Wayward

[Dantrel Rayne]

"I am not sure we should."

He was injured, and if he was so exhausted that he passed out in the woods, they would be better off dragging him back to town. Though, that was more than Rayne liked to admit.

Tobias' leg was still was still hurt. He might not be able to carry Damion. Rayne began to lift Damion off his shoulders by solidifying the air around his chest like a second shirt. From there, he could simply will the air to move. However, before Rayne was able to lift Damion more than an inch, he began to doubt himself. What if my magic dissipates again, he thought. The thought broke his control, and Damion fell back onto Tobias' shoulder.

Rayne looked up, as if he had never tried to move Damion, as if Damion had merely stirred in his sleep on his shoulder.

"If you are alright to carry him, we should take him back to town."

Rayne turned and began walking back to the edge of the woods. His face twisted as he began scowling at himself.

[Tobias]

"Well, maybe he'll wake up soon. I just felt him budge a little bit."

Tobias hefted Damion over his shoulder. The two made their way out of the woods, entering the field on the outskirts of Arath.

Tobias set down Damion and sat beside his unconscious baggage.

"Little bugger sure does weigh a bit. How about we take a break and wait until morning?"

Tobias was eager to get back to the port, but in the meanwhile, he was exhausted - he had just fought a giant insect-thing, went galavanting in the woods, and carried someone out of said woods. He needed a break.

His head was starting to get light. He started to think about the stars in the sky.

[Dantrel Rayne]

Dantrel Rayne had found himself calling near every environment and landscape his bedroom at one point or another; his travels often left him too far from civilization to warrant traveling to an inn. However, this time, it bothered him. He would normally let the brute, Azurel, take over their body and rest because sleeping in the branches or on the natural mattress of twigs and gravel did not bother the demon. Though, little to Rayne's knowledge, as he and Azurel slept, Rayne lost control of the illusion of Azurel. It was he that slept on the ground all those nights, and he would subconsciously transform back to Azurel upon waking. Though, Rayne is still terribly unaware about the truth of his mental companion.

"I am not tired. If you need to rest, I will stand watch as we are too exposed here in the open."

Rayne began to pace a perimeter around the two men. His attention was replaced like the moon was replaced by the sun; slowly it faded into something else entirely. Though the pacing continued, Rayne began thinking back on the day. At first, he thought Azurel might just be sick, or perhaps whatever magic caused the demon to possess him was fading. He started, however, thinking about the past as well. This was not the only time Azurel had not been completely there. Though, he could not think of a reason why, they all seemed so random and illogical. So, he started searching further in his memories, for the times before and after the days Azurel seemingly took a break. It hit him hard in the gut, but only for a second, enough to stop him from pacing; he remembered everything. Every punch Azurel ever threw, he could remember his muscles straining, and his magic flowing forth to compensate. Every bite the demon took into something living, Rayne could taste the blood and feel the flesh rip in his tugging maw. Why? How could I remember that?, he thought, If it is typical of the possession, why am I just now able to remember?

He searched the back of his mind for Azurel. The faded figure of the purple demon was no longer present in his mind. He was rid of the demon--the ever omnipresent reminder of his bloodline--at the only time he had ever wished for Azurel to be around.

[Tobias]

The stars flickered up in the sky. Tobias' eyes were closed, but he couldn't sleep - his mind was no longer exhausted. instead he watched images of people dancing on the inside of his eye-lids - men and women, short and tall, wide and thin.

He saw a boat that rocked on the open seas.

A woman and a man, fighting for their lives, and for once, Tobias saw himself emerge in memory. his sword flashed and slid from beast to beast, and the only thing left was fire. He remembered the arguments, the yelling and screaming. He remembered the man with the low voice, who gave him his hat and sang a song that made Tobias shiver.

The light spilled over the horizon, and the words flowed

"There is a man who follows me,
And he whistles a soft reverie,
But the only thing that I can see,
Is the darkness in his eyes."

Tobias sat up and stared at Azurel. The man gazed at nothing. He got up and put a hand on his shoulder.
"The man who sung that song was named Morias Draksong," Tobias stooped over and picked up the still-unconscious Damion, "that's the first name I've remembered in over 5 years."

