3. Timin's Dreams

Timin's Dreams

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    Character name - Timin
    Player login - TheOldest

    He stood in the center of town, itself a bleak reminder of its former way of life having suffered at the evil that ravaged the land. There was a time when this place was nothing more than a lonely village inhabited by those wishing to keep life simple but the innocence was shattered by the ravages of invasion as war spilled into the quiet mornings. Where once the air was filled with the smoke and smell of cooking fires, instead ash and soot from burning homes clouded the horizon and gave the place a pale gray patina erasing the beauty of life and leaving in its place the look of death. As though the darkness raped the day, there was no more innocence in this place and those that still managed to call it home were forever changed because of it.

    He stood quiet and still, looking for the familiar face that he welcomed both into his heart and bed – the face which brought him a calm assuredness in the face of the adversity he had struggled against for what seemed like an eternity. Time seemed to stand still at this very moment as the past several years seemed to float through his thoughts in a whirlwind of confusion. He saw the face of the dying woman as she strained against the bonds that held her after the initial bloody and violent invasion. He saw the tangled masses that had fallen in their meaningless efforts to fight off the countless numbers of dark invaders. The sounds of battle rand true in his ears. The cries and pleads for help came back in a clatter of indiscernible noise. The smell of burned and rotting flesh invaded his senses once again and nearly brought him to his knees. His memory, one he thought long forgotten, of the small child being carried away, screaming, in the massive giant arms to never be seen again angered him once more and turned his stomach. His arrival to this place may as well have been only yesterday as he saw the smoldering village from atop the nearby hill and smelled the carnage. Not unfamiliar to the horrors of war, this was not surprising to him but the pleading faces he met were as where once his battles were in the depths of nameless caves and hidden in the shadows of tall oaks, this was the first he had seen of the innocent being thrust into the ferocity of a beast wanting to kill all it found.

    Oddly, it was the one memory that seemed to linger as if suspended in a cloud of mist that gave him pause. He first saw her as he and his band of brothers stood in the great hall of the king offering their might. She sat at the right hand of the king, just behind his throne so that only what she chose to reveal was seen to them. She was young, beautiful, and certainly never to be his. Him, a wanderer in search of glory and fame while her, the daughter of a king, had her path in life set in stone upon her birth and nowhere along this path would be the likes of him. Perhaps fate had a different plan, or perhaps it was his arrogance, but the result was one in the same. He would know her and he would love her. Her timid spirit and his bravado would mix to make a dangerous potion as she listened to his stories of lands far and away whilst sitting at the table of the king in his great hall.

    He caught himself in his recollections and looked to his feet. Under his boot was the fallen giant, bound, bloodied, beaten, and above all else, dead. The leader of the clan had fallen. Not by his sword but by pure fate though this was not important and, really, it mattered not. The people needed a hero and his band of brothers had served as such. To think that fate had seen to the demise of this foul creature and not the silver greatsword he used so effortlessly brought a slight grin to his dirty face but to those looking on at this very moment, the hero had been named and he was happy to claim that title in the name of these poor people. He would tell them, in time, but now, the giant was dead and the land had been freed of this threat so the celebration taking place around him was deserved.

    He again looked to the crowd and wanted so desperately to see her. Why was she not here and where else could she possibly be? Her father and mother were there, standing in an embrace but she, she was gone. How could this be? She was with him only the day before and had promised that when the time came, she would make known her love for him no matter what her parents said in objection. She promised. Perhaps she had changed her mind and realized the promise of her blood-line was too much to overcome. No. He quickly ran the thought out of his mind as he continued to ignore the celebration and scan the faces, familiar and unfamiliar alike. From underneath the battered armor, he felt the beads of sweat run down his back and his heart began to race. The feeling of disgust washed over him as the reality began to sink in… she was not coming. How could she simply not come? No explanation, no excuses, no words of pity, nothing! This could not be happening! All he had worked for, all he had promised, all he had accomplished in the name of good was now spitting in his face and making him look the fool to each and every eye that fell upon his mighty victory. He could sense they knew and he thought he could hear them mocking him, making fun of his foolish love. He had no other sense in that moment but to run.

    He couldn’t. As though his boots were anchored to the ground upon which he stood, the feet that had carried him through countless villages and battles would not move from the spot. He looked again at them, those unwilling and unmoving feet, and it seemed to him as though the giant upon whom his boot rested was alive again and smiling at him with a disgusting smirk of contempt. Impossible. He saw the boulder crush it and he heard the life ebb from it. Impossible.

