Knights of Anathaeum Light of the Day's Star

[The Everwatcher]

Dreaming, dreaming, she stepped through the night.

The heavy veil of death had been pulled off Merrycourt. When, she did not know. How, she had an inkling of. In and out of a restless sleep she fell, and in the dark spells she dreamed of needles, stitched skin, an artificial nymphae pumped into heart and veins. A facsimile convincing enough to fool the Loch itself, to keep her memories swirled together in one place like debris upon the surface, unable to sink wholly into that soporous sea. The dream, gruesome as it was, made sense to her.

It was the waking world that confused her.

These were not her hands, covered in someone's blood. Not her eyes, that burned with tears unshed. Not her voice, which spoke.

"Syr Damir, thank the spirits! I've been looking all over for you, for anyone," She called out, just beyond the light of the lantern that lit the docks. Stilted. More formal than Merrycourt used to be. She'd never been one to call people Syr, even the Pursuants.

No, the weary part of her thought, unable to breach the surface. Don't fall for that.

Dejan Damir Bebin Theros

 

[Dejan Damir]

'She is here.'

Words that Dejan once so desperately wished to here were now touched with dread. He lacked the keen senses of a basilisk but was not entirely oblivious to the changing air. To think that after all their searching that she would be the one to come to them. Dejan followed Bebin's gaze, turning towards the hazy darkness. Moments later a voice pierced through the veil, so familiar and yet not.

The Pursuant made no move, his lone hand remained relaxed at his side. He knew not Merrycourt's current state and worried he may antagonize her with any overt movements. Emotions swirled within the old knight as he fought to find the right words.

"A fortunate coincidence then, as we have been searching for you as well." His tone gruff yet not harsh. He allowed a moment's pause before continuing. "Will you not step forward and let a teacher see his old student's face?" There was genuine concern in his voice this time. Part of him wanted her to reject his proposal and simply run away.

To think after all the things he'd seen, now is when cowardice knocks at his door.

Bebin Theros The Everwatcher

 

[Bebin Theros]

Coils upon coils. The Basilisk wound itself tight. The slip and scratch of its pearlescent scales stimulating across muscle and bones. Soothed. Reminded.

Old student.

Pursuant.

Merrycourt.

A ripple across a mind turned into a most ancient shape. Bebin Theros could remember the campfires. Conversations across the crackle and pop of golden tongues and red embers. Damiex had killed this woman. Banished Bebin into the Loch, when chase was given.

There, within the Kingdom of Mud.

"You are... a dead... thing," The Basilisk hissed. The glow of stars and sheen of Loch there in the depths of black eyes which peered through shadow and night.

The Everwatcher Dejan Damir

 

[The Everwatcher]

"Alright, Syr Damir, but don't go feeling sorry for me. I've seen better days."

A step forward echoed across the hollow docks, and Merrycourt's face was cast into the light. She lifted her head to look at the knight and the basilisk.

As the tailor had warned, she was a suit in need of mending. Golden threads of hair fell limply over one eye socket, obscuring the purpled swelling there. The other eye shone with a pallid glare - once a bonny green, now reflecting white in the torchlight. Thin scars lined her cheeks, neck, hands. The precise cuts of grafted skin, draped over musculature. The thing that stood before Dejan and Bebin was a perfect reproduction of Merrycourt's body, wired to move and act like her. But, Merrycourt herself -

Merrycourt, herself. Had there ever been a Merrycourt? Was there a version of the Knight that her comrades would recognize, that they had loved and been loved by in return, or was it always this thing in front of them?

A puppet loosely strung. An actor of a dark role, beholden.

"You are... a dead... thing," ​

One of the strings snapped. A little color came back into Merrycourt's eye. A tremble to her voice.

"It's worse than that, friend. Something's keeping me from dying. Something dreadful."

At her side, she clutched a dagger, blade and hand slick with guilty blood.

Dejan Damir Bebin Theros

 

[Dejan Damir]

"I believe those should be my words," the one-armed knight stated with a tired smile. It was difficult to see Merrycourt in her current state even with the tailor's unnecessarily morbid explanations. He did intend to honor his com-former comrade's wishes. Instead Dejan remained firmly in the real and present. What was now to be done? The inevitable question flitted about noisily within his usually grounded mind.

He eventually made to speak but Bebin hissed first.

Dejan turned to the large serpent, the old knight doing his best to keep a neutral expression. Even the Pursuant wasn't capable of giving a basilisk an admonishing stare.

The die was cast.

A quick glance to bloodied blade and back to the simulacra that was Merrycourt. "Will you not return to the Monastery with us?"

