"Say... What makes a man disappear for over a decade?" Mirai asked as they traversed the woods, keeping the road on their right at all times. They had walked for hours now, though this time, Kanrel didn't have to levitate a deer carcass with them; instead, they'd cut it into portions and packed it into their bags. The only codes he had active, for now, were just the warm wind that graced them and certainly made the journey more pleasant than it would've otherwise been.
Kanrel suppressed a sigh. Sure, it was a dreaded question, but he had been pestered with conversation after conversation, with questions bountiful since the moment they woke up, ranging from innocent, like "how does magic actually work," to the absurd, like "Was the sergeant's chest a comfortable pillow?" So, really, what was a question like that in the face of all of this? Besides, is it really his fault that they were forced to sleep in such a tiny space, together? And what could he have done to control something that he has no control over? And yes. It was probably more comfortable than the ground.
"Sometimes, you get lost and can't find your way where you belong," he answered purposefully cryptically. And as expected, he received a scoff from Mirai as an answer.
"You know, I doubt that there has ever existed a man as elusive as you... I've not gotten one straight answer from you since the morning!" she complained and glanced at Torin, perhaps for support. The man beside her shook his head, but his expression told Kanrel that the sergeant was more than used to her behavior.
But why would he allow it? Torin seemed to care about hierarchy and 'the chain of command'... So why would he not correct her behavior?
"Sergeant," Kanrel said and peered past the woman between them. Torin glanced back at him and lifted his brows, awaiting whatever the priest might say to him.
"Is this normal?"
Torin frowned. "What?" he asked.
"Well... I don't know much about the Ranger Corps, or the military, or really anything like that, and the little that I do know might've completely changed…"
Torin frowned further. "Stop prefacing whatever you're about to ask."
Kanrel sighed. "Isn't she under your command, and not the other way around?"
Torin grimaced and stared at Kanrel for a while, past the person they were talking about, past the woman who held a sheepish expression on her face.
Torin turned his gaze back ahead; defeat was clear in his suddenly sunken posture. "It used to be different," he said wistfully. "But you know how it is... You get appointed on a mission once or twice, and your supposed subordinate learns things about you; they become more comfortable, and you become more comfortable with them. Then, you become friends. You know, things like that..." he shook his head, a man, indeed, defeated.
Kanrel blinked. He suddenly remembered Y'Kraun and how they got slowly closer to one another. The Atheian was first a slave, but became a dear friend instead of someone he saw as lesser. "I suppose I do," he muttered, a reply unheard by the two.
"Friends? We're friends?" Mirai blurted a question. "I really wouldn't go so far. You should know how uncomfortable it is when someone, who is basically your boss, suddenly refers to you as their 'friend'..."
She shook her head. "It feels almost as though there will soon come uncomfortable personal questions and strange expectations."
"And before you ask, no. I can't, and I won't set you up with any of my friends," she announced with a stern expression on her face, one that hid away her grin.
"See?" Torin almost cried out. "This is what I have to deal with! There is no respect! Nothing at all! I should take back the power and fix this situation, but I certainly cannot!"
"Also, I'd never ask for such a favor. Also, I think I very clearly told you last night... I have a woman at home!" he glanced at Kanrel. "You heard me last night, right? You can be my witness, I told her, I am certain that I did!"
Kanrel gave him a reassuring nod.
"Hah!" Mirai cackled. "If you can remember things that you said last night, then you must remember things that I said last night, right?"
She looked at Kanrel with an already victorious expression. "What was it, Kanrel, what did I lecture him on?"
Kanrel frowned. "Many men claim one thing yet do another," he quoted. Mirai nodded with a pleased smile.
"No! But this has nothing to do with 'claims' and 'doing things', I only explained to you the reality of the situation, a reality from which there is no diverging from, what you believe and think in your head has no bearing on the reality that actually exists and which we all live through every waking hour!"
Mirai snorted. "I only hear excuses!"
Kanrel sighed. "Can you two argue about something else?"
"Like what?"
