Completed a Watcher

[Oliver]

Nightmares of nightmares.

In the shelter of darkness, horrors aplenty be conjured and remembered. A battlefield, omens of impending loss, an eldritch monster come forth from sepulcher or woodland.

A red glow. Terror, imposed, so vivid the impression that there was no mistaking it for mere figment of imagination. Even without eyes, something was looking. And seeing. The feeling of it, being perceived by a thing beyond comprehension, was worse than its appearance that’d so been stained to the inside of his eyelids.

Needless to say — slumber escaped him like so much sand betwixt splayed fingers.

The squire he’d given early leave from watch duty had been happy, at least. It could get lonely out here at the edge of the monastery, huddled around a sentry fire with none but the occasional patrollers coming by. He hadn’t the capacity to mind it.

Exhaling into the cool night air, he stared at the dark trees like daring something to come crawling out. At least that would’ve been tangible, an anchor that’d assure his waking not be a yet another sinister prelude to worse things to come. Which, honestly, he had the horrible hunch it would be. There was no way all that’d happened, on the night they’d failed in that field, didn’t mark the beginning of something. The sinking, hopeless sensation it had left within him wasn’t entirely his own, rather parasitic almost, but it was a convincing force.

It amounted to doubt and dejection. There were things to do, the everyday and all besides, but they’d gained an edge pf pointlessness — far away felt even the disputes of lordlings and woes of a harsh winter, despite both having come knocking. He figured himself a disgrace for having waved them off as unimportant, so diminutive next to what loomed and thusly consumed every idle thought.

Dread. Premonitions he couldn’t dismiss.

He coughed, breath shaky as he drew it in. It’d be a few hours until Dawn yet, one had to figure.

Above, were so many stars.

 

[Bebin Theros]

"Can't sleep?" came a voice from the dark. A broad shape soon joined Syr Vasra about the light of the flame. At the edge of its light, for but a breath, before he stepped closer to its warmth. "Tell me, Oliver," Bebin said as he listened to the crackle and hiss of the bright fire. "What ails such a warm heart?"

 

[Oliver]

He flinched at the unbidden arrival like a man roused from sleep, attention snapping at whom had come at this ungodly hour. Recognizing the fellow pursuant, he fast dropped his stare and startled expression, half in relief and half in shame. Why he should’ve so viscerally felt the latter was not clear to him, but shame rarely was borne of anything so easily deduced, he’d found.

Was it for the question? For having had oneself read and invited to explain, to have been assigned worries belongst to a warm heart. Was it? A part of him couldn’t help but reject the notion, like being called out for some weakness of the spirit. That the response to the inquiry should’ve been held within it—

“ I’m not entirely sure. “ He said, only partly lying. Quite the few things? In truth he hadn’t a proper image or idea of most the things he was worried about, presently. Only served to make them all the more terrifying.

“ Some sort of dread, to put it briefly. Was I to speak of it another way, we’d well have to remain around this fire until dawn. “ The easy jest was delivered with a smile as he glanced at Syr Theros, sidelong.

“ And — with all due respect and love so held within a warm heart — my inclination is to not inflict that upon you. “

Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

A nod, as all that was shared came to clarity. "Not the first sleepless night these bones have endured," he assured his compatriot. His kin. Still, he nod, and kept his eyes on the flame.

A sound of acknowledgment hummed from his throat. His eyes looked up and over to the other man.

"Dread," he nod slow to Oliver. Slow to the word. "Is well warranted in these times," his head keened towards the darkness of the woods beyond the fire's light. His eyes fixed on the shadows that painted the wylds, midnight blue. "To see those things we are asked to see, and fight what we are asked to face," he smiled a strange smile. Wicked in its humor. "Who among us can say they have not been touched by dread?"

Dread to lose oneself. To see their home lost. To lose those around them. Dread to stand before those horrors that gathered round them. Dread to do what needed to be done.

He was sure Oliver felt it, as much as he.

"But it need not be bared alone,"

 

[Oliver]

" No — I know. “ He responded in a nod, looking down at his hands that fidgeted in an absent effort to rip each fingernail to shreds. To arrest them from it, he folded his arms and drew breath, deep.

“ But that is just it, for me anyway — I know that even if one generally won’t speak of it, they probably feel as I do. “ One should think there was comfort in it, but he failed to feel other than sad for the fact. To feel at home in mutual suffering—

“ Makes it worse, somehow. Renders any which reminder untactful and redundant. It is like being huddled around a fire and one should remark on the darkness and the reality that, one day, we’ll surely run out of tinder. “ Staring into the convenient night around them, all in a lighter tone, he shrugged.

“ Wouldn’t you rather think of something else, any which minute? And I do acknowledge you have just deliberately done the opposite — “ He tilted his head with the quick addition, smiling.

“ But if you weren’t yourself, as you are. “

Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

A small laugh at that. Low and dark.

If he was not his self, as he was. What would he be? Where would his feet be planted now? Would his roots have found earth through which to dig?

The flame went on with its crackle. A pop of the lumber there in sent sparks up in a dazzle of gold and red.

