A Nameless Kind of Love

Part 1 The Journey

"Are you alright?" Gently Mara prodded into the mind of her party's guide as they walked. She could see that he was very lost in thought, and not a happy one. Considering that he knew she entered his mind earlier that day, she was more gentle this time. Having already considered himself impure now and tainted with magic, he relaxed and responded.

"To be honest- no." Nomenlos looked down at the ground as they walked. In front of them walked a Dragonborn, Elf, and Human. Three very skilled fighters in their party. They were completely unaware to the conversation being passed between minds.

"I apologize if I am intruding and this isn't allowed, but I don't see how we could separate from the group at the moment to speak privately." Mara had wanted to speak to him ever since she saw him in the palace, but she didn't have the courage. There was no time to do it because of their haste to get to the Anite library. This was the only way.

"I am no longer pure, so it does not matter. When I return to the palace I will be placed in chains. I should enjoy your company while I can." Again Nomenlos refused to look at the woman he walked next to.

"Is it my fault? I'm so sorry... I'd hate for anything to happen to you, I already blame myself for your kidnapping."

"It was not your fault. There is nothing you should fear." Her words shook him to his core. Why would she hate it? What I am to her, other than a stranger? Nomenlos finally looked up at woman and smiled at his own thoughts. He couldn't deny her beauty.

"I fear harm coming to you. What happened back in the torture room?"

"That was not by your hands." The sun-tanned man said.

"I should've kept a better eye on you."

"That was not your fault either. Do not be so hard on yourself. I choose to leave the palace." He smiled as he spoke, anything for her to feel at ease. 

"I suppose."

"Suppose? There was nothing you could do. They wanted me so they took me." He was a simple man and tended to not coat his words with sugar as most of noble class did.

"Right... I apologize I just... I cannot help but blame myself as I think about certain events..." His body. Lying on the floor as Sorin ate at his corpse.

"What things? What is it that scares you so?" His eyebrows knit together as he almost stopped walking entirely. 

"It's a rather long and slightly embarrassing story."

"Oh? I will not force you to tell me, but my ears are always open for you."

"Well... In Alatar's tower, there were these fear rooms. Mine began in a desert, the party walking among the sand. Then it changed to the blue room where everyone I loved was there. My father, Damien, and Alie playing chess, Corbin with his cats, and even Alatar all healthy again. Sorin flew from my shoulder into a sitting room, the same place we found you in the palace, and I follow him out of curiosity. He landed on the chest of a dead man, eating the flesh off of his stomach." Out of fear of his reaction and her own insecurity, she refrained from saying that it was him. The very man she walked next to now.

"I run back out to tell the others, but they've all been brutally murdered. Corbin riddled with arrows, Alie and Damien burned to ashes, my parents run through with swords, Alatar a broken mess. Myrin approached and chastised me for abandoning everyone and that Dagen will take us all." Trying to just recount it rather than remember was difficult, but she couldn't simply burst into tears in front of the boys.

"Who was this dead man? Was he... your fiancé?" Nomenlos watched her reaction carefully. Looking for clues. Who is he? Why do I even care who he is?