The quiet, staggered words caught Aelius off guard; the man had been wordless since that first condemned house, he just assumed this would be the rest of their day together. But there he was trying to comfort the paladin, despite his own deep despair...

All the more reason to hide away Aelius' own emotions and focus back in. Walter was suffering behind that mask of silence. Aelius needed to be strong enough to support the both of them as they worked through this. He didn't quite grasp how hypocritical it was of him; the pot painting itself gold while the kettle kept its lid on tight, both trying to hide what lies within. Not just for their sake, but for everyone's.

As Walter spoke again, still fragmented in that hollow, broken manner, Aelius' gaze followed his finger. "Ah, fuck," he muttered, running a hand over his face to rub his temples, shoulders slumping. "With everything, I... forgot. Apologies." He sucked in a deep breath through his nose. "It's much easier being told what to do and where to go. I'm still getting accustomed to being out on my own, and planning steps... isn't my strong suit." After muttering this half to himself, half to the man beside him, he straightened back up, masked up, and looked towards the barricaded shanty town.

Walter seemed to find his words easier after that. Aelius gazed down at him for a few moments, eyes burning dimly like a tired and cloudy sunset, before returning to peer at the barricade. A silent recognition that they both had work to do, and could not afford to sink into themselves anymore. Had to put their faces back on.

Arms folded across his broad chest, Aelius huffed. "I... suppose you're right. I just... want to help them, if I can... and if I can stay up to help ease pain..." He trailed off, sighed deeply as he thought of the light leaving that man's eyes. Wondered how many more might not make it through the night. He shook the thought from his head.

He followed then, in silent resignation, after Walter as they approached the barricade. He grew more and more wary as he realized how fragile this town was. He felt if he looked at it wrong, it might catch aflame.

Granted... judging by the splatters of green... he'd be burning this to the ground soon anyways. They just needed to find... whatever it was that Walter thought was in here.

The Empyrean stepped up to the wall of mismatched material, stalked about the blocked entryway for a few moments as he tried to find its weakest point. When he identified it, he ground his heels into the dirt below and readied a stance as if he was about to throw hands with a wall. (He was.) It was perfectly trained - perhaps not exactly as militaristic as the Legions, but certainly similar, and certainly just as disciplined. Some kind of well trained martial arts. He lifted one powerful leg up, poised to strike, reminiscent of an ambush predator waiting for the perfect moment as he held completely still.

He only paused to speak once more. "I know we're looking for something. It looks bad in there. You tell me what to burn and when - once I get started, I don't know that I'll be able to stop the whole place from catching. So be warned." With that, one more steadying breath, and he unleashed that powerful kick. The outer wall cracked open, several large pieces of maybe furniture, equipment, or maybe a broken wagon, all shoved at the entrance to barricade it, snapped and crashed over. Aelius strode closer, pushed the broken barricade open further, the tumbled pieces aside to clear a path, and waited to properly enter until Walter was ready. He had a pit deep in his stomach. That sense of miserable foreboding returned to him.
 
"You aren't on your own. I am right here," he let the words run out for the time being, they were not needed and he was resigning to taking records and following it up with blazes.

The sounds of hammers from somewhere on the other side of the street, a large shape of furniture being moved through the entry point. A frown shadowed his face - too soon. They trusted him, but he didn't trust himself. A slow draw of breath, his shouted commands launched from his lips flat-voiced, but reached and fell heavy. "Reggie, sword! Take shelter! Till we're through!"
It was not urgent. He saw the figures get the furniture in. Doors closed. The hammers stopped.

Nodding to himself, the baron turned to eye the paladin. The first tone in his voice that wasn't shouting caught, and he cleared his throat quickly, picked the words up again.
"It's the same as any battlefield. You close their eyes, you pray to your gods, you let them go. You help the ones that you can, and you move on. Medicine eases the pain. We don't have much when it comes to scale, the sick here aren't the only ones needing the supply."
People fighting the undead, exposed to stillwater out there, people who got hurt trying to build this place up, even people who got hurt during join training or handling animals - they needed everyone, not just the paragons, doing the most of what they could. Far be it from proper for him to school an Arshaka warrior on these things.

Walter let air slip like a ribbon between parted lips, dropped his head low.
"Not your responsibility. Mine." A nod to the attendant as the lord got rid of the cloak and gripped the scabbard of his longsword. He nodded for Reggie to seek shelter, too, and waited for him to close the door of the nearest house.

He smiled faintly, watching Aelius keep the posture. Nodded, acknowledging.
Some dogs felt at home on a leash in a strong hand.
"Then heed my command, and do not stray. Breach."

It was somewhat invigorating, to watch this level of human athleticism perform on their side. Walter lingered a polite distance to dodge the debris if any should come his way, and watched the broad shoulders move as the paladin broke through the barricade with his hands alone.
"Halt."

He stepped in first.
It looked as it was - walls on bits on walls, whatever could be scrounged serving as cover from the ever-present rains, drafts whirling in the cracks between the boards from every direction, and cracking square of clay in one of the rooms designating that there was a hearth here, once.

The mold had eaten through it, and it could have equally been a narrow street or a corridor of a manor, the decorations obscured rather than revealed. It was everywhere, growing in piles wherever it found something to feed, small shapes, large shapes. One conjoined pile of pale seafoam-green sponge crawled up the wall and dripped something darker from the ceiling - thick, glistening globules of brackish brown, old blood mixed with soot.

The globules gathered into congregations of bulbs on the floor, while some made their way up the walls as the mucus strings dried and contracted, serving as foundations for more... muscle-tissue looking structures.
It was alive.

"Halt."
Walter rocked slightly on his feet without making a step, then moved, slow, measured.. The petrichor hit him.
The sword's blade bared.

It grew. It was still growing. Every bulb housing dozens of burrowing spores like worms, ready to burst, squirm, scatter at the slightest provocation.

The walls provided cover for the movements, but not for the noise.
Bubbling of sorts, like a wet gurgle. Tearing, not of fabric, but of flesh.
Aelius could see one of the matter piles shrivel, hellish raspberry globules sinking onto themselves, until the pile, elongated and turning the corner, resembled a limb. It jerked, detaching from its post with a splatter of rejected fluid, and slunk behind cover with a speed of an uncoiling snake.

The dark globules adorning the corners of the rooms resembled faceted eyes, the mucus strings - had the awareness of bared nerves. The growths turning the walls grey with mossy-like strands turned to Aelius - the source of warmth.

"I see. Let's even the field. We're going where it dwells." Walter's voice lost color. "Advance. Find the heart of whatever it is making of itself. Do not let it burrow. Do not let it escape. I will cover you. Go."