[Dantrel Rayne]

The hand on his shoulder was a whip to his conscious. It startled the mage so much that he cast an entangle spell on the ground as he lept backwards away from Tobias. In that moment, he made two realizations: the hand on his shoulder was Tobias', and the entanglement spell had turned on himself. Three clusters of stone tendrils were pawing for Rayne as he was still in his leap away from perceived danger. A single length of stone was touching Rayne's chest as he landed, like an angered wife pushing her finger on her husband in an argument she was winning, and he had a face to match.

There was nothing he could do. Before he could turn, or bend his legs to jump again, the mass of stone hit him full-force, knocking him ass-backwards onto the ground. Tendrils would wrap around his extremities and torso, only to seep into the ground and fuse with it, locking him to the earth. He struggled as the spell pulled him slowly into the earth. A tendril kept him from speaking a spell, and his hands were already too far underground for him to cast anything. The twilight sky gave way to a purer darkness as Rayne was completely pulled into the earth.

Wait, he thought amidst the spawn of self-doubt running through his head, the demon is gone. What else is there that could possibly hold me back now? I am free.

He could feel the downward movement halt. The stone-hard soil meant to lock in a person gave way to a loose collection of dirt. Rayne's hand burst through the surface of the soil. Glowing blue cones hovered a half inch in front of each finger. They dissipated as he slammed his hand down into the harder soil next to the disturbed area he had been encased in. Slowly, he pulled himself out of the ground. Both anger and confidence filled his eyes as the black and brown dirt fell off of his body. He rose from his knees and raised his arms in inspection. He was filthy, he hated being filthy.

He shook the dirt off like a mutt before throwing his arms out and casting the rest of the dirt off with magic. He was spotless like the event never took place, even if he still smelled of the earth.

He made his way back to Tobias.

"I am sorry about that. It has been an incomprehensibly bad day."

He looked around, trying to change the subject. It was the middle of the night by now, and Tobias had Damion in his arms.

"We should continue."

It took Rayne a few moments after starting the walk back to town to register that Tobias had spoken a few words to him before the incident.

"I had no idea you suffered from amnesia."

[Tobias]

"I don't tend to talk about things that I don't remember."

The two of them carried the limp Damion back to Arath, to the hospital that was looking over the sea. The area around the hospital was seedy and decrepit with garbage all over the roads. The hospital looked like a white monolith, erupting from the shady underworld like a holy spire in a desolate land. After his admittance, Tobias sat outside of the room that Damion was in. They were 5 floors up.

[Damion]

There are many ways to die. A man screams and drops dead in the middle of the street. Heart attack. A woman cries out and goes limp to the tone of a motionless green line. Death in childbirth. A young boy whimpers and clings to his mother's arm, his feet dangling over a thousand feet of crisp, clear air. The blood and sweat and tears trickling down her face, her arms, her hands, give off a tangy, acrid smell that bites the nose and brings unpleasant thoughts to the mind. He slips, and his cries and hers cut weakly into the vast emptiness all around. Many ways to die; few are pleasant, and fewer still are quiet.

They are dying tonight, however. Dying by the hundreds. Dying without a sound. Shadows roll through the city, flow down streets and alleys, between buildings, into windows and out of doors, seeming to suck the very light out of the dim, early-morning air, like liquid blackness. The few who see it coming, and few indeed are they, think that it's the wrath of some dark god, come to claim vengeance for some deed long past. They, too, die without a sound.

In the end, it takes mere seconds. The shadows roll over the city, engulfing it like an enormous ocean wave, and then they slowly recede, like the tide slowly gives up the shoreline, and when they are gone, there is simply nothing left. Nothing at all.

Damion woke with a start, sat up, swung his feet down, and started for the door in one quick, smooth motion. Then the evening, and in fact the whole day before came back all in a rush, suddenly the floor was rushing up to greet him, and the world went white.

