Kendath shrugged. "Nothing. I have no soul."




















*hides*




Kendath shrugged and lapsed into silence. What exactly? He'd once been told that night dreams were very different from waking dreams, but he couldn't remember a night dream he cared to voice aloud. Likewise, he hadn't even known the definition of a waking dream until tonight.

He drew a long ragged breath as his hand convulsively tightened around hers. Perhaps it was her talk of bad dreams come true, but he was suddenly flooded with shame. "If I could go back," he growled, fist clenching, "if I could change what happened... I swear on my father's grave that I never would have hurt you like I did."

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For a moment Merrin did not quite grasp what he had said - and then she shot bolt upright, pulling away from him to search his face in something bordering on dismay.

"Do you still blame yourself for that? Gods above, Kendath, you're different now! I'm different! You can't..." she trailed off, at a loss for words, and stared down at their entwined fingers. "I would hurt - I would hurt a thousand times over - if it meant that in doing so I could make you see that the Meiltha descend only into darkness, taking the way they think is right..."

How could she say this? How could she tell him - "I would rather I be hurt," she said slowly, "for your sake, then remain untouched and know that you were one of them."

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There was sincerity in her words - sincerity and compassion like Kendath had never known before. He wet his lips and found that he couldn't speak past the lump in his throat. Staring into her earnest face now, he could almost draw her close and -

Something held him back. Something - restraint? Caution? Or even... fear...? Could he be terrified gutless even now, when he felt assured of her infinite acceptance?

"Merrin..." he whispered, relishing the sound of her name as a man in the desert relishes water. Unable to voice the words that rose readily to mind, he averted his gaze and stared at the sand beneath them.

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.....



wow. This is going to be difficult. Any suggestions on what Adanil has been doing while Merrin and Kendath were partying?

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At that moment Merrin wanted more than anything to say the words that begged to burst out of her - or even to whisper them, to breathe them so that only he could hear. I love you! she longed to tell him, and to hear him say the same -

Ah, but that was where she faltered. Perhaps Merrin, too, was not immune to fear? Perhaps memory of an evening not so long ago - when upon reaching out to him she found herself pushed away, left to stare at the unyielding walls around his heart - made her stop, made her hesitate.

In any case, there was silence between them for a moment. Then Merrin put her hand into his, and reached with her other one to put her fingers to his lips. "Say nothing more of it," she told him. "The past is behind you...behind me...forever. Do not let your past make your future less bright."

Childish voices rose onto the night air and Merrin turned as a last group of them, still bright-eyed despite the late hour, came again to tug on her cloak and beg for a story before their mothers called them in to bed.

She went, but left the blue flower in his lap.

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((TACKLEHUG!!! I am going to pin you down, Aerandir, and MAKE you stay this time! It's been a week and...FOUR days! Don't worry, we'll get Adanil back in there ))

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For what seemed like eternity, Kendath stared at the empty space she'd occupied only a moment before. What had nearly happened? His emotions had almost been realized, had almost been expressed... Detrimental? Everything that the Meiltha had ever taught him...

He picked up the delicate blue blossum and turned it over in his hand. The past is behind you... behind me... forever. Do not let your past make your future less bright. Perhaps Demon was wrong. Perhaps they were all wrong. Would he find a greater truth if he closed his eyes and followed his heart? Or would he be blinded - would he stumble and fall?

Truly closing his eyes this time, he stood and faced the ocean. He tilted his head, letting the cleansing sea breeze wash over him. He took a step, and the waves lapped at his boots. "Gods..." he breathed, trying to hear a voice on the wind, trying to sense a sign. But no matter how hard he strained, he couldn't strain enough to open mind and spirit to the divine that Merrin felt so easily.

He inhaled deeply and crumbled the flower in his hand. He opened his eyes to see the petals swirling in the wind, lost to the watery expanse before him.