Walter stepped onto the square of clay, in the middle of the cramped room, and inhaled the rank, spore-laden air. The exhale came spilling out with a substance that was not quite fog nor liquid, it dripped off the chin like blood, fettered into whisps and sunk into the shadows. For eyes untrained, the lord of Bremen was still there, but staring at him was akin to staring at a bottomless pit that yawned wider than the horizon, and feel something in those aeons-worth of falling stare back.
The sounds muffled. The color seemed to retreat from everything. The air did not change, but everything felt... colder.

He Called it, the only active calamity in the immediate vicinity trying to grow beyond its appetite. It looked back. It blinked. It enveloped them both, because it was not a creature, it was a sliver of whatever it could feed and occupy stretching into the layers of the Shroud, and Aelius was promising so much to feed on, and Walter was threatening its end.

A wall collapsed on the other side of the construction, something heavy dragged across the dirt and the debris.
The rain would not start. The sky that had daylight moments ago, leaden though it was, was dark and unmoving, with an occasional drizzle of something slightly slimy, leaving dirt-like specks on skin and clothes.

The lord's figure sank away from light as the ceiling collapsed half-way.
A quick spike of half-cartilagenous material whipped towards Aelius, stuttered and fell like a rag, still arched towards him.

There were things here, in whatever gorgeous orange and golden glow that Aelius could produce. Most of them wiry, interconnected, half-formed pedipalds and tails and hands without fingers digging grooves into the dirty puddles and leaving no ripples.

A wet squelch of something massive detaching. And heavy, quick steps of an uneven number of legs somewhere to the side.
 
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Those words had struck a chord deep within Aelius - 'You aren't on your own. I am right here.' He knew the nobleman meant nothing more than the literal meaning of the words, but still... something about hearing someone say to Aelius that he wasn't alone, that they're with him... It hurt. It ached like hunger pains. Words like that were things he'd longed to hear for... years. Since he was a child. Because no matter how many clergymen he was surrounded by, no matter how many worshipers, no matter how many brothers in arms... he always felt so very alone.

He tried. But still, his heart clung to those words like a lost child.

Still, they had to press on.

As they forced their way in, Aelius obeyed perfectly; stopping before 'halt' was even finished and waiting for further command, ablaze eyes scanning the horrid moldering decay and the way it nearly breathed its own life.

It was sickening, it was horrific, and it was miserable. Terrifying to the everyman. In this moment, the Son of Ko was in full soldier mode; it was not the time or place to let any of this get to him. He had things to take care of. Something to kill. People to save. So he waited for his orders, watching for the next threat, ready at a moment's notice.

As Walter gave the command, Aelius held a hand out and closed it as if to hold something; from it a thin strip of fire erupted from either side of his hand, growing until it took the shape of his glaive. A flick of the flames and they burst out, extinguishing and revealing the summoned weapon in its golden glory. Despite not having his armor and the blazing sun insignias shining across him, he still cut an imposing figure and wielded the glaive expertly. In fact, without the armor, his muscles were only more apparent as he maneuvered the polearm, swirling it up and around. Flames licked off of him and the glaive, but the fire was summoned elsewhere -

encircling this strange, dark fragment of what was the shanty town erupted tall, bright flames. The Son of Ko could tell they were Somewhere Else, even if it looked like a dark reflection. The dark sky, the puddles without ripples, the blackness beyond the street... He didn't understand it all, but he knew this was wrong.

And so - 'Do not let it escape.' This entire dark fragment of the shanty town was surrounded by a wall of flames, threatening to incinerate anything that dared touch it.

'I will cover you. Go.' Heels dug into the strange, spongy earth for just a moment - catching a glimpse of the baron as that strange liquid-shadow dripped from his lips, taking note of the strange sensation as he peered at the void that took the shape of Walter, the way Aelius once again felt... cold, if for but a moment - before Aelius launched himself forward. His first target was the massive spike; it had been stopped, he could only assume by Walter's powers, but he didn't want to risk it reviving when his back was turned. He severed it with two strokes of his blade, and let the fire that lingered from the blade consume the rest.

There were things skittering about and trying to drag themselves out, and Aelius was quick on the hunt. The 'rain' meant nothing to him in the moment; he was a hunting dog let loose in a field of vermin, and nigh nothing was going to stop him from slicing through ever last squirming, writhing, skittering thing. Even as small speckles of dark brown stained his skin.

The things made it easy for Aelius; they came right for him. A broad swipe of his aflame glaive, and the blade cleaved and burned through sticky mismatched limbs, even as Walter drained the Shroud from them and left them puddles of rot and odd appendages melting into it. He made sure to light each one afire as he rushed through. But ultimately, he was heading for the large, wet sound of something tearing itself free, and these were all the casualties on the way - he could hear its massive limbs skittering ever closer, and he was eager to close the distance, to find the source of this hellscape and purge the world of it.

He did not even consider how he went into this unarmored. He did not acknowledge how the darkness reached into the deepest corners of his mind and raked its claws across it, even though his mind, his heart, were his most vulnerable. He could not think about controlling the flames around him, other than keeping up the wall that ensured this thing didn't escape, and so they burned freely and filled the space with a horrid, thick, rancid smoke.

He was the Son of Ko, and he was going to bring the fury of the sun down unto this plague ridden monstrosity until all that remained was ashes. That was all that mattered in that moment.
 
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The turning came like a soft wave, numbing every sense until it was gone with the overwhelming chill.
Sword pierced the dirt, free of any hand to wield. A flask shattered in consonanse with the landscape chewing in on itself, clay shards fell at the lord's feet, the igniter liquid oozed heavy down the blade, heating from bare contact from the air, clinging like tac to much colder steel.

Do not let it flee.

The paladin was gone, sent forward and, like a good bloodhound, making progress.
Unseeing eyes followed the advance, the threads woven into a barrier, the heavy footsteps reverberating in a doom-bringing echo on the knit-together floors.

Obedience made things easier. Routine.
His family words rang true, Walter thought. He had no right to be bitter, to rule was the lord's duty, after all - and duty he had done well. Good man. Good lord. Sparing his father's pride, sparing his sister the burden of legacy, taking it all onto himself not because he wanted to, but because his mind was vigorous enough to know what to do with the pieces. Because it had to be done for the world to be right.
It never, ever ended, even when he'd done his best to stop being a lord, when he tried to choose in running away.
A mistake, all that. It didn't spare him any heartbreak. It didn't spare his health, either.

Until... this. Becoming didn't make him special. If anything, it complicated life more than Walter cared to admit.
Most people who learned about it saw raw power. Yes, conditional, yes, costly, but surely, power meant that he was somehow superior, meant that he would seek to throw it around - and so there was little humanity offered from those seeking to either control it or avoid falling prey to it. Often with no grounds for either concern. Walter, meanwhile, did not help - he would not cower or give ground in false humility. He'd try to bear it and seem unburdened until he could no longer. He had to cut his life until it was custom-fit around this becoming. Keep it secret where he must. Manage it like one would a condition, while it slowly ruined him with the demands that could not be circumvented.