"I would rather think of the tinder, while it still lasts," he frowned. "How I might find more to feed it,"

Oliver

 

[Oliver]

He exhaled sharp at the response, amusement in the bob of his head. Awfully practical and all too sensible — one might’ve even considered it the only right answer. Resourceful, gone excavating for a solution and hope. He could accept what it meant.

“ Point taken. “ Watching the fire, he paused for thought. How to put it, now?

“ It is like something has been broken. “ He started, tone level as he made to describe in words what had remained a mere nebulous sensation so far. “ I don’t recognize the part of myself that entertains a lack of hope. It’s corrosive. “

He resented it all, in fact. That had achieved about the same as silence and isolation — a precious little.

“ Poisons the trust we are supposed to have in one another and the cause. It is unacceptable, now more than ever — with what feels like an escalating magnitude of things. “

Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

A quiet worked across them. Silence, if not for the hum and crackle of the flame. If not for the stirring of the branches and sounds of the night birds, and the darkling creatures.

Broken. He let that word sink into him. How oft had he felt broken?

Hands a tremble. Limbs stubborn. Mind lost in a drink so deep he would drown, but he had stopped to think on it then as he thought on it now.

Broken. As he had broken others. Their enemies. Their kin. Their kith. Those fresh hearts to their cause. Those that showed a glimmer of the darkness that would hold breath beneath all of the weight of so many doubts.

A nod as his own breath emptied from his lungs.

"Trust," he chose to hold onto that word instead. Spoke it clear, though his mouth said it with such quiet care.

"Is a fragile thing, Oliver, no matter how long rooted and golden it may seem," he turned his dark eyes toward the man. His brother of the sun. Of daylight and all those things good in this world.

"Were their anything more necessary to hold on to," he looked to his hands, open, and so full of the dark nothing as they came closed. "To grow," his hands opened again. Let fall to his side. "Like green amidst a desert," he smiled at that thought. "Oft there is more there than one first thinks,"

Oliver

 

[Oliver]

More than— gone unnoticed. Or found suddenly when the need for it be dire, inspired?

“ Like any strength, then. “ He remarked blankly, voice low with yet forming thought. Fragile, but one could train it for tenacity. Green amidst a desert, boundlessly persistent. There wasn’t another way, were they to live past the adversity, unallowing themselves be torn apart.

“ You’ve traversed where I haven’t. Where I cannot. “ A great distance. The Loch. A very difference life, once, he’d heard. And the man had done him the courtesy of not dismissing any of the sinking feeling, in his signature manner.

“ It will get worse from here yet, will it not? “

Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

A nod. "Like strength," the Dusker echoed. Like a ripple that ebbed out from the thought shared.

And as a stone upon which the waves broke. Across which the waters flowed. To that where hands could hold and find some fashion of harbor. Syr Theros nod again to his companion's next question.

"It will get worse," he said, as strange smile snaked across his lips. "For us, who wish to make tomorrow better than what we know today, a darkness that feeds. An abyss that makes all feel so small and desperate, we scatter, in hopes to hang on to what feint light flickers before us,"

The Everwatcher. The Blight. The Worm. But agents of a thing that felt every bit a part of their existence.

"I've oft wondered, what might come of me, should I but leave this place," he thought on the one who held his heart. Cupped between her hands. How gently she held it in her palms as it pulsed, and pulsed. "But I fear," he almost laughed as those dark eyes looked into his. "I've become as much a monster as those things we hope to guard against," he shook his head. Smile worn well and true. "No, that fear comes only from the warmth you help me find there in myself, kind heart, for I know I have always been that thing so used to the dark," his eyed fixed again unto Oliver's. "And it is only that fragile trust between us that lets me say so to you, Oliver, Knight of Dawn,"

Oliver

 

[Oliver]

It will—

Admission, yet again. He nodded alongside a shiver that rose his shoulders, form adjusting against it like he meant to shrug off the bite of cold. And on went the voice next to him, speaking level and calm, but with a humbling honesty.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t wondered too, at times, what might’ve been without— Without so many a thing that had carved the present, so much that he regarded as having defined one’s character, solidified qualities from a molten mess. Had he begun or ended up somewhere else, would it also have meant being a wholly different man altogether.

His look had drifted to watch the expression on the fellow pursuant’s face, a welcome levity there as confessions aplenty be made. So used to the dark —

He hummed and averted his look, casting it down at the fire. There was a warmth in his eyes, suddenly burning, and he wiped the back of his hand over each in turn, trying to steel himself with a deep inhale. It was let out just as heavy.

“ I— “ He struggled out, for want of saying at least something. There was too much and yet so little that wasn’t just some sentimental iteration of past words. But did it not bear repeating, ever so often.

“ Appreciate your calm honesty. “ Something to rely on, that. Alongside the unflinching demeanour. “ Makes any which bad news somehow— lesser? Feels like you could well tell me the world was collapsing and yet, at the same time, inspire to take it in stride. “

Which we might as well. What else was there?

Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

"Well," he smirked. "I will call for you, when the time does come," nod. "I appreciate your tender honesty, Oliver," he let know. Stared out unto the darkness of the night. Saw how far the warm glow of light did paint, and pondered. "For now, I'll enjoy what warmth finds me, alongside those I find myself with,"

Oliver