Severance: The Past

The Past {P.II}

He awoke in a cold sweat, jolting upright in a sudden fit, hyperventilating. He clutched at his skin, his arms, thighs, chest, and face. It was all there. Smooth and tauny. Unburnt.

'Just another nightmare.'

He forced deliberate breaths through his nose until he his breathing steadied and the pounding in his ears ceased. He was back in the Bolvaris Mountains, bundled within a bedroll inside his camping tent. The mercenary sighed deeply and wiped the sweat from his brow.

The nightmares were becoming worse the closer he came to his destination, nurtured by a great evil lurking in the darkest depths of his consciousness. Although he expected such dreams each night he slept, it was impossible to anticipate how real they could be. The sensations, the emotions. The pain. They were all real. Nothing could prepare the war hardened mercenary for what resided in his own mind.

Gathering up his sword Saaryn crawled out of the tent. He was getting no more rest tonight.

"Alas, the silent sleeper has awoken."

His companion sat on a dead log with crossed legs beside the fire, stroking it's burning contents with a stick. She was doing little to keep the flames alive, but the simple movement was enough to abate the clutches of boredom. The sky loomed still dark above the ceiling of trees towering over their heads, so Saaryn surmised it must have been early morning.

The snow had stopped falling, finally, and the relentless winds seemed to have sunken into slumber as well, meaning it was just a little less cold and a little more bearable. Even the woods were silent at this time, not a sound brave enough to disturb nature's calm. Save for the occasional crackling of the fire that his companion tended to.

She moved over just enough to make room for the mercenary beside her as he approached. He laid his sword across his lap.

"Your hair is a mess, Saaryn."
"You're one to talk, Cerys."
Cerysipha Iváneth smiled to herself and brushed back a lock of amber curls that had fallen out of place. It was unusual for the sorceress not to launch a petulant retort at the mercenary in defense of such an insult, but the change of weather seemed to have brightened her mood.

"Unfortunately I left my brush in Cilenthia. You wouldn't mind retrieving it for me, would you?"
The mercenary grunted his decline, the hint of a smile unrolled across his weathered features. Moments like these did not come often for the two travellers.

They had first met outside the town of Glesh in the dogmatic nation of Mavieren some few weeks past. Cerysipha, whom Saaryn later discovered was a sorceress turned Vampire, stumbled upon and accompanied the lone mercenary during a contract on a werewolf. After the bounty had been completed and reward collected, the two departed- going their separate ways. Ironically enough, sorceress and sellsword met again in the port town of Hasheem, where they boarded the same ship heading west. After a weeks length of seafare they anchored at Yevensreach, where the two continued again in the same direction: the Bolvaris Mountains.

Silence bore upon them, only the subtle popping of burning wood filled the distant space between the two. This was not the first time the fiery haired Cilenthian had taken the night watch since they have been traversing the mountains together. Saaryn normally stood guard the long hours of night without complaint, but occasionally, and uncharacteristically, Cerysipha suggested that he rest and befall the duty unto her. The mercenary tried disputing her once but the Cilenthian sorceress was even more stubborn than him. Saaryn quickly learned it was easier, and safer, to simply sleep than argue. Plus, she was a Vampiress. Sleep only served to pass time.

Despite her strident tongue lashings, however, Cerysipha always meant well, in practice. The sorceress refused to be treated like a child who couldn't care for herself. She wished to pull her own weight and prove herself independent, Saaryn knew. The mercenary understood her pride.

After some time she finally said, "You are supposed to be asleep, you know? You have a few hours before the sun wakes."
"Yes, I know. I couldn't." The larger man admitted.
"I heard you tossing. Was it nightmares again?"
Saaryn nodded his head.

Cerysipha hesitated, steeled herself against her companion's will. Perhaps it was just the fatigue, but she gathered her courage and abruptly asked the inquiry that had been burning for quite some time:

"What are they about, your nightmares?"

The question caught the mercenary off guard. It was an unprecedented request, one that shattered the unspoken agreement between the two. An agreement that they would never discuss their personal lives. Each was guided by their own purpose that led them into the Bolvaris Mountains and that was that, any further investigation was unnecessary. But neither traveler could deny the suffocating tension between them, the questions that burned in the back of their minds, pleading to be extinguished. Countless times had their secrets held so dear created awkward moments for the both of them.

Saaryn wanted to answer her truthfully. There was a voice in his conscious that desired to be spoken, no longer hidden away. It believed that admitting his vexations would somehow ease the burden on his shoulders. Perhaps that's what Cerysipha needed as well: someone to talk to. Someone to listen. Understand, above anything. Perhaps the silence that the mercenary was so comfortable with was eating at her. Perhaps she, too, wanted someone else to know her burden. And afterwards, once the confessions had been admitted, they could be more than strangers. They could both have at least one person to trust in this dark world.

"The past."

The mercenary's lowly two worded response indicated that they would remain isolated by solitude. Cerysipha nodded her understanding. Though dissapointed she maintained a neutral expression.

Before silence proved prevalent once more, Saaryn asked "Has it been a quiet night?"
"There was a pack of wolves howling at the moon earlier." Cerysipha replied more giddy than intended, relieved at the chance of conversation. "I will never understand why those hounds persist such as they do. It is rather annoying."
"Maybe you should find them and tell them that. I could use a break."
"Very funny. Be that as it may, I do find the sounds of nature somewhat appealing, you don't hear these sounds in the city. I am surprised they did not wake you."
"Be glad they didn't then. I'm grumpy when I'm tired."
"Ha! That must mean you are always tired, hmm?"
"Yeah."
"You know, mercenary, for a man as quiet as yourself you are a surprisingly restless sleeper."
"I could say the same of you, only the opposite."

Cerysipha half suppressed a laugh beneath her breath, and a smile played across Saaryn's lips. They were both incredibly tired and their journey had been less than easy up to this point.
The mercenary chanced a glance at his companion. She, caught glancing at him as well, swiftly turned her head back to the fire. Saaryn noticed again the bags under the Cilenthian's seaweed eyes.

"You should go to sleep." He offered softly. "I'll take over."
"I am not tired." Was her defiant response.
"Not tired, or can't sleep?"

Cerysipha pulled the bear hide coat she had been wearing for several days now tighter around her shoulders. Saaryn had given it to the noble woman, who dressed herself in nothing but a lavender gown, shortly after they passed through the mountains. She had reluctantly accepted the gift and hadn't taken it off since. Astonishingly, hypothermia had yet to afflict her, and the noblewoman hardly reacted to the frigid weather. Saaryn figured her resistance must have something to do with her mutation.

"I cannot sleep, if you can believe it." She admitted.
"I can't. Why is that?"
"I'll have nightmares. Same as you."

Saaryn steeled himself. It was hypocritical of him to ask, but the voice in his head moved his tongue before he could stop it.

"What are they about?"

He knew the answer even before she had a chance to speak. She was the same as him on a much deeper level than he cared to admit. Everyone on the continent of Eahstwen had a story, some were not as simple as others. Saaryn understood there were underlying complexities about his cilenthian companion that he might never understand. He might have even believed, in that infinite moment, that she too wanted to tell him everything. That she too did not want to be alone in this world. Perhaps it could have been him, perhaps Saaryn could have been the one to rescue her from the suffocation of silence. They could have been more than strangers. They didn't have to be alone. But Saaryn already knew the answer. It was the same one he had given her:

"The past."