But it was also an escape.
Drape as he might want it in doing the right thing, or being good, or saving lives, or sparing his own men by throwing himself into the fires knowing he was harder to burn...
It was the only escape he was left with, between needing the world to be right and carrying all the tethers handed to him - by duty, by status, by eager hands. He wondered how many it would be before his will snapped like the proverbial horse's back.

He just had to... let go.



Prey encircled. The Harvest could commence.

Flesh sifted into smoke, leaving a bone of striking white. A skull that bared fangs, its surface engraved in chains of symbols bowing half-circles from brow to the base of the skull. The clothing faded, until, he knew, only the dagger remained somewhere in the folds, and the rest was not quite fabric, not quite ephemera, swaying in swaths, falling in folds, consuming the light. Monk's robe, priest's vestments, cultist's mantle, burial shroud.

His lungs screamed, he wanted to breathe, but his ribcage was hollow, and the very meaning of breathing changed form. There was no heartbeat, no tears. By all accounts he should not have been able to see or hear, and the feeling itself was syphoned away as he instinctively clawed to it. He could no longer be stunned by the transformation once there were no proper senses to erupt from overload, at least.
There was a choice, every time. Continue to struggle against the current while using its very same water, or let it carry him through the dread that, one day, there would be no more of him left to carry.

The bones of its right hand glistened like obsidian, firm but never quite complete. He did not remember that hand whole anymore. The knuckles wrapped around the hilt. The almond pommel shone with distant flames, a fox engraved on bronze, frolicking atop the arching crescent.

When it moved, the air whispered. When it ran, in long, large bounds, the movement along the ground so fast it felt uniform - the light dragged, the Shroud parting for it with a muffled disjointed shriek. The smaller sprigs and shoots of mold withered in its wake, sponge-flesh that ate into the boards crumbled like dry paper. The larger things, the things that had enough body to carry the Shroud, swarmed to it. It was the maddening sting dug into the being hid in the darkness, and the being, the shroud fiend cringed and squirmed to try and tear it out and apart.

It was the one that came to Harvest, and the work was plenty.

The longsword blade licked across the flames and the oils on it blazed brightly.
It did not need the sword. The sword was a vestige. A tether. A way back.

It cut through bonds that formed into long vines that tried to trip him.
It gouged the many-faceted eyes with large cleaving slashes.
It circled the sword over its ornamented skull, sending inert debris around it.

It walked, briskly, steps almost silent in the air of dying sounds around it, and completed the vast circle inside the flames of the paladin, keeping to the dark where eyes could not see against the fire, keeping to the other side of the blazes.


Aelius' enemy was a lump of growth, quickly reshaping itself as it undulated, turning from brackish-brown to something almost dark beige, though covered with a fuzz of black. It buzzed, almost, as it lurched clean through a wall, its arm resembling a tree's roots stopping the motion with a thundering boom. Two heights of Aelius himself, maybe more, the cocoon of tumorous flesh was squirming. Protrusions, segmented in circles, poked through it, slowly forming into appendages, elongating as it gained more mass pulled from everything of it not yet dying.

The being had to - apart from the drizzle, something moved through it that deadened whatever was too small to resist it beyond repair. But it was also in its own domain, and this nice... morsel was delivered to it alongside. It was angry, and burned away quite a bit, sure, but its spores have wormed under the skin.

PLEASE, SPARE US.
It was the blazes from years ago, just as bright and orange and tall and all-encompassing. But the woman was screaming in Altalusian was a voice from just this morning.
PLEASE WE WILL WORSHIP-
A man's voice, from this morning, trailing off in a death rattle. Screams. Stench of burned flesh.
PLEASE MY CHIL-
A thin, small voice shrill in absolute terror and agony.
Crackling of wood breaking under its own weight as it burned like a thunderclap, a sigh of scorching heat rolling into the face, brief silhouette of a limb boiling, frying, turning charcoal-black. No longer moving.

Shadows moved like a curtain under a sudden gust of wind. Screams turned into the strange whispering shriek of the parted air and Shroud.

The hairs turning into long, wiry tendrils on the being's sides, right by the openings of its malformed belly-mouths, fell to the ground, crumbling before the fires came out.

For a moment, the screaming died down, perhaps because three or four of the fiend's limbs on the damaged side immediately crumpled several buildings in the direction of the blow. The darkness moved again, avoiding fire, avoiding eyes that would track it - both crimson-red and pustulent-grey. One of the limbs detached from the wreckage malformed.

As soon as the flames sizzled across the form, the voices came from every side where a wet mouth opened with pedipalds for teeth and stings for tongues.

Please, help us!
Stop! Monster!

It had no use for light, and so besides the blazes there was none.

PLEASE, DIVINE SON, WE DID NOTHING TO DESERVE IT.
Obey, Aelius. You are your father's hand in this world, and Ko demands the heretics are spared no quarter.

A flash of blade. A glimpse of pristine skull, vertebrae of the neck beshadowed, hollow voids of eyes hosting blue motes of light, like will'o'wisps.

Mouths on the shroud fiend's bellied opened across their make, vomiting a stream of debris and maggots from the fresh wound that would stop moving as soon as they hit the ground.

The fiend's assailant was gone behind another corner, edge of the half-ruined wall, doorframe half-submerged in darkness.

The thick trunk-like arm stomped down on Aelius from above, seeking to crush the vessel from which it could feed.

Smaller things on sharp three legs and sized like dogs, scattered and converged, aiming their lamprey-mouths to the paladin's legs.

The sounds returned. The screams did not.
 
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Monsters were no stranger to Aelius. He'd fought to protect his Empire and its people plenty, and the creatures he faced were vast and varied. Undeath was a familiar foe. And yet, even so, this...

...This was something else entirely.

The way it moved, the way its limbs folded in on themselves to expand and grow anew, the way it ungulated and squirmed... it was muted and muffled, but that pit in his stomach was churning. The thing looked like the afflicted people had melted and molded together into one tumorous mass, writhing with maggots squirming just beneath its surface until they broke free and spilled out.

And then there was the place. Its domain. Its nest. Wherever this was, it certainly wasn't that town anymore - was it even the same realm? Whatever it was, Aelius didn't have time to think on it - he was the blade, the purge. He was the weapon sent to raze down the enemy.

Weapons don't think. They kill.