He glanced back at the village but found its bright lights no longer inviting. Instead he started out in the opposite direction. Lost in his thoughts, he walked aimlessly along the shoreline, absently noticing the soft sand give way to jutting rocks.

It was there that he found Adanil.

The young man looked similarly pensive, sitting on a boulder with his gaze drawn out to sea. Kendath quietly took a seat on the rock beside him. The silence stretched on, until at length he asked, "What do you see?"

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"Shoo, now, your mama's calling." Merrin gently detached herself from the last of the children and watched the girl disappear into her cottage, which a moment later went dark. Eventually the whole village was still, and Merrin wandered into the little centre square where the bonfire had previously roared into life.

It was now only a heap of glowing coals, a memory of what it had been. Merrin sat down, feeling the faint warmth stll emanating from the pile of vermilion ash, and stared absently into its depths.

The thoughts that had swirled in her mind now rose to deluge her. She glanced once toward the ocean, where waves lapped at the sand, and felt again Kendath's am about her shoulders. Could it be that she was wrong?

What would have happened if she had said it...I love you...and not listened to the voice that told her he didn't care, it was her own wishful thinking? Would he have...

Merrin hastily rose to her feet. The thought sent tingles down her spine. In a moment she had started back toward the place they had left the dragons, barely registering where her footsteps went. Her heart ached for him...If I could go back, if I could change what happened... I swear on my father's grave that I never would have hurt you like I did. Just that sentence made her mind whirl.

Merrin stopped and gulped for air, feeling so utterly unsure of herself it was almost suffocating.

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(anyway we can get Semri back as well?)

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Made by Lembas

Well, I'd help you out there, Anduril, like LDM just helped me out, but I have no character who could do anything to get Semri into the plotline.

Thankees for the tacklehug, Melda *dusts self off* I shall try not to leave again, especially not for such a horribly too-long time.

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Adanil had come out here seeking solitude, refuge from the joviality of the village. Not his village, but simply a village. The cheerful hospitality of the farmers and fishermen served not to lighten his spirits; instead, it weighed them down with memories of his own former home. On this evening, he would have been on the village Green, where the feast tables would have been set up in a large square. He would have been drinking and laughing with Jor and Madoc, maybe asking Laena to dance, and getting drunk enough that he would spend the night wherever he dropped.

Unfortunately, he would never do those things again. Getting drunk, maybe. Dancing with Laena, never again. His simple village life, and everyone he knew, had perished in searing fire and the icy, bone-chilling touch of blades that they had no chance of stopping. In a way, he himself had died that day--the Adanil he was now had very little in common with the Adanil he was then, except for his appearance.

Caught up in his own wistful thoughts, he didn't notice Kendath approach, though the Dragonrider was in plain sight, if Adanil had simply turned his head. Still making no response when Kendath sat down next to him, Adanil continued staring out to sea. Very little crossed his mind, save for a homesickness worse than any he had ever had, even when he had gotten snowed in in the Blackthorn Mountains and been forced to spend the winter there. This time, there was no comforting thought that he would eventually be home. This time, there was no home.

"What do you see?" Kendath asked quietly from beside Adanil. The Dragonrider seemed to be almost...normal in his manner. He certainly was giving no sign of his normal cutting attitude. Still, Adanil did not answer right away. "I see Midsummer's Eve back in my village," he said finally, somewhat hesitantly. Had the Dragonrider asked simply to be able to throw his answer in his teeth? Well, there was no real reason not to continue--he could abide Kendath's jibes. "I saw the laughter, the lights, the music, and--" his voice broke, and he paused to wipe away a stray tear with the back of his hand. "And the people," he finished. "I was remembering home."

Perhaps the Dragonrider was so caustic now that he did not even remember what it was like to miss someone, but he did not seem that way to Adanil. Even the strongest people, the coldest, wished for something that they loved.

