It was late. It was dark. It was quiet and the kaer was asleep. Op'skith was alone with nothing to do. Alone with his thoughts. He had been avoiding them for hours now, finding all the work and distractions he could, but now he was alone with nothing but time and thought. Time and thought. He silently begged the darkness of sleep to come and take him away, so his thoughts could be held at bay until morning when they could again be drowned in distraction. The dread he had chained and put away in his mind groaned against the confines he had placed on it. It demanded that he acknowledge it. It rattled the bars of the cage he had put it in. But he knew he could not so much as look at it. The moment he set his eyes upon that darkness it would fill his mind. It would consume him and destroy him. He would return to the whimpering madman who broke his body against the rocks and he wasn't sure he could ever chain the fear again after that. But it would not let him rest while he denied it.
The darkness of his room ate at him, reminding him of the hard void all around his tiny home. But if he turned on the lights, then that would only show him the stone walls ready to destroy him. The silence terrified him with its emptiness and lifelessness. But noise would only echo off of hard walls, those cold confines on what little was alive in the world. His own stillness frightened him. Stillness was death. But he was more afraid to move. What would he do if he allowed himself to act now? He sought meditation and the emptiness of thought, but chaos overwhelmed emptiness.
Finally he rose from his bed, turning on the light crystal with a gesture and set his feet on the ground. He stretched his neck one direction and then the other. The familiarity of the action allowed him to ignore his thoughts as he went through the motions. He stood and paced back and forth, looking for something to focus on. His eyes glazed over various objects before being drawn to the Wheel of the Passions. It was a simple one, with only twelve icons for the twelve Passions stitched into it. He had made it himself, with his chaida's help, many years ago. There were far more elaborate and beautiful iconographies elsewhere in the kaer, made by far better craftsmen than he, but this one was better. It invoked Astendar the Artist simply by its creation at his own hands. It invoked Garlen of the Hearth by the memories with Op'tan it inspired.
He gently removed it from the shelf and unfolded it on the floor, kneeling beside it. He touched the symbols in turn, searching for some feeling to overcome the fear that was destroying him, some passion to push out the void. He went first to Lochost, reminded by Rull's invocation. He searched for the Chained Dreamer, the Rebel Queen, the Hopeful Mystic... the images of the Passion escaped him. His hope was too weak to face his fear. He gently moved his hand over the others, no help from Upandal the Builder in this, and came to Floranuus. He listened for the Laughing Flame, the Dancing Lightning or the Reveler In Shadow. The Reveler in Shadow came to his mind, laughing in the face of darkness, but as the image laughed he could hear the ring of madness, not of joy. He swept the images from his mind and continued around the circle. He entirely skipped Vestrial the Trickster and Erendis the Keeper. The kaer still included those, and Rashamon the King, among the twelve, but hadn't sought their Passions in generations. No one quite understood why, but they knew it had to be that way. Even trying to ignore them, Op'skith felt the symbol of Erendis calling to him, warning him that fear was Passion as much as hope was, that salvation was in the void... Dis... He shuddered and banished the thoughts. There was something wrong there. He hurried onward to Garlen. Garlen of the Hearth, the Kindly Healer, the Humble Caretaker. Garlen ought to be the one. Afflictions of the mind and healing were her domain. If anyone would help him wouldn't it be her? He tried to kindle the Passion, the Passion to be whole again, the Passion to be made well. But in that Passion he felt the seed of pity and shame. In the image of the healer that he called up, the face was that of S'tess. He was not sick, he was afraid. He was afraid of something that was true. Was it an illness to see what was before your eyes? The Passion died even as he kindled it. It was not his.
