“The eye never forgets what the heart has seen.” - On Ancient Wisdom, by Thelas Ephestus.

Someone, in front of me, their face obscured by the contrasting light of the mid-day sun behind them, so bright I could barely look up.

They were tall, and their hand was big enough to cover my entire head… but I didn't feel afraid; there was no hostility in the touch, the rough palm of a man whose overflowing feelings were now echoing inside me. Kindness, pride…

Love.

Who are you? I couldn’t help asking, yet I uttered no word… only to watch the scene fade, colors and feelings dissolving into grey mist as a deep loneliness suddenly hollowed my chest.

Painfully, viciously so.

And enough to wake me up.

The next scene, however, was foreign. Avaln understood that as soon as it formed, then he fully comprehended it was a memory. It was a location, the womb that gave birth to the creature invading him with every passing breath…

A place, buried by rock and betrayal. So, did the creature perceive from another, higher being.

Lightning, and a lion’s pride.

Dune.

Such a name echoed in Avaln’s mind, a message that the shadow was unable to answer to. It just didn’t know how, yet that didn’t prevent a deep feeling of belonging to suddenly sprout in its… mind? Heart? Soul? Avaln couldn’t know. The only thing he became sure of was that the shadow considered such a being their friend, and when a chance to free it from the cage keeping them trapped, arised, they did everything in their power to do so.

Avaln watched how the shadow possessed the body of a normal demon boar, instinctively knowing they could.

Then, their encounter with that powerful and mysterious stranger, who with just a glance, was able to read the few memories they possessed… and somehow made them understand how they could free Dune; just a few drops of wisdom, how they could become stronger, the fastest way to do so… and the expected arrival of those who were going to try and keep Dune trapped forever.

Yet, their intervention would be also an opportunity; The temple, it had to be destroyed, and the way was bound to open while the adventurers tried to strengthen the barrier around the whole mountain. The only thing the shadow had to do was to command the beasts to attack, and kill the loathsome humans trying to keep its friend in that cage…

So, that man instructed.

They were five; two of them more powerful than the rest.

The shadow had to kill them, break them, devour them; a hatred they had never known suddenly flooded their puerile sentient mind… a foreign feeling, and one Avaln somehow recognized as something the shadow shouldn’t be able to harbour.

Not yet, not by itself.

There, in that limbo of inaction he was now submerged in, Avaln realized his own thoughts didn’t matter, and that in front of those memories that were not his, that which defined him as an individual was slowly fading away…

It was slipping through his fingers, his sense of self…

Yet he could only watch.

The shadow gave commands, and the beasts obeyed. They wanted the adventurers to reach the temple as soon as possible, which is why they sent groups of demon boars after them to spur them on, to force them into making haste… and as soon as they watched the group being swallowed by rock and darkness, deeper into the mountain, they sent all of their army after them.

Just like instructed.

That man, that fear-inspiring gaze.

They didn’t want to ever meet him again.

That feeling conjured an image, yet Avaln couldn’t discern anything from it, the memory so obscured by the shadow’s instinctive submission all he managed to see was a blurred silhouette.

Why was it important, however? Avaln couldn’t recall.

They were slipping. His memories.

Like sand.

Each and every one were falling.

The scene shifted then, replaced by an infectious hatred that caught Avaln’s foggy mind by surprise… the beasts supposed to keep their enemies in the temple had failed in their task, and a figure had rushed out. So, the shadow knew. So, the shadow acted, kicking the ground with hooves that felt much like their own now, after spending so much time inside that host, charging towards the cave that could barely contain the demon boar’s giant body.

Yet the shadow, in a flash of new found intelligence, wanted precisely that.

It would ram that figure, against the wall, and leave her entrails painting the whole corridor.

So, they had been instructed. Such was the shadow’s own wish.

No. Said the wisp of what was once a young man known as Avaln.

Yet by now, he became unable to even finish that thought, that denial with forgotten purpose.

The only thing he became sure of, was that…

…

…

“Wait.” He spoke then, suddenly, as his mind found the broken pieces and put them together in a surge of will and anger as raging as the tide in a storm. He saw them, as clear as day. A pair of eyes he knew well, full of feelings he had never seen in such a scarlet hue.

Desperation.

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Rage.

Frustration.

… and one other, a feeling oh so familiar.

Iron determination, baptized by blood.

“Alary!” Avaln shouted, then screamed without voice, pulling at his lungs while forcing himself awake, and away from that limbo that so wanted him to lay still, in neglect and into nothingness. He watched how the beast tackled Alary’s body against the encroaching walls of naked rock, the figure and blonde hair swirling in a blur before her scarlet eyes found reason through the wall of shock they had suddenly crashed against, impossible wind taking the shape of her will.

Will to survive.

Avaln used that image, took it in his grasp and wielded it against that violation of his mind.

“OUT!”

And then, suddenly, he was in that limbo no-more, but instead on top of that mass of flesh, his hand firmly gripping the spear still plunged into it… and the pain of all of his old and new injuries flaring like licking flames. His eyes could barely register the blur of trees around him, so fast was the beast’s charge, and he quickly surmised it was best to close them as the scattered dust and blood almost blinded him, resorting instead to the use of his seventh sense. It swirled, entering the spear to check if his plan was bearing fruit or not… and to his relief, it was.

And even faster than before, probably because the very Essence powering the runes now was the same one he was draining from the corpse beneath him, a corpse he soon realized he was still stuck to, tied by shadow tendrils engrossed in their task of reaching to his soul, to take possession of his body in search of that so needed chance at survival.