"Anything... Perhaps about things more pressing than this?"
Mirai blinked. "But are there, really, anything more pressing than this?"
Kanrel loosely gestured around them, then pointed at the sky twice.
Mirai and Torin followed his gesture and ended up looking up at the dim, red sky in unison. "But there is nothing we can do about that," Torin said.
"Whatever it is, it is far beyond my pay grade," Mirai said after a nod. "Besides, whatever that is seems more like something that you and the other priests have to deal with..." she added. Torin nodded in agreement.
Kanrel pressed his hands into fists. It was indeed something that he would have to deal with... if only they knew why exactly...
His posture collapsed slightly, and his fists curled open. "I fear that there might be nothing that any of us can do about it," he muttered. To no one in particular.
"What?" Mirai asked.
Kanrel peered at her, then past her, at Torin. "What is the actual reason as to why you've not 'taken back the power'?"
Torin smiled. "Because it is uncomfortable when your boss starts asking you personal favors..." he said.
Mirai's expression shifted, and so did her whole body as she strode ahead of them all of a sudden. Kanrel looked at her quickly walk ahead, past the next few trees.
"Boss?"
Torin shook his head. "Something like that."
They traveled until it was too dark to see ahead of them and stopped for the night near a frozen pond. There, Torin urged Kanrel to help them set up camp and to construct a shelter befitting the three of them. He did as he was asked, and soon they had a small shelter shaped from the nearby trees. It was only slightly larger than the shelter they had shared the previous night. Mirai made no accusations, though she glared at Kanrel with suspicion in her eyes.
"What?" Kanrel asked while setting up his things inside. Mirai leaned closer and whispered, "There are no pillows on either side of you tonight, understood?"
Kanrel frowned. "What do you–"
Mirai leaned even closer. She seemed serious for a moment. "I'm just messing with you," she whispered, then departed with a grin. Without another word, she claimed her spot right of Kanrel, while Torin claimed the left of him.
Kanrel sat on his knees for a while and stared at the woman, who soon buried herself beneath her blanket. She met his gaze and grinned.
Kanrel moved his gaze to Torin, who stared back. "Don't mind her, really. There is something terribly wrong with her head. And no, you can't do anything about it. I fear she was born this way," Torin explained, or tried to console, then yawned and turned away from the priest. You could only see his hair as the blankets covered the rest.
Kanrel glanced at Mirai, who still grinned and stared at him. He sighed. Torin might be onto something. He lay down and covered himself with the blankets, and stared again at the ceiling so as to let his codes bring them warmth for as long as possible. He dimmed his magical light so as not to bother the other two and tried to think only about the codes that he wanted to uphold.
Time crawled. Or so it felt like. From outside, he heard the wind push against their shelter as it passed it. It was a gentle wind. And inside the shelter, the only sounds he heard were the breathing of the two rangers. Mirai's was even, and Torin's was more uneven, but not by much. Sometimes, he'd mutter in his sleep about something that made no sense. They must have been so tired to fall asleep so quickly.
He sighed, almost jealous of their normalcy. In every aspect of their existence. He wondered if he had not gone through with the Ritual, would he have become something like they were? He closed his eyes and tried to imagine what that would've been like. What he could've felt like. But he couldn't. He couldn't remember what he himself would've or even could've felt like.
What he would've been, he had no clue. No reasonable guess presented itself to him. He only knew for certain that nothing would have happened if not for him. All that had gone wrong in the world would've instead become a possibility that never came to fruition. Another timeline, one much happier than this. One where–
"What did you do for fifteen years?" Mirai suddenly whispered a question.
Kanrel's eyes burst open, and he turned toward the darkness where she was. He couldn't see her. He could only hear her. He didn't answer for a while. He felt again how a lump formed within his throat, containing all the things he wanted to say, but found impossible to fully voice.
"I yearned to return. I dreamed of reaching home, of seeing my mother again, of the warmth of the sun, of rain, and what it must've felt like..." he whispered. "I... I tried to remember, or at least to not forget."