With that he abandoned the symbol of Garlen. He neared the end of the circle and came to rest on the one he knew that he would. Thystonius the Valorous, The Champion of Battles, The Climber of Mountains and The Rider of Rivers. As the images flashed though his mind, strong as ever, his Passion flared. It was the Passion to overcome a new challenge, to face the impossible and to prove his excellence in pursuit of a worthy goal. Was this fear not a worthy challenge? Could he not face it and overcome it? A new image formed in his mind: Thystonius the Unconquered. He saw a young warrior, battered and injured beyond hope. He saw him bleeding and surrounded by enemies without number. He saw the certainty his defeat and death, but he saw in the eyes of the warrior that he would not give up. Not while he had the strength to raise his arm and not when that arm was broken. The Passion of the Challenge flowed through him like light and fire. The image was new, it was not an incarnation of the Passion that Op'skith had ever seen or heard before, but it was true. It was as certain as the blood in his veins.
Op'skith rose, energized by the feeling and paced across the room. His course was set. The fear was not a sickness or a weakness, it was an enemy. He would face it and he would weather its blows until it could no longer hurt him. It would bleed him and break him, but in the end he would remain and the fear would fade. But how? How could he release that monster from its confines and survive? He considered and he came to a plan.
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Op'skith made his way through the corridors of the kaer. It was silent and dark here, all were asleep. But he made his way further, beyond the habited areas and into the dark sections of the kaer. They used perhaps half of the full space, even with many of them taking rooms sized for families as personal quarters. It meant there were large areas of the kaer where there was no one. Where noise would not disturb anyone's rest or draw any help. Op'skith chose a room at random, and then made his way to the small closet at the back of it. He stared into the dark space. It was empty, but small. Small enough that there was barely enough room to sit down in it. He carefully set down the small light crystal he had used to illuminate his way outside the door and tapped it, the dim light winking out. He was plunged into complete darkness. There was no distant light from the hall, no dimness for his eyes to adjust to. The darkness was complete. But he remembered where the closet and door had been clearly and easily slipped inside. He settled himself on the floor, legs crossed, tail coiling around. He reached out and pulled the door shut. The space was very tight and confined now. The faint breeze that pervaded the kaer was shut out of this tiny space. He planted his hands on his knees and spoke aloud. "For one hour, I will not leave this place. For one hour I will not stand or open the door. For one hour I will remain here and my hands will remain on my knees." With that the terms were set. He fixed the words in his mind. He would be held by them.
He waited. It did not take long. The fear had been building as he came here, as he looked at the closet and as he turned out the light. His purpose to act had kept it at bay but now he was idle. And in idleness it shook the cage he had kept it in. *He was trapped. Stone upon stone around.* He steeled himself- and then relaxed. He released his control upon his fear, no longer denying it and allowing himself to experience it fully. It was almost a relief, at first. The tension of containing the fear for so long eased and he felt relaxed. Then the shadows began creeping in. The weight of the earth began to creep in to the edges of his awareness. Above and around, impossible weight held up by flimsy support. Pressure beat down on his shoulders, pinning him to the ground. He could feel his own weight pressed against the stone. Scale on stone. Scale against stone. Life against stillness. It was no contest. Before life had come here there was dead stone. When life had gone from here there would be dead stone. Him, his family, all his friends, all his people were a spark against the void. They had fought for survival down here for six hundred years, sacrificing, diminishing, weakening inch by inch. But six hundred years was nothing to the stone. The moment of light and life would wink out and all would be the still void again. The weight he felt pushing him down was impossible. He felt himself hunching forward under it.
He felt the walls. They were so close here. He could sense them inches away on every side. There was barely enough space for him to be here, let alone to move. The confinement edged in on him. The walls did not crush him now, but they confined. All his movement, all his possibilities were bound within them. He could run but they would stop him. He could swim but only within a pool. He could lie down as long as there was enough space. The closeness at this moment pressed in from every side and he shivered under it. He wanted to huddle into a ball, to be as small as he could. He wanted to lash out and break the walls. He wanted to smash down the door of the closet so it wouldn't hold him anymore. He wanted to smash down every door in the kaer so that they could never confine again. But that would only move the walls a little further away. They were eternal and within them he was nothing. He could never become anything. They would not let him.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
And over it all, was the darkness. It was a comfort, in a way. For as long as it hid the stone, the walls, he could imagine they were not there. He could dream that there was anything beyond. He could live like he had before he had known. Living in darkness he hadn't needed to see what was within it. But now he had seen. The darkness was no longer a comforting shadow over the awful truth. Now it was a reminder of how fragile the light was. It was an oppressive nothing that ate into what little they had. Light was as limited as food, as limited as life itself. As the centuries passed, light retreated. It retreated, as everything did, before stillness and darkness. The march of darkness forward was as inevitable as the retreat of light. The ignorant comfort of darkness had ended and now it came to end all. The comfort of darkness would not return so easily. Not unless you bring it back. Not Unless you go to join it.