And as soon as the thing was in his sights, despite that churning deep within him, he lunged forward with reckless abandon. Flame and blade danced as one. Were it not such an ugly sight to behold, the movements of the glaive and the flame that blazed with it could be considered beautiful, like a comet streaking through the night sky. Until it plunged into the writhing mass, or sliced of a still-flailing, still-growing limb that bled ghastly squirming mold.

But before the Son of Ko could deliver any more blows to it, the voices began. Screaming. Begging. The fires that reflected in Aelius' widening crimson eyes were not the ones before him, but the blaze of a town burnt to the ground years ago. Mid swing, the man stuttered, froze, the blade of his polearm suddenly plunging down into the ground; he leaned on and clung to his glaive, desperately trying to ground himself as his mind and heart raced.

It didn't matter that the language was different, that the voice was of the people he met just this morning. He'd heard those same words before from many different voices. He wasn't supposed to hear them here. He was supposed to be helping, here. He came to this part of town to heal a plague.

Why... why was it happening again? He was - he was fighting this monster, and... did he lose control of his flames again? He was trying to save these people, not kill them...

...then again, that's what he told himself every time, wasn't it? Saving their souls. Saving the people of his Empire from heathens, blasphemers. Saving. He was a hero. The Son of Ko. He...

...he...

knew it was wrong. Deep down, he did. He could not admit it out loud, not yet. But that weight on his heart doubled, tripled, every time a voice cried out to him, until it was being shredded apart from the strain of what it carried.

"I - I'm sorry... I'm sorry, I... I can't..." The words were whispered, trembling, like speaking them too loud would incur an even greater wrath than his. Eyes still glazed by the fires of years ago, of charred arms reaching out, of the darkness behind the High Clerics' smiles. Tears welled and flowed freely down his face; the glow of his eyes and reflection of the ever-bright fires made it look as if his eyes had split the very earth open to summon red-hot lava flows.

The words burrowed into the shadows of his mind, just as the disease burrowed into the afflicted flesh.

When the screaming suddenly shifted to an inhuman whisper-shriek, and the shadows moved before him, the paladin gasped and blinked away the charred bodies, started to fade back into the present. The light of his flames had dimmed, dying out with every fallen tear, every apology. But as he came back to his senses, they began to roar back to life.

The voices continued.

Aelius grit his teeth, gripped his glaive white-knuckled and tore it from the ground. Tears still fell. He could almost feel the High Cleric's heavy hand upon his shoulder. He could feel himself nearly falling into its despair once more, but the shadows moved again - and something strange, something haunting, passed by with a flash of blade that tore the words from this thing's many mouths, tore the magic from its very being as it spilled out onto the ground. He felt that unsettling chill go down his spine.

Aelius barely had a moment to register what that could have been when the monster slammed down onto him. Crack-crack; a shout of pain. With nothing to keep his body protected and the sheer mass and force of the thing, something broke - a few ribs, he was sure, and maybe something in his arm. His legs were bloodied and shredded from the teeth of the smaller monsters. It all hurt.

But pain meant nothing to him.

He wheezed in a deep breath. The surrounding flames flickered and dimmed; the Son of Ko, instead, began to alight. For a moment, it was the radiant glow he always had about him encompassing his whole form, brighter, brighter, until all at once he erupted into a ball of flame. The fire engulfed him, the smaller leech-monsters, and the entirety of the fiend itself. It shrieked and shed a thick layer of char, crawling out of it like a molted skin. The smaller beasts were incinerated.

The Son of Ko rose, form pure fire, hard to look directly at without nearly blinding oneself. Eyes blazing with pure radiant fury, flames curled around his head in that crown of horns. His braid had come apart and his coils of hair were now long wisps of flame that flickered out around him, some trailing down his back and ending in something of a tail that lashed out behind him. The many coils of flame almost looked like arms - hard to tell when you couldn't look directly at him.

He launched himself straight up at the fiend, engulfing it in another ball of flame as he sliced through with his glaive. Another layer of char, another writhing escape, another flash of flaming blade.

Finally, blade pierced through to ground. The thing had lost mass from the burnt skins left behind, and was pierced and pinned down to the ground. Aelius, Son of Ko, stood atop it as he held the glaive firmly in place, feet sinking into its writhing, diseaseridden mass, yet too locked in on ending this thing to notice or care. His form was still ablaze, eyes locked on the horrid creature beneath him.

"Walter," he called firmly, voice echoing out with a wave of heat. He doubted he needed to call for the other - he was certain he was already well on his way to pull the magic from this thing - but instinct drove him to call regardless.

He only hoped this would end it.
 
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The flames colored everything orange and red. Only the flames themselves were golden, eating through the prime material to keep that color from dying. What would burn where there was nothing more left? What was it that burned on empty ground, so brightly? Where the well ran dry and the hollow vessels overturned - the dying waited.
There was fleeting before there was empty.

Once the blazing son of Ko unleashed his fury onto the shroud fiend, the other entity acted more boldly.
Light dimmed, only for the limb to come undone. Charred tracks of soot, darkened strands of burning intertwines worm-things, its passing, were so easy to take as one and the same. The passing went unnoticed, as the glaive would hack away, and bright, blinding light would erupt in swaths that would seem like a dawn breaking.

Every vessel started feeding on itself, sooner or later.

The crumbling form of the fiend would give under Aelius' feet once his heavy form wore it brittle enough. Its skins towered above his head like a layered cocoon. Its center was writhing, liquid, daring him to give more of himself, more of that flame, a cup half-filled.

Every heretic, it whispered with the steam that erupted from flaking char of the skins and bursting cracks of the centermass, no quarter to heathens who do not bow to the Divine Son.

For Aelius, there was a short drop down. It would not end in engulfment, if he only burned with intensity high enough to solidify the writhing content of the core. An eye looked at him from the wall of the basin he fell into, another, ten more in a cluster. They collapsed into holes.

The flame barrier was partially gone, flames at the edge of the tear lower, as if there was some fuel, and something else took it.

Nothing answered the call.

Then, the whole being, its half-dead parts, convulsed violently, bulged, as if to expel something, perhaps a cloud of spores that would spread, and... it didn't. Its surface started deflating, breaking apart, catching fire easily as thin tissue for a kindling, as if its blows weren't landing like falling oaks moments prior.


The skeletal hand wrapped around the long, uneven shape that stretched from underground like a half-expelled embryo from an animal that had no right to exist. It had a long tether, a sneaky pathway to get out once the main body was destroyed, out of the zone that sought to confine it, and reemerge, manifest, on the main street, with many creatures like seeds waiting to bear its sprout.

The fiend should not have been this strong. Feeding off of things hidden, too. Things that teased at all hours of the day yet remained without a source, because the weave was thick in Arpa, layered to the maddening quality. Whoever hid the source - knew about things like him.