She didn't reply for a while. But Kanrel could imagine her expression. Again, she must've been frustrated by the partial answer. And when she did finally say anything at all, he heard her whisper closer than before, "Why did you return, only now?"
He swallowed. "Because I couldn't before."
"Why?"
He opened his mouth to lie, but no words came out. It was silent for a long while.
"Were you trapped somewhere?"
The lump in his throat burned. "Yes," he managed to whisper.
"Where?"
It crawled within his throat. "In a cave."
"Is that where you got lost?"
He wanted to scream it from the top of his lungs, but could only whisper, "Yes."
"What was it like?"
Kanrel frowned in frustration. The lump just wouldn't go away; he couldn't tell the truth. It would hurt if he did. It would hurt if he didn't. "It was dark... at times. And lonely, but not always."
She went silent after that. There were no more questions.
Suddenly, he felt something touch his shoulder. A warm hand caressed him. And for a moment, he was an orphan in Lo'Gran, and the hand was his mother's, the day she saved and adopted him.
The lump in his throat burned. If only she were his mother, then he could tell the truth. Then he could say it all. Because only she could love him despite everything that he had done. Only she could condemn him and then console him.
Kanrel closed his eyes and imagined that she was his mother. He let her pet him.
- - - - -
The world spun, trees and snow and figures and the sky molded into one, indescribable amalgamation of colors and hallucinations of shapes. Directionless steps as the ground gives way; no falling down, no staying still, all moves on, until it stops.
All motion ends. Colors find their place, forming shapes, all in washed hues, like things seen through wetted eyes. All stands still. The trees tall, the white snow touched by the red sky, becoming one for a moment, before it, too, finds a place based in reality.
These of his soon see the world as it ought to be. The branches reach forth in blackened shapes, as arms that wish to caress and care; as daggers willing to bore and cut through what there is past within. The snow as another red sea, gently rocking him back and forth, as though he were a child in his cradle. Swooned left to right, to forth and back again; down and up, always in motion, the sky as another ocean, it flows, and it flows. Bloodied tears that swell and fall from the eye in the sky, down the clouds past which it pries. Down, down, gently down.
Down upon (a) figure, one that floats in the ocean of blood, the other who stands still on solid ground, a woman, or so he believed. Her dark hair, a silken coat around her, smoothly flowing from one state to the next, between solid, liquid, and ash. She was the ground wetted by the tears, she was the blood that swelled from her eyes, she was the ash it would all burn into.
Her eyes lacked the brown that they once carried; no gentleness to be found. Only terror as more tears fell. The world, it cried with her, it did; it cried for her. The pain misunderstood by the living and even the dead reigned within her, as a mask that covered her beauty. Her gaze cast upon the corpse that lay before her as she repeated her words once heard before: "You killed me." A hollow accusation that touched the sea of blood; it swayed with her. Rippling with her words.
She reached down, her hands flashing between states of being; her existence a ghost, showing illusions of the past as well as the present. The man down her feet tried to move, but the waves held him down. The tears had felled him. The world kept him down. Even the once pure snow knew what he had done. His shame would never cleanse.
And when she touched him, he released a gasp which ripped him from the depths of the darkest dreams and set him free in one not much better than the dream.
"You okay?" Torin called for him. The man sat close by, his blanket already packed away, much like the rest of his things. Kanrel turned toward him and stared for one uncomfortable moment. Torin coughed.
"Just a dream," Kanrel managed to say after clearing his throat. He pushed his blankets away and began packing as well. He looked around their shelter. He had been the last one to wake up; Mirai was already out, possibly preparing breakfast.
Torin scoffed. "Sounded more like a nightmare," he said, and crawled out with his things. "Come eat," he added just before he stepped out and into the awaiting cold of yet another winter morning.
