.

And yet as she remains as she came to be, the woman grew frail, weaker, easily tired, skin prone to injury, marred with darker blotches from the sun, wrinkles pulled by pain of her old body but ever warm to her student, her last student.

"They haven't master, the winds have been kind."

"They are always kind to you." Belladonna said, finishing in pouring the cups of tee as they sat at the little table in front of each other in serenity. "You are Hellebore, the one given thought, daughter of the wind, spirit of the wild, omen of death, what winds would keep you away? What winds would not cradle yours body? What winds would not push you higher then even dragons go?"

She smiled, holding the cup in both her hands, drinking from it.

"Winds that know what's to come." She answered. "Winds that know why I am here, winds that whisper of your words, our old promise. Winds that know what I must do to master."

Belladonna just smiled, having long come to accept all living end up in the same place after a while... But this? This is something she never believed would happen but would not give up.

"All roads have an end Hellebore, I am just happy that you chose to be mine."

"I am but a crow, an omen in the eyes of the people not the end itself."

"And yet you've come to an old woman like me." Belladonna nodded at herself. "You came back. You promised you would and for that I am grateful." Her fingers felt numb.

And she did, she came back when the winds whispered to her how joints ached, how coughs hurt, how blood flowed, how waking hurt and sleeping was agony, how nothing was comfortable.

"You remember the promise." Hands, her hands were numb.

"Of course I do master. When the day come that pain is all that comes to the living, when the day getting out of bed hurts more then the agony of laying there, when the sunset becomes more beloved then the sunrise, that's when I am to come." The eternal smile was one of sadness, of bittersweet ends. "And so I have come."

"I am glad." Her arms. "All my life surrounded by all and yet so lonely. My beloved in the hands of a man, now both buried as one, my children moving up and protecting our people, oh so lonely in a sea of people." She felt a bit faint but before she could even fall to a side, gentle hands around her shoulder. Hellebore to her left now, in pensive silence.

"You won't be lonely no more." Hellebore's even loving smile offered respite to the numbness, to the pain, her voice seeming to drown all, to drown, drown, drown. "For I promised I'd be here."

Hellebore flowers, poisonous to all but the gift of gods baring their name, fitting end orchestrated by the one to promise her to take her away.

"I am glad." She could have not waited, she could have chosen this path alone but such was not to be, her greatest flower would be her last shadow.

It was rare she'd cry, even her students, her unofficial children, would cry more then her... She doesn't remember if they ever saw her cry actually. But these tears along with the adoring smile were real.

"How fitting, the Hellebore brought into the world by my actions and the one to take it me away is the same."

"I thought it poetic." The hands that put it in the pot said. "Belladonna, head mage of old, poisonous flower of Solor, master of crows, right hand of the old queen, teacher of greatness, put to rest by a worse poison then she could ever be, flowering Hellebores."

A weak chuckle met with an ever gentle smile, Hellebore's beauty ever present, moving the heart of all, one of her most precious flowers.

"Now rest master, the pain shall be no more and the crow shall guide your soul as it takes flight in the eternal skies." Her forehead resting against hers. "For my promise has been fulfilled."

She cupped the not so human woman's cheek even if numbness robbed her from a last feel of it, last of her strength to do so.

"And you fly on like you always do, find someone else to be of allegiance as you did to me, find someone else that needs a crow in their life."

"I shall master, I promise." She moved her head, kissing her forehead. "Now rest, you've done enough."

She stayed like that until nothing was left, a limp body with a smile on her old face in her hands.

"Fly, fly high and fly true, master." She sadly smiled at the woman that would never open her eyes again. "It has been an honor have known you and have carried you away myself.

She easily picked up the woman, her body already going cold in this late autumn, the winds carried their condolences, brushing passed her face, through her hair, whistling through the little place.

They cracked the staircase open for her as she walked down them, the stone ever cold under her feet but not unwelcome, winds carrying dust and cobwebs away.

She stood at the foot of the basin with the tear of god, eternally pulsing with knowledge and power, eternally beating to the rhythm of her heart.

As gentle as a mother with her baby, her everything, she set the older woman into the pool.

Laying on her back with her hands cupped on her stomach, the smile having relaxed off her face.

Kneeling down, Hellebore cupped her hands together in front of her face.

"Just like how you granted me thought, grant her peace. Life has been hard and cruel to such a devoted soul. My master deserves rest so please, let her." A simple wish whispered into the air as the shallow pool slowly swallowed the body, soon no trace of the old head mage was left, the pool calm and as empty as before.

She stood, turning her back to the place, walking out on light steps, walking out of the tree that held so many secrets that would now forever be sealed until another one worthy of such knowledge would come.

She could have stayed herself but at the same time she knew she couldn't, the winds beckoning for her to fly, to glide through the breeze and fight through the storm, the skies called and who was she to not join them? Since her master would be flying so high, so long, so strong. Since...

"I am just a crow." She smiled, wings unfurling, human shape abandoned and, in a burst of feathers, departing towards new horizons.

Hellebores bloom in many places after all.