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[as soon as Curunir posts]

Kendath listened to Adanil's response but allowed no indication of his thoughts save for an almost wistful air. He stared out into the whitecapped waves, turning the words over in his mind. He glanced askance at Adanil and noticed for the first time the poignant humanity etched on the former farmer's face - the sorrow, the loss, the yearning for something he would never have again.

And for the first time, Kendath thought back to the events of that fateful night and relived the undead swarming through the village. The screams of fear, the husbands defending their families, the children crying out to their mothers. For the first time, he thought of it not as a dispassionate milestone in their quest, but as a tangible tragedy that may have devastated the man seated beside him for life. He remembered his words, ever pragmatic, ever cold - Which is more important - the survival of dragonkind or this insignificant village?

He resisted the urge to let his aching head drop into his hands. Beliefs he had once followed without question were dissipating; precepts he'd once not given a second thought to were emerging. Suddenly that innocuous village that'd asked for nothing and been given everything it hadn't deserved became so much more. What would they have changed if they'd surrendered to the Shadowers? How many innocent lives could have been spared?

Determinedly keeping his gaze from Adanil's face, Kendath clenched his fists and stared at the waves lapping against the rocks. His next words sounded contrived, even to himself. "And do you... do you consider your vengeance dealt?"

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Adanil winced. Kendath's question, surely asked in all innocence, had shifted his memories further ahead, to the night he tried so hard to forget. The images raced through his head. Friends. Fire. Family. Death. People he had known for all of his life, screaming in fear or pain, while he had hollered at a pair of Dragonriders. In all likelihood, it had been too late to save his village even when the first of the Dead attacked, but he had still wasted time, yelling at them in a rage, while his friends were cut down around him.

Blinking slightly and shaking his head to clear those thoughts out, he thought about his answer, but he didn't have to spend much time thinking it out. "I will not have avenged my village until every last one of the Shadowers, and their followers, lies dead on the ground," he said harshly. The mere thought of them heated his blood, made his vision narrow, and sent adrenaline rushing through his veins.

"I will hunt them down, every last one. While I live, they will not be able to consider themselves safe," he vowed. "This do I swear on the memory of my parents." That was as solemn a vow as he knew, and he had never yet broken his word. He would track the Shadowers wherever they went, and kill them all.

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An eddy of wind, swept in from the ocean, swirled the sand where Merrin walked. Her footsteps were wandering and aimless, as though lost in her thoughts she'd forgotten her way. The village was not far, and neither were Wyvern and Gyre, but Merrin somehow wanted to be alone.

It scared her. She was beginning to come to the realization. Merrin couldn't fathom why, why the fact that remembering Kendath's touch and the sound of his voice should fill her with such conflicting emotions that even now she hardly knew what she thought. But again she wondered what would have happened, had she stayed...had she said the words that sprang to her lips...

And even now, after Merrin had seen further past those walls around him than ever before, she was afraid that if she said what she knew to be true she would again encounter those walls. She would see the barrier again, just behind his eyes, which would be dark and cold. Merrin didn't know if she could have borne that.

The thought of what else might happen was, if possible, even more frightening. Not inherently so, but frightening in the fact that Merrin could not imagine what might happen without a yearning for it to be real - and if it could never be, that would only lead to heartache. Despite her best efforts she could hear herself saying it - I love you - and hear him saying it back, and then -

Oh, then! Merrin fought the notion down, unwilling to even dare to imagine what might come next.

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With a chill of deja vu, Kendath recalled that same oath issuing from his own mouth... ten years ago? Had it really been that long? Time seemed so surreal to him now, when all he could feel was the cold stone beneath him and all he could see was the serene seascape stretched out before him....

A mere teenager, he'd been younger than Adanil, but he'd spoken it with the same vindictive rage, the seething fury that'd bubbled inside like a cruel passion. "I will hunt them down and slay them all. I will laugh when Renegade blood pours through my fingers and warms my heart. This I swear on my father's lies and my mother's sorrow." The Meiltha officer had smiled his approval and accepted the new recruit.