Kanrel didn't say a word. He just got his things and crawled after him, soon finding himself in the graceful warmth of a campfire around which the two others already sat. A pot simmered above the flames, and Torin chowed down on steaming hot stew. Mirai placed more wood into the fire. She glanced at Kanrel and nodded with a smile, and the moment Kanrel sat down by the flames, she extended a wooden bowl of stew his way. He accepted it with a nod. They ate in relative silence. Soon after, Kanrel reapplied his codes, and they continued on their merry way westward, where lay Atarkan.
The wind picked up. A howling thing that pierced through Kanrel's codes, gushing in the cold. It came from the south, pushing in from somewhere past the darkness of the forest, and with it came the snow. Powdery and obstructive, for soon they could not see properly around, even with the help of Kanrel's light. First, they were forced to huddle closer together as they pushed forth, the snow ahead piling onto itself, making progress nigh impossible.
Kanrel tried warming the air; he tried pushing it to another direction, but as he futilely tried, he was met with an unbearable sensation crawling through his existence, as if smoldering somewhere within. In his stomach, in his throat, infecting his mind.
There was only so much one could do with magic when against the all-powerful nature. This wind that had carried and gathered more clouds to veil the already dimmed sun, as if showing true power in the face of what mere gods could do. A man, or a godlike entity like Ignar, could only affect the world so much; surely able to obstruct and destroy life as it is known, but unable to end it altogether. Only the world itself could.
Powerless, they soon had to stop for the evening. They had no way of protecting themselves from what could only be called a blizzard. The trees would not help; reaching the road would do nothing. Only a cave could save them.
The wind shrieked in Kanrel's ears as he began constructing a wall from snow and ice near two tall oak trees that had been fully whitened by the snow. He could only hear the shriek and nothing else, not even the two rangers who practically hid behind, trying to take some cover from the elements.
Slowly, the walls rose, forming first a semi-circle, and soon a dome in which they found some cover from the world. The only way out was a small doorway through which one would have to crawl, but it was mostly there for air. The space was small, but enough. Kanrel let only his lights remain and discarded all other codes. The structure would hold its shape only because it was built and molded from the snow around.
Outside, the wind yet howled.
He collapsed, but suddenly felt a pair of hands keeping him up. "I suppose you aren't all-powerful after all," Torin scoffed and helped Kanrel to sit down.
Kanrel glanced at him. "Did it seem otherwise?"
Torin grinned, sitting down next to him. "You might not have realized, having spent a few years away, but priests don't usually go around doing whatever it is that you do."
Kanrel scratched his head. "Right... No, that makes sense. It is just... to survive, you have to adapt," he told another half-truth. He had gotten too used to spending time with Atheians for whom the use of magic is daily, and the little things that he had done had been insignificant in comparison.
Torin shook his head. "Some of us find ourselves sleeping under the bare sky and eating whatever bugs we can find, and others... well, others do whatever the hell is that you do..."
"I've done that as well," Kanrel muttered, but it was left unheard as Mirai spoke: "Can we make a campfire here? Or something, anything really... It is so cold."
Kanrel and Torin glanced at her, only to see that she was shivering. Instantly, Kanrel dug out his blanket, then warmed it with a few codes until it felt almost hot to the touch. He wrapped it around the woman, who accepted it with a slightly numbed "Thank you."
Torin stared at her and Kanrel for a while. "Never mind. In this moment, you still are all-powerful. If it weren't heresy, I'd kneel before you as though you were an Angel," he said, then dug out his own blanket and extended it toward Kanrel. "Now do the same for me," he demanded with a grin.
Kanrel obliged with a sigh. He soon found himself huddled in the company of two rangers wrapped in warmed blankets. He would've done the same if only he hadn't given his own to Mirai. And instead of asking her to give her own to him, he began warming his clothes. And somehow, what had been the coldest day turned into the warmest.
- - - - -
The wind is a scream heard by all. It comes from somewhere on its way to somewhere else. Perhaps, Kanrel wondered, the wind is all the words of men spoken as one. Perhaps in spring, they are words of hope. In summer, they're of love. During fall, they're despaired. And in winter, they're the final words spoken by the now dead, and the sobs of the living left behind beneath the shadow of sorrow.
