=Varith=

After what seemed liked hours of sobbing into the gloom, I manage to calm myself down. Extracting myself from the ‘things’ embrace I scoot back a bit. I give ‘it’ a complicated look as I struggle with my emotions.

What was I supposed to think of this, this ‘thing’. One moment it’d forcibly seized control of my body, releasing a Revenant [Accident?]. The next it saved my life twice and comforted me while I’d had a mental breakdown.

Worry.

The emotion seemingly came out of nowhere, a sudden intrusion in my conscience. Yet it wasn’t indistinguishable from my own emotions, it felt… foreign.

“Is tha-” It reaches forward tapping my forehead with an icy digit that held none of the warmth it’s earlier embrace had. With each successive tap, bits of information and hazy images appeared in my mind. Unused to… whatever this is, it took me a while to understand its intent.

“Is that you I feel?”

Confirmation

“Can you ta-think in words?”

“H...ar...d......le...a..rn..” Does that mean he’ll be able to, given time?

“W-where did you come from?”

Confusion

[He doesn’t know?]

“What are your earliest memories?”

Lethargy, followed by a hazy image of… myself?

“Sleeping and me? Is that it? Your Earliest memories are of me and sleeping?”

Confirmation

“Alright… then what woke you?

Suddenly every emotion with a negative connotation attached to it seems to flood me. Behind them they drag a parade of broken memories made of muffled sound, and indistinct images.

“Stop, sto-ENOUGH!”

Abruptly the emotions that threaten to drown me out, stop. Taking a great breath I let out a long exhale, trying to ignore the mixed emotions that had rose to the surface once the slideshow from hell had stopped.

“....Who are you?”

Confusion

[Again? Maybe if I phrase it differently...]

"What are you?"

A cold tap to my chest.

"Me? You're..... Me?"

Confirmation.

“Wh-what the hell do you mean by that!? No. nononono, you must be lying. Yeah........ yeah thats it, your trying to torment me, make me miserable so you can soa-”

Conviction

Rage

Faced by the intensity of his emotions I cower. My mind flashed back to the ferocity it'd shown against the Revenants a scant ten minutes ago.

“I’m.... I’m sorry, I-I didn’t mean that.”

With my apology the feelings subside. Once again, I had to take a minute to steady my shaking nerves. I was tempted to end my inquisition for now, but my curiosity got the better of me.

[The way he reacted to the Revenants 'challenge', his emotional instability... He's like a small child.]

“Do you have a n-name?” I lick my lips nervously, worried that I might somehow anger him again.

Confusion

“I'll ask again. Do you have any memories? Of anything at all? Your name even?"

Denial

“.......Cor.”  I, myself, didn’t understand the sudden urge, the impulsive need to name him.

Questioning

“Thats your name now, Cor.”  

Contentment

“Cor”

I startle, surprised that he'd spoken.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

”Glad you like it.”

I pause for a minute in my thinking, not wanting to face the next problem.

[i][The Revenant..... it’s not like I can do anything to it anyways, best I can do is scare it off with  Cor’s help. Even then it’s not like I can follow it along all night and scare it off whenever it attacks someone.]

I lick my, cracked lips.

[They still have the Wraith, surely they can take care of it. Yeah...... it’s best if I don’t get in the way.]

I wipe at the drying sweat on my forehead as I stand , we’ve already spent too long here. I straighten my shirt and dust off my pants.  I suspect my feet are going to have blisters as my shoes are tight on my growing feet.  I lighten myself and jump up through the roof, landing back on it once I’m fully through. Squinting through its bright glare, I check the sun’s position.

[Father will not be happy.] He hadn’t given me a specific time to meet up, but I’m guessing dusk is a little late.

Luckily I’d been wearing my cloak earlier so no one should be able to recognize me without it. Unclasping the front I started to remove it.

But I couldn’t.

At the thought of being in that crowd without it, anxiety gnawed at me. I felt that they’d somehow know that I was different from them, that I was a freak.

It scared me.

Frozen by indecision, I stood there in a trance like state, broken only by the feeling of something slithering up my leg and across my chest. Without even noticing I’d retreated back into the empty warehouse. It had been Cor that I’d felt, his body had melted down and had flown up my leg, wrapping himself around my chest in a form fitting shirt hidden under my normal shirt.

A small, black tendril snaked up the side of my neck onto my face and began to run itself over my head from brow to nape, over and over again.  With each stroke I felt a bit of my fear washed away.

[i]“Cor…” Once again I find this strange creature that I know nothing about, comforting me, helping me.

I tugged my cloak off my shoulders, tossing it into one of the many dark corners of the room. I didn’t even want to risk carrying it around with me. Once again, I jump to the roof, this time scoping out the alley that I’d originally entered the building from.

[Empty, I shouldn’t worry about them recognizing me without the cloak, but the Wraith...] The Wraith had been plainly different to my eyes. I worried that I seemed the same to his.

[I’ll have to be careful about avoiding him.]

Satisfied I drop down, broken glass crunching under my feet as I land. I walk out to the street and into the flowing crowds. An hour later I find myself again at the northern gate. Seeing father on the other side I follow the rough, grey stone of the interior wall away from the gate.

Satisfied, I go through the wall into the outside forest and start making my way back to the gate through the brush. The distinct image of my father’s brown trousers and yellow stained shirt comes in to focus as I near.  He impatiently paces to and fro in the middle of the hard packed dirt road, waiting. The guards, with their pikes and chain hauberks, are fidgeting nervously due to his intimidating presence.  Their weight shifts from foot to foot in anxiety, but they don’t have any recourse.

I walk out onto the path, making sure to place him between me and any of the guards sight lines, you can never be too careful. When he see’s he frowns peering at my. My hands itch to pull a cloak’s hood over my face.

“Where have you been?” He booms, causing the guards to jump.

I give him my sweetest smile. “I was playing tag with some new friends. I had so much fun that I didn’t notice the time."

He scans my face. Then grunts, seemingly satisfied with my answer and trudges off onto the path, back towards home.