The vestige of the plague fiend fell apart under the withering touch, the umbilical cord collapsed. The skeletal figure drifted back, then, to where the sounds of the fight were, seeming moments before - time was irrelevant. Either the flame source was alive, or not. The Harvest's Call was fulfilled.

As the wraith walked, the sword ran through a few stray long-limbed spider things, swipes at half-dead creatures forceful, but almost limp-armed. The figure moving in the darkness did not have the glow save for the motes in its eyes. Its skull caught firelight with unrelenting white.

The fiend's pocket of control was collapsing. Ceiling-sky coming down to bury what remained. Spaces empty of anything to remember closing down. It was a matter of time.

The obsidian hand rested on the filled core, still spasming in attempts to cling to life, but directionless. Shroud fiends could not exactly fear in the way humans feared. But they did seek to cling, anyway.

Knuckles pushed through the charred carapace like wet clay, until it splashed onto the ground, releasing all the contents.

The skeleton tilted its head up, where the weave formed silhouettes like stalagmite spikes, beyond the drizzling veil. Spires. Towers with spiral stairs that seemed to seek to pierce the ground below. A reflection.

There was something else, seeking purchase with weak fingers, unable to ground. The terror, and the nausea, and the determination that were entirely foreign to the purpose-driven wraith. The sword was, too, but it lay in hand in such a satisfying way, like unfettered dreams of heroism.

Its voice was unapologetically loud, an uneven multitude of different timbres, paces, inflections. One voice was familiar, male, with a peculiar local accent, but it was barely louder than the rest.
"IT IS DONE. YOU WILL QUENCH THE FLAMES."
 
His call went unanswered. Blazing eyes darted away from the fiend beneath him to try and find any sign of the other man - perhaps that haunting bone white that had the same empty chill in the air - but only saw eyes staring back at him as he sunk into this pit of dying monstrosity. He sliced through it once, twice more, just to be certain of its death, to silence those words it kept repeating, to cut away those mouths that commanded and eyes that judged.

It withered and melted around him. He finally stabbed his glaive into the ground where the last mouth he saw babbled, gripping his weapon tight, body still a living inferno. Those words echoed in his mind. He grit his teeth, his flames burned hotter, and he spat out a curse at the thing.

His eyes then caught on the sky - it felt like it was falling, collapsing in - and Aelius suddenly remembered his missing companion in the moment of panic. Another muttered curse. He released his glaive and spun around to start his search, parted his lips and began to call out -

and stopped as he saw the skeletal figure.

The voice (voices?) startled him out of his shock. It gave him all the confirmation he needed; he heard Walter in there, somewhere.

It took him a moment to react. He was so... taken by how much he felt like he was looking in a dark mirror. His own power an eternal source of life, though a destructive one, bright and shining and warm. And Walter... cold, not just dark but devoid of light, and a seeming endless hunger to fill that void. A damn literal skeleton at the moment, no less. They could not be more opposite, and yet, right now Aelius saw a reflection of himself.

All of that power. So easy to get lost in it. So easy to lose control. So easy to lose who you are when your reigns are taken by the vast power within you. So easy to hand those reigns over, when your soul is too tired to keep steering. Aelius had fallen into that dark space a few times. It was a protective shell. Shun your humanity and let your monster take over. You won't have to feel all of those terrible human feelings if you do. It was so easy to give in. So easy.

Perhaps he was projecting. Perhaps he was hoping.

Regardless, he dropped his gaze down to his hand - a bright, burning flame - and took a slow, deep breath. Put those words out of your mind. It's over. Come back - you have to. There are still people that need healing, still a blight of undeath upon the lands, still a town to mend and revitalize. There are people who need you. People who need the person, not the Destroyer.

A slow exhale. The flames upon him and what few remained about died down with his breath. Another, and the flames settled more until they finally extinguished, returning Aelius back to his usual gentle glow. As soon as the fiery radiance left him, he nearly doubled over as the pain hit him all at once, but managed to hold himself together. Still, he tenderly held his definitely broken ribs with one hand. He then took a step closer toward the pale figure, his other hand reaching out.

"Walter..?"

Another step. "It's alright, it's over. Please come back." Again. The hand reached closer, going for the hand without the blade. "Come with me. It's going to be alright." He took the skeletal hand in his.

There weren't many times he remembered being calmed down from one of his own moments. What he did remember was suddenly being led away from a blazing building as a young child, and how everything was fire up until he felt someone take his hand. Even though they had burnt themself doing it... that pulled the young Xbalanque out of his fiery state and stumbling back into his human self.

He hoped it might help here, too.
 
The touch was electric. It pulled into itself, burned the nerves with cold as it radiated Shroud for a beat longer.

Perhaps, there was another realization to come.
The lights came back after the skeletal being's passage, sometimes burned brighter. The sounds returned, resumed with no effort, refreshed in volume and clarity. The world kept spinning, save for this element of counterposition - and whatever it was excising, and the brief dead air that was the effect of the deadly pull. Once drawn, that power became the breath exhaled back into the world, faceless, dispensed into the ether to become other things and other weaves by forces and creatures that could act upon the Shroud. Returning things to earth as the conqueror worm with a quiet, dispassionate efficiency. This almost-golem, this wraith, had no space for mindless fury - or for heartfelt sentiment.

The bones were smooth, as if polished by time's - Shroud's - flow. It didn't seem like a speck of dirt had touched him, not a scratch on the hallowed canvas save for a tiny, grey fracture crack running along a clavicle to the middle of the collarbone. The bone itself was lukewarm as the power within it kept receding into the wisps of dark embracing its form, fleeting into the air.

The skull remained tilted slightly upward, staring beyond the ceiling falling slowly on top of them, shreds of dead mold falling all around in thick flakes and clumps. The figure stood there, still for the lack of breathing, the ghost fires flickering in the empty sockets, not much different from a statue, perhaps a doll with limbs that held together against all odds.

It was not over.
Arpa stood on the massive seed of calamity that was dormant yet, but if it erupted, no one would escape alive. And they commanded lord Thornley to bring more people to feed it.
Around Arpa lay miles of land plagued by the walking dead slowly congregating, as if directed. Iron wraiths roamed. Nightmares and old tales took form in the dark.
And if someone brought something from outside beyond the hex wards... it was fed near a surge of a leyline that was itself twisted into an unrecognizeable shape.

Come back? He never left. He was here, in his final, perfect rubedo. He could do a great many things.
The Obscurata had other Harvests lined up, and the body of flesh would slow it down. All bodies of flesh would.
North, south, magic or mundane, it didn't matter. The world shifted, and time turned.
"IS THE WORLD RIGHT? SCOURED INTO A SHAPE THAT PLEASES YOU?"
Walter's voice among a dozen other voices - echoes that rang through the transformed body from somewhere else.


