Part 1

It was the winter of 867 when Sirene finally wrapped up all her business. She was sitting in the graveyard as usual, in front of her parents' graves when Eigengrau approached her.

"You are certain you are ready?" Eigengrau asked. "You have had 70 years to prepare for this."

"Yes." Sirene said after a small silence. "But not out here. It'll be inside."

Sirene stood up and walked through the snow toward the inn. Eigengrau didn't reply, but followed close behind, and with her through the front door of the inn. Sirene climbed on top of a table and called for silence.

"Everyone, I have an announcement to make. Today is the last day of my life. Today, Sirene Ignitis the Reaper Mage will past into history." Sirene said, looking around the room. "Therefore, drinks are on me today. Come get one last chance to talk to history!"

Sirene leapt down off the table and caught a bottle of beer thrown by Vaust. She downed it in a single gulp, and slammed the bottle onto the floor.

"You're really dying?" Someone shouted.

"I've been dead for centuries, old man!" Sirene yelled. "Today's the day I move on. Another one!"

Someone tossed another bottle at Sirene and she caught that one as well. Feeling emboldened by Sirene's attitude, people started to order drinks, and Vaust left to get another keg of beer. Soon, it was a veritable party, with Sirene singing songs in long dead languages.

"Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus, nunc Saliaribus ornare pulvinar deorum tempus erat dapibus, sodales." Sirene sang, in a language not spoken by anyone except her in over 1500 years.

"Hey Sirene what language is that?" An elven patron asked her, leaning on her. "I've never heard anything like it."

"My native tongue." Sirene answered with a laugh. "Nobody's spoken it in over a thousand years."

The crowd slowly grew quiet as Sirene sang more songs in her ancient dead language. Of course, nobody knew the words but her, but she sang beautiful, haunting songs. Some of them were fun songs, some sad, some romantic. The last song she sang was that of a lover, waiting at the shores of the sea for her love who would not return, for he could not. When she finished, the inn was dead quiet, and everyone was looking at her.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have something I want to share with you, because it is the last day of my life. A very long time ago, in the summer of Ironhand 7519, not far from where this inn now stands, I buried my parents. I was twenty years old. Where this inn now stands, due to sheer happenstance, was the village I came from, then known as Isca."

Sirene paused. She didn't know where she was going with this and she was quite drunk at this point. She held up a finger, and finished another beer, then continued.

"When I die, so too does that village. I want it to be remembered, therefore I am giving permission for a settlement to be built here."

Vaust blinked. The dragons would hate it, he thought. But she was also the rightful landowner,