The passion was burnt out now, replaced by a hollow emptiness that any blood, be it Renegade or Meiltha, could not sate. And Kendath had only to glance at Adanil to see the embers of that same fire burning anew.

"Vengeance," he said quietly, almost a snarl. He met Adanil's gaze and drove his point home. "Vengeance will not bring you joy - only emptiness. It does not sate - it devours. Save yourself while you still can, boy." He really held no right to call him that, Adanil being only a few years younger. But it'd escaped of its own volition, for, looking at him now, Kendath couldn't help but be reminded of a boy not so different from the man now sitting beside him.

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Adanil blinked, turning to stare at Kendath. He was somewhat surprised at what the Dragonrider had just said, but as he thought about it, it made more sense. After all, leaving with the two Renegades had been to gain revenge on the Shadowers. Now, though, he knew it was more. The evil that the Shadowers did was not restricted only to his village--it affected others as well.

"I will hunt them down and keep them from being able to harm anyone else," Adanil said, wondering how Kendath would take that, since he had seemingly been thinking it was about vengeance. "It is about vengeance, too, but they are wholly evil. I don't want anyone else to go through what I have, or what I think you and Merrin have gone through. If they are gone forever, others may go to sleep at night knowing they are safe from that threat." He paused a moment, gathering his own breath before continuing on, his voice rising in his earnestness. "I may be only a farmer, but I know how to use my sword, and I've seen that the Shadowers can be cut down. Perhaps I will have difficulties, but I will destroy them, or die trying. If I don't try, than the blood of any others that they kill will be on my hands, and I do not think I am strong enough to bear that guilt."

He shook his head. He knew he wouldn't be able to bear it.

"I suppose I'm being selfish in some way," he said, glancing back towards Kendath. "I'm doing it for my own good, if you look deep enough. I'm doing it so I won't feel bad, so that I will feel justified. Maybe, by the time I am done, it will be for others instead of myself. Maybe."

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And that was where all the difference lay, Kendath realized. The Shadowers were cruel - eradicating them would only better the world, not worsen it. Adanil's resolve was wrought of righteousness. In his own way, he was a vigilante. Kendath's vengeance had been wrought of rage, and though his and Adanil's stemmed from the same source, Adanil would not be taking innocent blood.

This was proving to be quite an enlightening night, during which he realized he'd probably underestimated the former farmer for the fifth time.

With a pang that surprised even himself, the comprehension dawned that Adanil likely thought them questing for the Shadowers' ultimate demise. It may lead to that, Kendath reflected, but not for many eons to come. Many eons in the future, that is. Adanil couldn't follow them around forever, but neither did he have anywhere else to go.

"The Renegades are looking for new recruits," he posited, rising to his feet and beginning to walk back the way he came. He made a mental note to ask Merrin about just that.

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Eventually Merrin found her way back to the dragons, who were sleeping in the sand, with all evidences of a satisfying meal around them. Wyvern woke and shifted to curl around her, stretching sleepily. Have a good time? he queried.

Merrin smiled wryly, and remembered laughing while she rolled in the sand trying to retain possession of a certain blue flower. Yes. I did. She said simply, knowing that he could tell from her thoughts what had happened anyway. Wyvern regarded her thoughtfully a moment with one liquid emerald eye, but wisely asked nothing else.

Once the young dragonrider beside him had dozed off, her sleep seeming restless and riddled with dreams, Wyvern turned to look out to sea. He knew indeed what had come to pass that evening, and felt Merrin's slew of mixed emotions. He held no resentment toward Kendath - since their escapade with the Star Crystal Wyvern had trusted him implicitly - but somehow he couldn't help but wonder why Merrin couldn't have fallen in love with one of those knights in shining armor than were forever found at Vryngard. Things would have been so much easier. And gods knew Merrin was no expert on falling in love. Quite the opposite.

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