Lungs burning underwater.
Knife carving into his arm, first cutting, then flaying, then dismantling. So many things to dismantle.
He was a weaver, a warrior, he was a prodigy, he was Walter Thornley, a runaway noble and a wannabe mercenary.
He believed, once, that he would change the world with a good calculation and two handfuls of magic.
He was ready to die for his brothers-in-arms. He would have no regrets if he just died.
Oh gods, they would not let him die.
They made him a vessel, they filled him with dread and despair, and they laid him out on the altar for something to come.
And as the Shroud surged, he made the calculation.

He was rejected, soon after. Cast out because he was not right anymore, and nobody could know what broke.
Politely, which spoke volumes of regrets the Captain had over this turn of affairs.
A cripple or a half-made monster, and they waited for him to die.
And he didn't.


A dark grey flake, dry and brittle, landed on the skull, caressed the forehead as it dissolved into nothing brushing past the cheekbone. He waited for the march to resume, once the world would return once more to its rightful place, the road collapse two inches from what tried to burrow beneath, the shanty town transfigure into a smoking ruin.
Somewhere deep inside, Walter tried to reach for something to pin him back to the warmth, and grabbed exactly the wrong thing. What waited at the resurgence of the heart?
"WHAT FUELS THE FLAME THAT WATER CANNOT QUENCH?"


Hollow, hollow spaces, dug out by blunt fingers that thought they could claim him.
Filled by the emptiness after they were gone.
He was to blame. He let it happen.
It didn't hurt less.

All his choices, all his heartbreaks, until he made the right one.
To go home and take the heirdom.
If he didn't have this, then...


It waited for the sun. If the sun never came, then it was free to traverse the darkness until it had destroyed all that called to it, or something proved powerful enough to break through its tenacity, and bring it back.
Somewhere deep inside, Walter made his peace, retracted into the corner of the mind that bore his backbone, and waited.
"BEHOLD." It was silent for a while, standing there as an exhibit. Purity of purpose stripped of doubt, consideration and want other than the direction of the instinct. A force of nature. The final form of someone carved up into a shape on an altar they didn't choose.

The floor and ceiling became one, and the jaws that did not move sounded almost reassuring in a quiet admission, "SOON."


The world lurched, ground shifting underfoot as if it was briefly immaterial, colored spots dancing before the eyes in a fuzzy mess before the vision cleared.
Aelius would be lucky to still be standing. People were rushing to get a hold of him, Huntsmen, a couple Shieldbearers.

"M'lord paladin! You're wounded! Stay where you are, we're coming to get you, are you-" One of them, tawny-skinned but mousy-blond human, Olivier perhaps, started climbing over, carefully stepping past debris and onto what seemed like earth that wouldn't cave, "alright, I got some purchase here, come! Let us help, we just need to get to quarantine entrance, the healer from the Shields 's on the way! Can you walk?"

There were people around, living people, seeming a bit invigorated in the absence of the parasitic Shroud, going through the ruins in an attempt to figure out what happened. No skeleton. No pungent remains.

Away at the entry point, the open door closed in a rush, then opened again for a breathless messenger. Mender's on the way, distant voices told, bringing some of the Shieldbearer's supply. How are the- yes, inside- yes, you moron, right now.
And the messenger was off again.
 
'IS THE WORLD RIGHT? SCOURED INTO A SHAPE THAT PLEASES YOU?'

Aelius hesitated, shrunk back a bit as those words settled uncomfortably in his mind, heavily in his chest. Still, he held on. In hopes of bringing back Walter, yes, but also... for himself. Even though the sensation of gripping him in this form was... unsettling, chilling, Aelius clung to him.

The lost child that still held onto those words refused to let go: 'You aren't on your own. I'm right here.' He didn't want to be alone. Not with words like those, like the echoes of those screaming voices, reverberating through his mind. Not after everything they'd seen and done that day. He didn't want to be alone.

The thing that was Walter spoke again. Aelius swallowed, mouth dry, tasting blood and mold and rot, and squeezed the skeletal hand tighter. The world was collapsing around them. His heart pounded in his ears. All he could do was hold on, eyes staring wide.

"Don't... leave me alone..." Words spoken as that one, true primal fear crawled its way out from the fearless paladin's throat. There were bigger problems to worry about. But in his heart of hearts, as Walter still didn't return, as that being continued on, feeling more and more distant... that one real fear of his broke through his filter and eked its way through his lips.

And then it all collapsed.

When the Paladin's senses crashed back down onto him, he found himself on his hand and knees, clenching his chest and wheezing. His own blood stained his torn clothes, as did... whatever horrid mold and char remained. For just a moment, he felt his head spin as if he were to collapse. But the voices drew him back to reality - he lifted his head to peer across the debris at the person wading through towards him.

He quickly realized he must look pathetic, and painfully, stiffly, sat upright and placed both hands on his chest. Those flickering eyes closed and, for a few moments, it looked as if he were in prayer. A warm light grew from beneath his hands and sunk into his chest - he could feel his ribs being pulled back into place, fusing back together, deep bruises healing, cuts and bites burning away until they left pristine skin behind. He still ached terribly, but that didn't matter. Evidence of the battle was still clear on his clothing, but his body showed no sign.

As the light faded, he exhaled slowly, and glanced around - finding his glaive half buried next to him, he pried it from the rubble and finally got to his feet just as the other person reached him.

Aelius stood tall, as if he wasn't emotionally drained and devastated, as if this entire day didn't weigh down on him like the weight of the world. "I'm fine." He had to be. His eyes scanned the wreckage slowly, carefully. "Where's Walter..? Did you find him?"
 
"Shit, shit, shit," A willowy woman caught the glimpse of golden glow from Aelius' hands and gasped. "Hey, your paladinship - what's the proper way? Whatever, do you need some help getting up?" She vaulted over a half-burnt window frame, landed with a precarious thud, and moved along the edge of one of the rooms with the collapsed floor to get to where Olivier already stood, on the other side, offering Aelius a waterskin or an arm to grab on to if necessary.

"I'm fine,"​
the radiant one stymied the concerns, if for a moment, and Olivier did not stutter - it wasn't the first high-status man he'd dealt with that had the stubborn manners of a bull. He scanned the paladin's form, the absolutely ruined garments covered in charred and dried blood and reeking like a sewer from every other fluid that landed on the nice fabric in the past several hours - but, importantly, without visible wounds. Damn.
Well, they could watch over their own, and despite Dahlia's insistence on being kept as far from this southern firestarter as possible - he did seem to have done something. Even non-weavers could feel it in the air, and all the Huntsmen were weavers.