Op'skith's eyes snapped open, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. The slow agony of dread was pierced and shattered by a spike of panic. He didn't think things like that. That was not him. But wouldn't it be easier? His eyes darted around, as if there was some escape from his own head. No one will ever get out of here. He twisted his body around, his tail suddenly thrashing, how could he get away?! What good would it do to live another fifty years under dead stone? He was breathing rapid shallow breaths, his eyes were wide and frantic. What good does it do to live another day down here? He hunched over, his body shaking. When there is only one possible course of action... Op'skith began to weep. His throat choked as painful sobs forced their way out of him. The thoughts continued.
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The hour passed. Perhaps more, but certainly not less. Op'skith dragged himself to his knees and crawled out of the closet, fumbling numbly for the light crystal. His body felt painfully cramped and stretched out at the same time from the awkward position and tension. Some part of him wanted to call up the image of the Unconquered Warrior, the Passion he had felt to face this fear as a challenge, but it wouldn't come. He just felt... deadened. His thoughts came sluggishly and with great effort. Trying to think or feel anything felt like scraping rough iron. He mechanically made his way back from the abandoned section of the kaer to his own room. The corridors stretched out and he crossed them. If he leaned forward then his legs would catch him from falling by reflex, that way he didn't have to tell them to take the next step. Finally, he stumbled through the door and fell onto the bed. Sleep came quickly this time.
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He woke late the next cycle to the sound of movement and activity outside his door. He felt... well, not exactly refreshed, but he felt like a living thing again. He rose and went about his routine as normal. Routine was pleasant. He went out and found Soora again. He watched and Risi worked. Some people asked him questions. He answered them simply until they stopped, then he went on. They slipped from his mind like water. The cycle seemed to be over almost as soon as it had begun, and he slept.
Time passed. Some number of cycles went on, perhaps a week. Twice more, faced with the deepening pit of stone outside The Doors, he again found fear welling out of the numbness. When he could no longer stand it, he returned to the small closet and released it as he had the first time. It felt like he was sliding down a hole, inch by inch. He could go down slower or faster, but 'up' was an impossibility.
People talked to him sometimes. Rull, Jata and S'tess all came to him at one time or another and tried to start conversations of one kind or another. He said what he had to until they left him alone again.
At one point, he was eating late in one of the dining halls. The room was nearly empty. The food was cold, but he avoided unnecessary conversation this way. He ate the food mechanically, one bite at a time. His eyes watched the empty room with glazed disinterest.
Then a flutter of movement drew his eye. He watched impassively. A small shape flew down from a crevice in the wall above the hall and collected a tiny meal before settling down to eat. It was Edwin, or perhaps 'Elder' Edwin. He was barely a foot high, a miniature person with pale skin and long white hair. His limbs were small and delicate, and looked almost comical with the long beard that hung down nearly to his feet. But the most distinctive feature was the two large grey wings that sprang from his back. He was a windling, the only one in the kaer. The story Op'skith had heard said that, in the last days before the Doors closed and the long night began, two desperate windlings had begged to be sheltered from the scourge. While their ancestors had already turned away many others they could not feed, for those were difficult times, they took in the tiny windlings, for they would eat little. While windlings were among the most long lived of all namegivers, that pair had passed centuries ago, leaving their only son.
