Before the Storm

Chapter 30: To Chase... Final Words

Now knowing what he does, Jerome remembers his time in the early years of building his Master up from the nothingness as which he started

And even now, he works out how something so blatant could have escaped him at the penultimate moment

Author's note: have a break from the lengthy chapter bois and have an average sized chappy instead in preparation for the word wad in the next one

also, I brought back a familiar face for this illustration. lemme tell ya, it felt weird

******************

A nightmare. He wasn't unfamiliar with the revenant feeling of them intruding his mind during the lonely hours – where he felt as though that very name brought meaning to him, when he would wake with a sweat caressing his body, protruding onto his bedrest, and heating him beyond comfort. They happened all too often for his liking, but after a few years, he had simply come to expect them upon deep slumber – of that which he got uncommonly, unfortunately. He would still be awake after sunfall and be prepared for the day ahead before sunrise.

He had grown accustomed to minimal sleep quicker than he'd ever have thought.

But it went deeper than the nightmares. Jerome was more to him than just his advisor, and much like himself, Jerome would find himself accustomed to minimal sleep as part of his clairvoyance on the job (not that he was ever unprepared to commit to such degradation from time to time). Alongside the nightmares came the sleepwalking, far and fast in some cases, and through a profuse effort of trial and error, Jerome had learned how to make the experience less traumatising for his Master and limit the damage fallout that would come the following morning. He never understood what went through his mind through his numb mumblings and soft incoherent noises, nor through his exhausted movements and disorientated confusions; but more often than not, Jerome found that sometimes it was better to simply not ask. If his Master so wished, he would disclose the context of that night's disturbances of his own accord, rarely by prompting.

Jerome had come to learn that he would never know and could only infer through key phrases. "Prime Songs" had been mentioned, as well as the individual orders that they concerned. "Thalleous," "Galleous," "Ingressus," and "Ria" were all names that were frequently spun through the slurring as he would guide him back to his quarters. "The Tidesinger," "the Deathsinger," and "the Great War" were often topics of irrational fears that swarmed his mind as he would seat him back on the edge of his bedrest. Ultimately, it would have been futile to infer anything except the key events of his Master's recent life, although the details would forever remain buried.

It wasn't his business any more than it was Almrak's, or the elders', or Tygren's, and he would accept that, despite the level at which it intrigued him – greatly, often; and in some cases, he would struggle to bite his tongue and prevent the questions from slipping his lips. After all, what went on in his Master's mind was but a mystery, even to the person in question from time to time.

Except for one night that he could recall. His Master had shared in detail what had occurred inside his mind on that night. In the end, it was his only recollection that referred to his Master's ill-fated venture that he could try only to delay.

Futilely, it would seem.

*****

"Senn," the voice called, stirring the new Voltaris. "Senn, are you listening to me?"

He perked his head up from the book that he had buried himself in that evening, sat in the middle of an oak tree trunk laid patterned beside a small campfire of which the other Ardoni had gently stoked before turning his back on him to face the path ahead. He couldn't recall what he was reading, but that he had brought it along with him knowing that the journey was long and potentially perilous, and thus the adolescent would anticipate the need to escape his own thoughts back to absent Sendaria, Ria, and Osivian; but his attention had been gained at last.