And now, right in front of him, there was none of that.
There was no blue fire, burning on the raised platform of the steps. There was only an empty hole where it had once lay. Deep, and vast for the lack of it. There was no noise from the n working their strength at arms, nor twang of the bowstring. There was no hurrying of ssages being delivered, no hum of conversation, no clang from their resident smith, nor muttered curses from their alchemist as another potion went wrong. Indeed, there was nothing at all, save from a single old man, in long robes, with a crow perched on his shoulder, standing at the bottom of the steps for where there had once been that blue fla.
From that old man, there was the only source of light in the place, in the form of the torch that he carried, illuminating his long white and grey beard and hair. Not a blue light, but an orange one. The sa orange light he’d seen in thousands of campfires since he had left.
Despair knocked on the door of his heart, but he took his steps forward – shaking steps though they were – before it could properly step in. He neared the old man, then called out to him.
"Brother... where are the others?" He asked.
The old man looked over his shoulder at him, barely sparing him a glance. "How nostalgic," the old man said.
"Brother, I ask you, where did they go?" The knight said again, struggling to keep the desperateness from his tone, as he drew even nearer.
The old man’s look was harsher now. "Where? You ought know better than . Have you not knowledge, and purpose? What is your purpose in being here? Know that it is different to my own."
"...I seek an old friend," the knight said. "He told that he would be here with . He promised, no matter what, that he would be."
"Ah," the old man said. "So it is you that he waits for, that spirit."
"..." The knight understood not quite what he ant by spirit, but he followed the direction of the old man’s gaze, and saw, to his relief, another man was in the room with them. A seat on a stone bench, by the roped sand square where they would have once duelled with each other. The knight’s heart was in his mouth. Even from the back, he knew the build of his friend. A decade had passed, but his presence was the sa.
He clenched in his fist, his heart pounding. Always was he the sa, always. Whenever he made a promise, he stuck to it, to the very bitter end. The knight should have known, he should have left no room for doubts. If his blood brother had told him he would be there, then of course he would be. What was the point of the blood that they had exchanged otherwise?
For the realm of n might change a thousand tis, and the realms of Gods with it, the n had to trust in sothing. They had their oaths. That was all they had, to batter away the strong forces of fate that would otherwise pull them in different directions. To exert the will of the past onto the future, and hope that the Gods would be kind to them.
Seeing the knight distracted, the old man ignored him, and went back to staring at where the blue fla once was. It was hard to tell exactly what he was doing, for from the way he stood, it seed as if he was doing nothing at all – yet a man doing nothing did not glare with such concentration.
The knight cared not. The crow squawked at him as he passed, a sudden shrill noise in the otherwise silent room, but it left him entirely unmoved. Shuddering steps towards his old friend. How he had missed that man.
His friend’s surcoat was in far better condition than his own. He bore those silver wings of Claudia proudly. A true example to their order. The sort of man that should have been its leader one day. Not him, not the old knight, covered in his filth. He was ant for the field, he didn’t mind that. Not today, not in coming ho, it was all worth it.
Wordlessly, he took a seat on that stone bench next to the man. He hesitated to even greet him, for fear that he might disappear. His friend did not look his way either, though the knight did steal a glance at the side of his face, seeing the small wrinkles that were beginning there, and the few grey hairs that had begun to worm their way through his long brown hair. There was a sense that they were both sat, enjoying the mont, for all its significance.
A cure to his heart, a bath of holy water for all the corruption that he had endured along his way. A renewal of his faith, casting away all his doubts. What was suffering? It didn’t matter. It wasn’t as bad as he had thought it was. He had dread of telling his comrade all that there was of the past decade, all of his struggles, how close he had been to relieving himself of his burden and ending his life so many tis. How he had felt in finally receiving that letter. He wanted his brother to know the wars that he had fought. Sitting together, like that, there was no need of such things any longer. To sit in his company, that was more than enough.
"Edward," his comrade finally said. "The world has changed much since you have been away."
"I have seen that, brother."
"Our order is not as strong as we once were. We were always quiet, but now we are quieter still. I myself can no longer even hear of our whispers. This outlook that had stayed strong for so long, now you’ll sit abandoned. I tried brother, but I could not stop the flow of ti. The people, they want sothing physical they can hold. They grasp for it. A ti of great doubts and danger – people want certainty. They no longer have the leeway to hold faith. I have seen so many lose it... So many, brother. They are forced to concentrate on what is in front of them, for the burdens that these tis make us carry. A great test has been put upon us, and I do not bla them for it."
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