Edwin had been only a curiosity as long as Op'skith had ever known. He kept to himself and he stayed quiet. Every child, naturally, marveled at his flight at some point, but Edwin ignored them and without any encouragement they moved on in time. Op'skith watched him now, for lack of anything else to look at. He seemed old and tired, and more than that he seemed... hollow. He seemed uninterested in anything as he ate his small meal. The only thing he carried with him was a short staff, barely six inches high, wrapped around with some silver-blue thread, finer than any other Op'skith had ever seen. He had asked about it before and been told that it was apparently some part of some tradition of the windlings who had come to them. None of them knew how it was created or used, but it was apparently part of secret skill those windlings had passed down for generations before the scourge. Edwin finished his small meal, picked up the staff, and rose to fly back to his crevice in the wall. Op'skith noticed the intricate curling patterns that ran along those wings. They were barely visible, as the wings were entirely colored in shades of dark grey. Op'skith realized they were the same shades of grey as the stone walls here and something tugged at his memory. It was a tidbit he had read once, a long time ago. Windling wings took on the colors of their surroundings, generally taking on bright hues of green or blue to form vibrant patterns similar to something called a 'butterfly'. That description came from before the scourge, of course. Op'skith supposed that the writer hadn't considered how the wings might be colored on a windling who lived in a kaer. He had also described windlings as lively and exuberant, even more so than t'skrang were reputed to be. But those reputations were always inaccurate when you looked closely. Individuals varied from the norm. Op'skith supposed the quiet windling was one of those, though reputedly his parents had been much more lively. Edwin vanished into the darkness above the hall. Op'skith finished his meal and left.
Later, at the end of the cycle, when Op'skith went through the motions of preparing for sleep, he could already feel a jumble of thought and emotion in the back of his mind and knew he would not be able to sleep. As was becoming habit, he left, going to the small corner of the kaer where he would not be noticed or disturbed and settled himself down to wait out the terror and dread until he could collapse again.
But as he settled down to think, opening the floodgates for fear to overwhelm him as it always did, something odd happened. It didn't come. The dread was present, but it was faint and dull, not full and sharp. But regardless of that, he could still feel that knot of tense emotion in the hollow of his mind. It was pleasant. Well, not pleasant. He was far from comfort or relaxation, but it was the absence of expected pain, and that was enough right now.
He let his thoughts drift in the darkness. His arm was nearly healed now. He could do something different tomorrow. He had no thought of what it would be. Making plans beyond routine felt impossible. Or just unnecessary. What was the difference. Rull seemed to doing well. He seemed happy with the work. Good for him. Grey wings. Op'tan was still pushing people around more than usual, but with the different work groups organized his part was less frantic. As he liked to say: 'Don't do it all yourself. If someone else can do it better then put them in charge and leave it alone.' A coil of silver thread. A heritage of generations ending with a last son. The Vanguard hadn't been doing combat training recently. It was mostly because of all the other work they had to do, but perhaps it also had something to do with the fact that Op'skith hadn't been around to goad them to it because of his injuries. Years spent without anyone else of even his own species. Decades. Centuries. Jata seemed a bit run down. He was pleased to have the chance to practice his craft, but there was quite a lot to do all at once. He seemed determined not to miss any chance to see his tools in action, to refine and improve them, as if the opportunity might disappear tomorrow. A silent existence, a crevice in the dark. Why did his thoughts keep circling back to Edwin? He had barely so much as remembered the windling's existence for years and now he kept popping up. It didn't matter. His mind lapsed into quiet.
Op'skith sat that way for a while, slouching against the cold stone at his back, eyes trying to adjust to darkness too deep to make out even a hint of shape or color. He could feel a sense of melancholy settled over him. It was gloomy and draining, but it still felt like relief to him. He felt moisture drip down onto his chest. He was crying again, apparently. It wasn't the painful, overwhelming sobbing from before. This was a quiet sadness that welled out of him in a trickle. He just sat and waited. Cold stone, falling tears and hollowness. He let time pass. Hours later, the moment ended. He went back to his room and he slept.