His head felt like a gong struck by a heavy mallet. Every limb burned or ached. He scrabbled feebly at the floor with muscles that felt stiff and unresponsive, like week-old jerky. Get to his feet. That was step one. Get to his feet, and wait for sight to return, for the blank haze of pain and sleep and fennel root to recede. That was step one.

It was proving difficult.

[Tobias]

He heard the crash from inside the room and figured the man was awake. He looked around for Rayne, but couldn't find him.

Tobias didn't really know the man in the room. Something in him reminded him of someone, but still, they were just faces. He opened the door and saw Damion trying to get up. He leaned against the door frame as he watched him trying to regain strength.

"I know how it feels, but if you want my opinion, you should probably have stayed in bed. There's no hurry."

[Damion]

No hurry? he thought, There's no time!

He tried to say so, but his voice was hoarse and refused to obey him. What came out resembled the sound of a wounded frog sitting on a toadstool, strumming a bass guitar and crying its blues to the world around it.

It was coming. He knew it. He could feel it, deep down in his bones. Those rolling shadows that consumed and destroyed everything were coming, and he, they, had to get out before they were consumed along with everything else. He felt a chill creep down his spine and lodge itself firmly in his middle, as though it intended to take up permanent residence. It was coming. He got his hands under him, pushed up, and swayed drunkenly on hands and knees. He wanted to look out the window. Hell, he wanted to -jump- out the window, anything to get away from the unstoppable horror that was, he was sure, even then rolling out of the trees, probably from the same direction he had come, down the road from Norwind.

He shook with the memory. His little cottage had been leveled. It had been solid, he knew, he had built it to stand up to a beating, and it had been flattened like it was made of matchsticks. Old Man Mythral, all the way across the Mid Sea in Norwind, still jabbering to young idiots about things nobody else understood, had been no help at all.

That, in its way, was the scary part. Old Man Mythral, old Lews Therin, was Dad. Dad, who had come back from the grave to save his boy, after which they had been through more than two people should ever be forced to experience. Dad, one of the greatest battle sorcerers who ever lived, the greatest still living, with a mind like a steel trap and an intuitive grasp of, well, everything that could be downright scary. Dad, in those depressing black robes, with that creepy stone lodged in the middle of his forehead like a demented third eye, had shaken his head, and smiled a sad apology. He didn't know. Never heard of it. In close to fifty years of straight combat, on every scale imaginable, Lews Therin Mythral had never seen the like.

Damion felt alone in a whole new way.

And it was still coming. With a burst of effort, he pistoned both legs, launching himself at his visitor, hoping the other man would be able to hold him up. If not, well, misery loved company, he supposed.

[Tobias]

Damion fell into his arms. "You know, I hoped that women would do this more often than naught. Biut I guess this will do."

Then Tobias felt it. At first, it felt like a hum in the back of his head. He wasn't quite sure what it was - maybe a receiver was left on and the power continued to run through it. But it slowly got louder. And more painful. Tobias clenched his teeth and looked out of the window.

A Shadow, slowly moved across the city from the direction of the forest. At first, Tobias thought it was just the clouds adjusting, keeping the sun away and casting their beautiful and refreshing shadows on the streets. But Tobias saw no clouds in the sky. He only felt a chill run up his spine and a the humming get louder and louder in his head. People continued to walk the hallways, unaware of it.

Why was he hearing it? What was it? His memories began to jog, his mind racing and seeing the St. Michael slowly shaking under a mass of darkness in the plain daylight. He saw people jumping ship, only to be annihilated by the steel sides and running under the vessel's rudder. The darkness cast over him as he stared up at it and felt only hatred and disgust. Vengeance and above all - Death.

He looked down and saw Damion staring back out of the window. Tobias picked him up and slung him over his shoulder, and left the room. He didn't know where Rayne was, but he hoped he heard it. He hoped Rayne felt it. The nurses yelled and blocked his way. Tobias heaved the sword off of his back and sent it crashing down onto the floor. The staff members jumped back at the crash and left him his opening.

"We need to have a chat about this later," he said as he ran down the hall into the end-room. A patient in the room widened his eyes as Tobias barreled through the room with Damion over his shoulder, and with a crash, jumped through the window.