The question clarified some of that stubborn stance.
"His Lordship? Yeah we did, about an hour ago, we've been told there's a Mender from the Shields who can also weave, so, you'll get some help soon as she sees to the lord. I'm not sure what's the proper name though, can't be Mender, you don't think?" Olivier scratched his jaw. "Not meaning any offense - but there's an offal smell about you as well."

"Reggie's on it with the bath, I've seen them carry the basin into the other empty room a minute ago," Ophelia voiced. "I could probably hunt down a change of clothes for you, if you want?" She offered a cheerful smile.

They were both armed, armored, gloves on, faces covered, and trying not to wince. Aelius was imposing, the height, the build, the sheer gravity of someone standing up with their blood no longer corresponding to the wounds, grabbing their weapons and asking questions. But the Huntsmen have carried one stinky lordling of imposing bearing earlier, and they could talk another one into honoring the hygiene, too.

"How many did we lose?" She asked Aelius. "We weren't awake until about an hour ago, now everything's tits up and everyone's very busy getting patients closer to entry point and folks have just finished setting up space for each one of you two since..." She waved her hand dismissively, as if to say 'highborn and all that', and perked back up immediately, "Oh, and where should we send people running to get you another shirt and... well probably the rest of it?"
 
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There was visible relief when they answered - shoulders relaxed, tense expression softened, and a heavy sigh escaped his now mended chest. "Good," he murmured, finally turning his eyes to the pair. "The help is much needed. We'll be able to heal twice as fast, now that..." he trailed off, glancing down at himself. He... really was a mess. Blood and who knows what. This was no state to show up as a healer in. And... this wasn't an active battlezone, there was another healer on the way...

With a relenting sigh, the paladin rubbed the back of his head as he frowned down at his ruined clothes. "Ah, none taken... twas an awful... well, everything, in there." He took in a deep breath. The fire that licked at the blade of his glaive began to crawl down the weapon's shaft; Aelius released it, and in a glare of sunlight, the weapon vanished, dismissed from its service for the time being. He dusted his hands off and smiled that bright, warm smile at the pair before him. "A bath would be lovely, as would new clothes. Can't heal the sickly and bring up their morale looking and smelling like this."

At their next question, his smile faded. Crimson eyes shifted to the wreckage once more. He heaved another sigh. Turned a small smile back to the Huntsmen. "How about I fill you in on what I know while you show me there? Let's walk and talk. Ah, and my belongings - I've been staying at..."

..Aelius explained as they climbed through the wreckage once more, til finally they were free and back on the streets. He was shown to the space set up for the pair of highborns, and gratefully thanked the pair for their help. Once they departed and sent someone to fetch some new clothes, draw up a bath, Aelius lingered in his space for only a few moments before slipping back out. He went straight for the door he was told the nobleman was behind and knocked. How could he just stand by idly and wait, after all? He needed to at least try and check in on Walter, even if the lord didn't feel like speaking. He just needed to try.

"...Walter?" He spoke gently, like he was trying not to scare a frightened child. "A healer is on the way, but if you need anything right now, I can help." He wasn't going to ask 'are you alright?' because he knew the answer was absolutely not. How could either of them be after the day they had?

After a beat, he added a soft, "I'm glad you made it out. You had me worried."
 
When he woke up in the soot, everything hit the at once - pain, stench, every sense screaming. So, about an hour ago, the first thing that happened upon victorious reemergence is throwing up on his knees and hand, violently, into the charred remains of some floor or other, and stumbling out of the ruins. The shoulder looked mauled - that tiny crack on the skeletal form had morphed into a fractured clavicle, muscles pierced, blood vessels pulsing as his body mended itself, coursing on the remainders of a collapsing demiplane. Some, still, retained in the aura. Just enough. He did not want to touch that leyline with a ten-yard stick.

"My lord!"
Walter pulled a lungful of air in through lungs that felt new, savoring the feeling of his own heart hammering hard in his chest. Almost tilted over once again. It took time.

He let the attendant give him some support as he made his way to the small, couple steps there and back, room in which they put benches and some straw in sacks for a bed, and a bedding on top that he would not touch, picking instead a slightly unevenly-legged stool to sit down, and breathe for a while. His clothes were not as ruined, he'd changed before the main activities began. That brought a little needed joy - he really loved that shirt's embroidery.

Reggie caught the familiar air and didn't even try asking questions, sent someone to wake the couple Hunters sleeping before a dusk watch. First rotation out of place, but they needed hands and men.

In another half an hour, still in silence, Walter scrubbed down in a wash basin next door to the closet bedroom, brushed the stench of burned flesh and charred wood out of the hair as much as it was possible, just waved off people who brought two unassuming stones and two large amphoras that held so much more water than they looked like. He could get himself a damn bath if that meant being left in peace and relative quiet for a few hours.

He could hear someone's sobs next door, from the barrack with the other patients, heart-rending even though it was muffled.

There came a knocking. Walter grimaced. Not with disappointment, but a mixture of things he did not want to be feeling in the moment besides relief, and warmth. His lips pressed tightly together, and he looked longingly at a fresh linen shirt that would have to wait until he actually felt clean. He was not ready. He would not be ready.

He stepped to the door, fingertips hooked at the rough iron handle nailed besides the edge. Swung it open. Scoured the paladin with a stern, furrow-browed look, trying to discern if there were wounds under the clothes.

"Aelius, you are well," he concluded, allowing relief to touch his tone, and the lines between brows to smooth slightly, though not entirely - there was some worry still etched into the faint lines at his forehead, in the early crows' feet at the corners of his eyes, some tension that did not leave the outlines of the mouth.

Walter did not finish undressing, and the deep purple bruising was pulsing under the skin where bones and flesh were knitting messily to how they were before, the stain large on his shoulder and creeping along the collarbone down to the chest.
He wore no doublet, no length of cloth flush around the neck.
What skin was visible through the loosened lacing of the shirt - also sported scars. Some of them rather dubious, some too close to vital spots, some looking much too faded for someone of Walter's age.

And yet, the man presented dead serious, straight-backed, almost defiant even if he still carried a fading after-scent of vomit. It didn't matter how he felt or what he wanted - this was important, and his attention was required.

Eye contact was required too, apparently - his eyes, now dark, a shade of blue that bordered on violet, peered up at the paladin's face.
"A healer is not going to do much for me." Though I've the feeling she will take offence unless admitted, which also applies to you. "More importantly, you're here whole." His eyes drifted. Was that... guilt? "Thank the gods," he said, very quietly. His lips pressed tighter for a moment, relaxed. His shoulders loosened, lowered ever so slightly. "No need to fuss over me. We of Bremen are made of sterner stuff. We have the day well in hand now. And still, I owe you something."

