Stories Sown Along the Way

tales of loss and fire and faith

Since meeting that Crystal Brave girl, the pounding behind his eye hadn't stopped but for the briefest of reprieves. What had started as a trickle over the months had recently since become a torrent overnight. Every night it was the same, more visions. By and large it was mostly involving Ramza, but one here or there involved people he had no idea of. He would wake up multiple times in the night, his head pounding, he would cast a Sleep spell on himself, and it would buy some time. And the visions returned. Serve. Save. Slave. Slay. Motions his yet not his. Beyond his ability yet so perfectly within his grasp. Every morning, when he would finally give up on sleep, it was the same. Roll over on a bare mattress, the covers thrown away simply to cool down from all the sweat, vomit up black ink all over the wooden floor, and clean it up by also vomiting pure, crystalline water all over that before simply balling it all together in a wad of aether of his making and tossing it out his still broken window.

Fray was right, and he hated it. Yet loved it. Part of him elated that it hadn't been the Echo, that it had never been the other way around. Hated it because of what it gave a portent of the future. And yet why should he be surprised? He had remembered the Endsinger when he was helping Noctis out--that simply brought on another wave of regret. After what he'd done to Prompto, he doubted Noctis wanted anything to do with him either and he had to admit that was smart--, but why would it surprise him when more would come rushing back to him? The answer of course was obvious, they were still the memories of Alexander Sorel, and not the memories of a man long dead, from an era long gone by. Of course the difference would be enough to throw him off. Flickers of other times were following were beginning to trickle. But at least now he had a name. Ethelbert. The name was Ethelbert. Pointless yet it awakened a primal feeling within. Recognition. Familiarity. Belonging. There was a common refrain in each of them; Serve. Save. Slave. Slay. It was always battle. It was always war. It was always violence.

He realized, the memories in combination with how awful he'd been to the others, one sore thing; war was the only thing he was good at. Breaking others was all he knew. It explained so much, how could it not? The sobering realization that he did not know of one incarnation that settled down and passed away in their bed bothered him. Serve. Save. Slave. Slay. It was always the same end. It was always the same life. It was little wonder that Cassandra left. Violence was all he knew, and he responded to any situation in the only way he knew how. He didn't know how much of that was him or Myste speaking.

He was collapsing, he knew it, and he was alone for it. He brought it on himself. He still had the self awareness to admit that much.

He forced himself to dress, and couldn't help but feel frustrated in just how difficult even such a basic task was to perform. By the time he'd finished, something that was to take only a couple minutes had taken the better part of an hour as he simply stared at nothing, trying to will the pain behind his eye to just go away. This was the second part, joy that it wasn't the Echo was replaced with a desire for it back, if only because the agony in his skull whenever the Echo reared itself wasn't as awful as this. And the Echo at least, had a few moments of warning before it hit. This didn't. He knew he had to get something in his stomach, but at the same time felt no appetite, and worried that anything he put down would just come back up. He moved, slowly, to another, dilapidated room in the Stones, looking at himself in the mirror. His hair a mess, his eyes bloodshot and baggy. He inhaled through his nose, and through sheer force of will, cast a glamour through the pain. His eyes returned to normal, as if he had rested well and long. He nodded his head, his reflection doing the same.

The pain faded, and for that, he was immeasurably relieved, but wondered if, or when, it would return. In the night like it preferred to? Maybe one would make itself known later, as it had begun to, as well. Relief was replaced by exhaustion, but he forced himself out to the front to what he imagined would simply be another empty day. He glanced at the walls, wondering if it would be better to simply call it quits on the place. He forced himself to think of the Dragonblades, hoping that some rivalry would fuel him, absurd as it was. It worked, to an extent. It reminded him of Caius's threat to "do his job." He inhaled, looking at the door, as he knew that a confrontation with them would be inevitable. Caius would come to do his job, likely with others at his back, and that job would be simple assassination. He wondered if then he'd at least see Cassandra again. Probably.

He must not run. He would not run. He didn't know his odds, but he would take as many of them with him as he could should that day come.

He went in the back briefly, brewed himself some coffee, guzzling the pot, and brewing another, letting the caffeine try and bring him back to some semblance of vigilance. He exhaled, doing his best to center himself. He placed his hands on a table out front, taking his seat, waiting for the door for something, anything, to give him something to focus on.

He wanted nothing to do with Ethelbert, not now.