He lay beside the two rangers and wondered if their words would traverse the earth as the wind. If even Torin's snores would partake in that cacophony of the world, after all, it was the only other thing he could in this moment hear even more clearly than the roaring wind outside.
Because of it, not the snores, but rather the wind, Kanrel couldn't sleep. He was afraid that if he were to fall asleep, none of them would awake the next morrow. That the cold would seep in from outside and lay its frozen touch onto them, or the roof of their shelter would collapse, suffocating their final breaths out of them before they'd ever have the chance to become one with the winter winds.
He turned his head and glanced at Mirai, who lay on her side, eyes closed but mouth slightly open as she slept in a silence of her own. This woman, she and her sergeant, had somehow managed to pull him from beneath the waves, to float on the waves of uncertainty, and stopped some of his ruminations. Was human contact, truly, so powerful? Or had it been just the thing he had needed, and most yearned for? It was impossible to tell, for he felt like within remained more or less the same; it was just that some thoughts resurfaced less than before; instead, others took their place. Thoughts that were at least equally disturbing and difficult to deal with. For how can guilt and shame be absolved if one believes that he did not deserve such a thing? And if one were a coward and unable to confess the root of such thoughts?
The wind yet howled, its touch at times reached in from their little doorway. It crawled through and touched them, and it brought with it a whisper of the dead. Accusations. Just noise one could place their own interpretations onto, for what Kanrel heard was that woman from his dreams. An accusation.
"You killed me," whispered in his ear. Kanrel turned his head toward the doorway as shivers crawled through him. There was no one there. And only Torin's snore could be heard.
The wind had gone quiet... Like a scream that had suddenly cut off. Nothing moved outside. As if the space they inhabited was the only place in existence where time existed, where people and things could move and form sounds. Like the outside had become just... oblivion.
Then it crackled within his mind. Static replaced the sounds of the wind, not as a thing that came from the outside, but as a thing that solely existed within him and nowhere else. His body tensed. He got up. He needed to get up. He needed to look outside and see that the world still existed.
He followed the lack of sound, he crawled through the doorway, and then he stood up. It was dark, and snow had piled and fully covered their shelter. It had become a hill, or a dune, of snow. But it didn't snow. There was no wind. It wasn't cold. And it wasn't even as dark as he thought it would be.
Static poured within as the only thing he could hear. It roared like waves against the cliffs at the Coasts of Zuria, or the rains when come autumn. He could see shapes. Trees and hills and...
A figure stood at the edge of darkness. It wore a dress, and it looked at Kanrel, and Kanrel looked at it. She had long, dark hair that flowed down to her chest. Her eyes glinted in the darkness; they were so bright, like two stars that twinkled throughout the night. And the more they looked at each other, the better Kanrel could see her as if light itself formed around her, as if the world itself became brighter at the existence of her.
She was beautiful, and she was dead. And Kanrel could only stare at her; he could not move, at least not voluntarily, for he felt his whole body tremble with what must have been fear. He couldn't tell if there was something he should do. If this woman would let them be, or if she would haunt him for the rest of his days. Then he heard a sound from behind. He tried to look back, but found no will to do so. His gaze was locked.
Soon, Mirai emerged from the shelter. "Why are you out here?" she asked. Her voice was husky, and she soon coughed. She stood up and stared at Kanrel for a while. The man remained silent. Mirai frowned and shook him by the shoulder. "Are you ignoring me?" But Kanrel gave no answer, he did not turn around, his gaze could not move, he found no will nor want to turn around, no words to pronounce.
Mirai scoffed and took a step forth to look at him from the front, but then she suddenly halted, right beside Kanrel. Her eyes, too, found the woman, who stood in the dark. Her expression sank, and she took a step back. "What is that?" she whispered.
Kanrel remained silent.
"I'll wake up Torin... I fear that we might need to leave." She backed off to the doorway. She kept glancing at the figure before turning around quickly, crawling into the shelter. "Torin, wake up!" she nearly screamed, and she must have repeated it multiple times before Torin woke up, but Kanrel couldn't hear her. Or he did, but he couldn't find the peace of mind to care to hear what she had said.