Will you not return home.

Bebin Theros The Everwatcher

 

[The Everwatcher]

"My skin hardens; All within liquefies.
I spend these last moments
wondering - what will I become
Will it be cruel, or beautiful?"​

— Lament of the Lepidoptera
by Syr Edelbert Longmarrow
​

---

Dulled again was Merrycourt's gaze, at the mention of the Monastery.

"I can't... go home..." Merrycourt lurched forward a step, blade raised. "It's too late to turn back."

Another step and she would be at a distance to slash, but Merrycourt did not make it that far. Her arm caught midair. A swirl of smoke formed round her wrist - akin to Lady Min's ghostly copies, though the Sightless' censers had wicked out long ago.

Wisps solidified into grasping fingers, and then the rest of a body stepped out of the dark. Behind Merrycourt, it stood. White eyes burned within an ashen face, more than two.

"Sorry, this one's gone a little off kilter, poor thing," said the ghost. It had a voice that echoed through the Loch. The figure's other hand reached round to cover Merrycourt's damaged eye with a smokey palm. "The tailor didn't make her to be violent, mind you. You knights did that to her, and now she can't forget the weight of a blade. No matter how many times I take it out of her hand."

Dejan Damir Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

Wind and wound did the black scaled coils of the Basilisk. Tighter and tighter as rib and muscle rippled and shook with the slow crawl of strength.

"Too ~ Late~" The Basilisk hissed. Its great head, a thing that peaked just over the rim of flesh-made-wall. "Dead~Thing~" The eyes opened wide.

A sharp call came across the darkened air of night. Grated and familiar, the bleating trumpet that made the great serpent come still. If only for a moment. If only for the strike to stay a second. Save the bite of fangs a moment.

For shadows came clear. Swirling into fingers. A stench most foul. A thing far colder than any death the Basilisk had tasted.

Words wasted. Taunts unneeded. For the maw came wide and open. The Basilisk bared its dagger teeth. Venom, glistened there along their curves as moonlight traced the promise that came there with the horrid hiss, and all of Bebin's mass surged forth, like a river come free of winter's grasp. A crash that sought to sink needle points into ashen flesh. A maw that sought to swallow hole those stars that sought to eat all the light around them.

Bebin, the Basilisk, dared to strike at the Everwatcher.

Dejan Damir , The Everwatcher

 

[Dejan Damir]

Dejan's hand drifted to blade's hilt as Merrycourt stepped forward. Dreaded inevitability was now but a breath away. Once again the serpent found words before the old knight. He could sense his companion's patience was at an end. A precarious prospect for all involved. The other pursuant had veered into his scaled form for a worryingly extended period.

His anxiety was terrifyingly trivialized as Merrycourt's attack was suddenly arrested. Dejan was an old hand. He'd knelt at the Eldyr roots and spat in the face of demonic nightmares. The knight was no stranger to the powerful and iniquitous.

None of that held sway. He felt a young lad braving his first battle. His lone, grizzeled, hand struggled to remain steady.

Then movement. A basilisk's blessed belligerence brought him to his senses.

The knight's blade snapped from scabbard to meet Merrycourt's own. "Our young captain doesn't take to failure all that well and she's charged us with bringing you home. I'll have to do just that." One way or the other.

The Everwatcher Bebin Theros

 

[The Everwatcher]

Smoke again, the figure became. Fangs flashed at air, and the river of dark scales kept flowing through the image of the Everwatcher. The snake's bulk came to crash upon the boardwalk behind Merrycourt.

The scattered smoke could not hold Merrycourt in place. She lurched forward once more, dagger twisting upwards to slash at Dejan. She was stopped again by the scrape of metal on metal, and the threat of the old knight's strength. Stepping back, she paced a defensive semicircle around the armored oak.

Merrycourt hesitated. The Everwatcher did not.

"That's right, don't take your eyes off of me," he cooed at the coiling basilisk. "Not even to blink."

A hand, cold and ashen, pressed down upon the snake's wide head. With the touch of fingertips came a flood of thoughts, echoed and looped around the snake's own. Words repeated, instincts reinforced, and then twisted to their natural conclusion. It went like this:

You see the dead thing for what it is. You smell the innocent blood on its hide, feel the tug and pull of threads that keep it bound. Unnatural. Broken pieces that will never heal, seams that will tear. Demiex killed her once, because he knew.

As you know. What must be done.

Dejan does not understand. He cannot feel the Loch as you do. He will take the dead thing home, and it will hurt your family.

Keep him from making that mistake. Stop him.

Dejan Damir Bebin Theros