    Fear. Hatred. Anger. Confusion. Loss. He felt them all at once and all in singular fashion and in that moment, time seemed to stand still once again. Then it happened. She came. At last she had shown her true feelings and stepped out from behind the crowd then started her way toward him brushing past the outstretched arms of her mother. She was as beautiful as ever he had seen her. Her long, dark hair flowed down her neck and onto her shoulders where it then fell to her back. Her eyes glowed with a perfect shimmer of love as she looked at him and a smile graced her perfect face. Her true form was hidden beneath the woven gown adorned with gold thread and semi-precious stones. She was radiant in this moment and she was going to be his no matter the consequences of the declaration but she was here and he was oblivious to all else in that moment. She walked calmly to him and took his bloodied hand in hers. The touch was overwhelming as her warmth brought such calm to him. He loved her so… he longed for her in ways he had never known possible and he watched, speechless, as she moved ever closer and closed her eyes as the kiss came to him for all to see. True love conquers all and this was the pinnacle of his life in the conquests of evil. Just as her lips were to meet his, she was gone and pure, thick, and inescapable darkness consumed him and nothing but coldness was left.
    Frustrated and blurry with the last remains of sleep, he woke to the harsh reality of life. The fire smoldered in the fireplace. The sounds of the morning came through the open window and the dream left him in an instant. His old hands covered his weary eyes as he tried in vain to recapture the moment that disappeared with the coming of the sun but it was useless. It would come again, like an unannounced visitor calling with bad news, and there was nothing he could do to either stop it or invite it. It simply happened. The cold morning of the north blew in and with each passing moment, no matter how he tried, the cold ate at his tired bones making the morning all that more difficult. Each day was greeted by either more aches or simply the ones from the day prior but they were always there nonetheless. It did serve to remind him of being alive and where he once told himself these pains were earned and maybe even small trophies from each encounter, now they were bothersome and nagging.
    Would this painful replay of life ever leave him alone? Why did it continue to torture him? Teasing him from the depths of his consciousness and keeping him ever mindful of his current loneliness, it never ceased. She was dead. He had buried her himself all those year ago after she died of the plague that ravaged the land of his birth. He knew she was gone but yet his longing for her never went away. The day was real, the dead giant was real, the celebration was true and his love, in no question, was real but she, sadly, was not.

    He groaned as he rose from his bed, rubbing the all-to-familiar aches that had come with his age. His hands hurt, his knees protested painfully at standing, and his back was no more able to keep him upright for a length of time than he was able to wield the great sword of his past. The mind was willing but the body, oh, the body, was not. Such was the motivations for his life-change: to be no longer dependant on a blade and armor for his life but to tap into the magic of the weave as he had seen done on countless occasions. If only he knew the ways in the time she had passed perhaps she too would be here with him growing old and thinking of the things of the day together. But she wasn’t. They were magic and he wanted to understand them. They were so able to bring life to the dead, to heal a wound with a word and a gesture, or apply the protections in a manner greater than any skilled warrior alone would ever muster. He yearned to understand and now, with his body weak from the abuses he had surrendered it so willingly to for so many years, he would focus the same dedication on the ways of those living in the weave. As he stoked the dying flames in the small fire place, he thought of the past and how it mingled tryingly with the future. Somewhere in that intersection was the present and it seemed as though it was becoming more difficult to discern which was which. The days were shorter and the nights were longer but he thought this simply the ways of age and a mind filled with things of then and now, twisted around what would be. The poker stirred the ash and the smell reminded him again of that day but he chose instead to push it out and focused on warming his small room – there here and now instead of the then and gone. There was work to be done and though he wished it so, it would not tend to itself. He worked his warmed hands over the aches in his knees and stood. He stared into the growing fire for a short time and played out his day. His new way started with each morning and in that moment, instead of time standing still, it continued as it does: unending and carrying on with no regard to whom or what chose to journey with it.

    He looked to his cap and it reminded him of his mission. The great rumors of the Spellweaver Keep in Narfell had come even to him in his travels and where once he thought them nothing more than idle conversation to pass the time between the flowing ale after a successful raid, now he longed to a part of them and with his devotions, he too would one day, the good gods permitting him the time to do so, would master the ways of those he now admired.

    Gathering his long, gray beard he sorted it nicely in the manner he had been taught so long ago. He donned his gown, the silly thing that it is, and with the aches of his body reminding him of the importance of his new mission, he took hold of his staff and trod out into the morning sun looking to meet and greet those new faces of his new home though ever mindful of the simple beauty of the smile he holds so close and dear to his old heart. If not for him, then for the promise he made to her.


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