She might as well have spoken nonsense. Her words had no meaning to Kanrel. He could only hear the static. He could only see the woman, and surely the woman could only see him as well. In this moment, they were a mirror. Both a reflection, both the mirror, both the one looking into the mirror.
Mirai and Torin crawled out of the shelter. Torin kept yawning and muttering something about wanting to go back to sleep, and Mirai had her eyes wide open. She had been as sleepy as Torin, but now she was fully awake. She was ready to run or to fight if there'd be need. The two rangers stood on either side of Kanrel.
The moment Torin saw what Mirai had seen, he blinked a few times and even wiped his eyes. Then, fear swept away his tired expression. "It is exactly what the survivors described," he muttered. "Kanrel, Mirai... we need to run," he spoke through his teeth.
"Where can we run?" Mirai asked, then looked around. Her fear grew; her eyes kept widening. "Sergeant, they are everywhere. There is no way out." Torin looked around as well. First, he could see nothing, but then he looked up.
In the sky, there hovered countless shadowy figures. Even when there was no wind, their dark cloak-like figures moved as if there was a wind. And they stared down at them.
"Kanrel," Torin called, then turned toward him, but the priest only stared at the woman ahead. He gave no answer, and he trembled. "Kanrel!" Torin barked, but the priest did not reply. Torin gritted his teeth and stood in front of him, and the moment he did...
The static within him stopped. And suddenly, it was eerily quiet. There was no movement, and Kanrel could only see Torin, who stood in front of him. He was taller than him, and he stared with such earnest fear in his eyes that it was hard to miss. They pleaded for Kanrel to do something; to do anything. They were the eyes of a man who didn't know what to do or where to go. They only knew that they needed to run.
Kanrel blinked, but the moment he did, their senses were invaded by the howling of shadows, a shriek of the dead; the billions of Sharan who had passed thousands upon thousands of years ago. Instinctively, the two rangers reached for their ears to protect them. Even Kanrel shrieked, he blinked again, and the screams were coming closer, the shadows surged at them from all directions; a wave of unstoppable darkness...
Between blinks, it all happened too fast. He could not react. He should've reacted. The moment Torin had stood in front of him. He should've prepared his codes... He should've burned the shadows from existence... He should've done something, anything.
Between blinks, Torin had stood in front of him, and now, he was engulfed in darkness. It touched him from all around, and all Kanrel could see of him was his pained expression, all he could hear was his scream as he screamed louder than the shadows that had attacked him. Like Kalma's dark flames, they burned him. Torin bubbled and smoldered; from his eyes, dark flames emerged, from his mouth that same darkness spat out, engulfing even his screams, for in a moment, he was made into nothing. There was no ash; just pain as the man who was known as Sergeant Torin Veld was unmade.
Between blinks, Kanrel had done nothing, and when he did do something, it was already too late. From him, a light fantastic exploded in all directions; he formed a code as powerful as he could, and it spread from him as if he were the sun unveiled by the clouds. For a moment, he was the sun after an eclipse. The shadows burned away, and ash covered the ground. The shelter was made into nothing, the trees behind burned to a crisp; a hundred-foot radius now just covered in ash, and it rained down all around them like the snow just hours before.
Kanrel fell to his knees and vomited. It burned him from within. His body wanted to end this existence, to remove the vile thing that he carried within. This unholy thing that he had done. This thing with a cost too great for any man to bear... Done for the sake of saving another... But done too late to save all. He couldn't stop vomiting.
After a while, he felt a strong grip take him by the hand, pulling him to his feet. It was Mirai; she had survived. Their eyes met, her expression was mixed with horror and profound grief, and what she must have seen on Kanrel's face was nothing but guilt. He looked away; he couldn't bear to be witnessed by her. Not after what he had done. Not after what he had failed to do.
Despite everything, she pulled him with her. They ran toward a direction that must have been westbound.