(Death of an NPC)

--

"All my family has ever done was take. I cannot stand this namesake no longer."

~

The Marcellus house is pure greed. It's rich and fortunate and stingy. Lady Astoria Marcellus paid very well to lay with the most handsome of men in order to bear a son worthy to pass the house of greed to. She would teach him the ways of swindle and shady shopkeeping, and have him learn the ways of deceit and backstab.

She had no other family--they were all killed or....removed. She needed a heir. Someone to continue on the legacy she created on the blood and backs of men she had conquered.

When Llewelyn was born, she had the man who fathered him killed, and promptly announced his lineage publicly.

She did her best to raise him in her likeness, but the boy took after his father, a kind but hearty blacksmith. Instead of greed, he learned compassion. Instead of deceit, he was truthful.

When boy turned a man of nineteen, she had considered him a failure. However, she was taken by illness of the heart and was on her deathbed.

Although his mother treated him as rotten as any other men, his kind heart would not allow him to hate her, and prayed to the heavens for a miracle to save her. One night, an angel answered his fervent prayer, and granted his wish---a salve that could repair her heart. However, upon seeing the evil in the soul of this corrupt dying woman, the angel hesitated to give him the salve. Llewelyn begged and begged, but the angel would not save someone who was so cruel. So the boy asked to strike a deal. In exchange for the salve, he would sacrifice his own life to save hers.

The angel after much consideration agreed, and enchanted the salve. She explaned to the boy that if he rubbed this upon the chest of his ailing mother, his heartbeat would aid hers, and she would live, but he would die in her stead, but explained to him that it was too late...her soul was already on it's way to the Gates of Heaven where she would face her judgement.

Llwewlyn raced to his mother, but she had passed. It was too late.

The boy fell into a deep depression. The sad boy became a grieving man, who felt as if he had no purpose. He had a fortune of money around him, but he was alone.

It was then he met a young girl who had wandered into one of his shops, tears streaming down her eyes, asking for a doctor. Sir Marcellus, curious, listened to her story.

She explained to him that her mother was very sick, and she was poor and could not afford any more potions to ease her pain. Upon describing the ailment that befell her mother, Sir Marcellus realized that the same illness that claimed his own mother would soon claim the mother of this young girl.

After a long moment of thought, The man stood, and asked for the name of the girl and her mother. With her response, Sir Marcellus retrieved the salve he'd kept for so long. With tears in his eyes and a smile on his face, he pressed the small crystal bottle into the ragged girls' hands. Sir Marcellus very quietly instructed the girl to massage this into her chest, and everything will be fine.

The young girl thanked him through choked sobs, and ran to see her ailing mother. 

--

A day later, Sir Marcellus mysteriously died of unknown reasons. In his will, he'd left the entire Marcellus fortune to a seemingly unconnected beggar woman and her small daughter. 

They were the only two to attend his funeral.

They were the only two people to ever give thanks to a Marcellus.