The same survival Alary’s eyes sought with gleaming resolve.

The memory came to him, again, with scary ease.

So be it. He thought then, a sudden idea sparking as he focused, and reached deep inside himself, seeking that lake-like state of mind that so helped him during his fight against Keiner, yet unlike back then, he isolated himself from everything physical, ignoring the wind, the blood, the dust, the aching, the burning pain coming from his joints and the firm grip on his spear, and reached inward.

To his inner clover-like Essence circulation, and then, to his soul.

When he came to, the first thing he saw were a couple of scarlet eyes, staring at him. Sgithe’s soul puppet was still sitting atop that shadow rock it had conjured on its own, at the center of the ring where Avaln had died so many times during training. Her eyes lacked the sentient gleam he’d seen in them, in her original ones… yet he couldn’t shake off the feeling of there being some sort of intent behind them.

But this was no time to wonder about such things.

For he was now inside his Tower of Babylon, and there, in front of him, a formless shadow stood. It was shivering, curling on itself as if in pain, trying to take shape only to fail and fall on the imaginary floor lying at the center of that magnificent structure. A tower growing sideways as if the inner walls of a felled tree had naturally taken such spiralling form, mirrored both left and right, only to end in a starry sky somewhere in the unimaginable distance.

Such had been the gift Sgithe left him, a gift he couldn’t even begin to control. The Tower of Babylon was a technique made to pass on and store huge amounts of knowledge, and the already overwhelming presence around him was but a tenth of the whole.

It was his very soul, yet his mind was unable to comprehend such an existence, much less the information hidden within it. To stare at the ink stored in the shelves would cause him severe pain from that alone, akin to feeling his head being split apart…

So, how could a sentient being who was merely a few years old, possibly endure the weight of such a place? And just like he guessed, accessing his soul pulled the shadow so intent in possessing it, inside with him.

And now…

All he had to do was to wait.

He did not.

Why? He wondered as his steps took him closer, and the question evoked the many memories he witnessed during that connection he shared with the being, guided by instinct and something more, something he didn’t expect to feel for such a creature at all.

Empathy.

Yet as he reached out to the shapeless form, pain evident in their motion, he also realized that wasn’t the only reason for his next course of action. For it was there, inside his chest, burning still, clinging to his heart like a wound yet to heal.

Anger.

Upon touching the shadow, it took but an instant for his mind to be pulled within, to the memories, the scenes, the feelings, like being taken by the river’s current after a long storm. Avaln held to his conscience for dear life, determined, as he watched how the creature was born once again, how they became linked to another being that was so much greater than them…

Crackling golden lightning.

Regret, and a soundless roar.

Longing.

And a deep brilliant gaze. Wise, and waiting.

Dune.

Avaln couldn’t possibly start to understand such a creature, nor discern if the humbling feeling that suddenly invaded his chest was the result of the shadow’s thoughts at the time, or his own, but he soon comprehended it didn’t matter, or maybe his mind was just unable to stop and muse about the origin of such a being, or the reason behind their circumstances.

For he had another, more pressing objective.

And soon found the memory he was looking for.

The very scene felt different, more foreign… if such a thing was possible, since none were his own. There, amidst the forest in the demon mountain range, a dark silhouette reached out to the shadow, who was possessing a normal demon boar back then. As soon as they made contact, Avaln knew.

If before it was but a hunch, now it was certain. The shadow’s hatred wasn’t their own. That hatred was planted in order to further aim their wish against a target. Someone.

Alary.

Through intuition alone, Avaln comprehended that silhouette, that man was the responsible behind the attack on Gale… and from sensing how it shaped the shadow’s thinking to his liking, a creeping finesse Avaln had never felt before, he dared to think that man was actually the mastermind who planned everything.

He had no way to know who he was, nor his reasons, nor his means.

He didn’t care.

There, in that scene he should have been only able to witness, Avaln took shape from within the demon boar, and stood at one side, his anger flaring before someone who tried to hurt those dear to him, someone who also left a trace of hatred in a creature who should have been pure for a while longer.

An innocence murdered in cold blood.

A wish, taken advantage of.

A part of Avaln refused, denied the notion of the creature dying because of that man, and so focused his anger on that silhouette, guided by pure instinct…

OUT!

He shouted, performing Snake bites the neck while wielding but an idea, an intent shaped into a thrust meant to cast out whatever that man left inside that shadow. Avaln couldn’t hurt him, couldn’t act against him because of a lack of knowledge… but he could deny this.

He would deny this.

A change. Vertigo, then clarity.

And once again, the Tower of Babylon entered Avaln’s view. He didn’t waste time, and in the same way he usually brought forth a spear in his hands to train, he encased the shadow in a white box, isolating it from the overwhelming structure that could but snuff out his already weak life.

Yet once accomplished, he didn’t have time to relax.

For he had succeeded in drawing that hatred out. He just didn’t think it would take the shape of a man, cladded in fog. He didn’t expect it to open a pair of black eyes, nor feel physical fear in the form of a chill. Instinctive, and born in his gut.

Avaln backed away before ever realizing he did, so close it had been he heard it breathing, which was impossible to begin with. So afraid was he? So afraid his mind was playing tricks on him? He shook his head, denying the notion, denying the feeling; steeling himself, trusting himself… then meeting that black gaze once again.

It was the unknown.

It was sentient.

And so, this time, he wasn’t surprised when it suddenly lunged at him in one step.

In that brief instant before they clashed, Avaln couldn’t help asking himself if the spear he usually conjured inside his soul, would be enough to deal with that hatred.

But he never got an answer.