He reached out with his left hand, and lukewarm fingers wrapped around a darker-skinned palm, streaked with filth, and squeezed it. Surely, this was some southern habit he was not aware of for conveying sincerity, judging by how it has been used. Sincerity was very well intended right this moment.
"You have my apologies." He wanted to end it with 'friend', but it just didn't roll of the tongue, and a name would make it even more unnecessarily formal. Words got stuck on his tongue, tangled in his throat. But his proper, lordly voice was also a matter of diligent self-schooling, and it hardly wavered once Walter continued, measured, "I was not present... in full." I frightened you. I'm sorry. "I would insist that you take rest and make yourself proper in short term." Are you going to be alright?

He could have asked not to disclose the state he'd been in throughout, but... that would have given anyone with any political acumen a knife to hold over his throat even bigger than there already was.

"I now see that the clerics of Arshakan Empire must indeed be mighty," he tried to smile. The reek of scorch and rot made him nauseous again. Stomach turned. The lord turned some shade of grayer in containing it, by sheer force of indomitable will. He swallowed down the catastrophe. "...if their paladin did not have to delve into such pits before." And that certainly did feel like the pits. Adrenaline was still lowering, like a particularly slow crash. Shattering to pieces, suspended in animation by continuous effort to be courteous. "Would you like to share a drink, later? I cannot rightly make it up to you, but I can at least answer what query you may hold." In exchange for mine.
 
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Aelius half expected to hear and see nothing as he waited for any kind of response, any indication of life; half expected to hear that loud, many-voiced thing from before... and was surprised when neither happened, and the door opened to reveal the lord in... quite a state. Aelius' eyes traveled over him, inspecting the bruises, noting the scarring, the fading reek of vomit...

Cinder eyes lifted back up to meet those deep, dark eyes of the baron. He said nothing of the man's state - he didn't have to. The look on Aelius' face spoke volumes. Brows knit together with concern, the fire behind his eyes burning low and the crimson trying so hard to not stare at the wounds as they spoke that he was almost looking past Walter, lips pressed tightly as there was so much he wanted to say but wouldn't, couldn't, not yet.

"Yes, I'm well," he agreed quietly. And indeed, he was. Despite how much blood stained his clothes, the clear tears revealed nothing but pristine chestnut skin beneath. In fact, it didn't look like he had any scars that blemished his statuesque figure at all.

His lips tugged into a frown as Walter continued. "What do you mean..?" He asked, eyes flickering back down to the wounds peeking out from under his clothing. "You're clearly wounded. Do you mean it won't affect you, or are you just being proud?" He tried to look stern, but he just looked worried. "There's a time and place for pride, and when you're hurt is not the time to let pride get in the way."

When Walter reached out for his hand, the gesture... caught him by surprise. He blinked and stared down at their hands for a few moments before peering up to once again meet his. Shoulders slackened some. The paladin's gaze slid to the side, unable to look directly at him for a few moments as he remembered his own moment of weakness. It was shameful for the champion of Ko to show such weakness in front of anyone, even in a time like that. That shame was written clear as the day he so proudly represented across his face.

Slowly, he shook his head, squeezed the hand back. He thought for a moment on how Walter spoke - not present, in full - before returning his gaze to the man. He had... so many questions. This was not the time or place to ask any of them. But he at least wanted to... try and offer reassurance. "...I understand. Perhaps not perfectly, but I believe I understand, at least somewhat. You did no harm to me," physically. "so no apology needed."

A breath. "With a healer on the way to take care of everyone, I'll allow myself time to rest." He patted the lord's hand and let it slip from his grasp.

He did not comment on mention of the Clerics. His expression, in fact, did not change at all, as if he hadn't even heard it. In truth, he just didn't have the bandwidth to even passively agree with praise for his home right now. There was a distant reflection of flame in his eyes once more, an echo in his mind of shouts of the dying. For his own sake, he just let it pass.

The brief moment of dissociation, oddly chilled for a man made of sunlight, drained away as Walter spoke anew with an offer. The paladin blinked visions of the past away, focused on the lord before him, and put his smile back on. "Why, I would love to. I... certainly have some questions for you. But also, I think we deserve a drink or five after the day we had."

"And... unless you'll let me heal those wounds of yours, I can let you be to rest til then."
 
Wasn't because he went too far with an attempted joke, Walter knew. His mind swam, but his heart broke quietly.
No. He knew it was inevitable, all sacred omens in the living men were bound to be pulled apart by greedy hands demanding that they give, but...

"Aelius," he offered quietly, swallowing the bile rising up his throat. His forehead was damp with a cold sweat, the shirt collar clung to the neck stained dark with moisture. "Aelius. Look at me. I left you, in the end of it. I couldn't..." His words stopped, as if cut down.

Fuck his pride, and his weakness, this was important.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was too used to acting on my own. I left you alone in spirit, if not in body, when I should have..." a hitch, words changing at the turn of the tongue, "...stayed. You had every right to be afraid." The corner of his mouth twitched. "You are, like the rest of us, confined to a man's body and a man's spirit. And you have seen what I am, how could I fault you for one of the few things that keeps us here? Listen to me. You eased their suffering and did not prolong it for the dying. You held the dark at bay. I am not saying this because..."

He blinked away a tide of colorful dots that turned his vision black.
"I have seen your eyes, then and just now. Like mine own. It's alright. It was a... It was a horrible rotten mess. While helping, we've watched people suffer and we watched them die, but it could be so much worse without. Your power's proven. It's only of poor benefit for those who rely on us... if your mind goes." Like his own did. "It's alright to... Nobody here to judge."

Along his shoulder, the bruise was receding, while the veins under the pale skin pulsed in deep purples, as if pumping magic alongside blood. Walter's eyes sunk closed for a moment. He was so tired. He was feeling sick.
And none of it mattered because there was a boy soldier with a thousand yard stare that had just fought a shroud fiend alingside him and needed... Something.

The baron realized he had been pouring out too many words between them two, and gave space, his jaw knitting for a moment.
He didn't have a way with words, so far as he thought. He did not know what to say, how to say it, to make it better.

Because watching someone else like this become more like him was excruciating.

And so, Walter raged against his own weakened body and mind in sheer frustration, a storm almost unseen under the surface. He burned too much with resolve to break right now.

All the same, by the time he was done talking, there was only a long line along the clavicle, the purple of it turning into strange scarring that paled and sank into flesh.
If nothing broke the silence, he would let the parting happen, too.

It dawned on him that, perhaps, they would allow themselves to break only once left alone and in peace.
 
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Smile faded, gaze settling, cooling, on the lord before him as Walter spoke his name. He could feel a lump in his throat, tears threatening even though hardly anything had been said yet. Maybe it was the quiet way he said Aelius' name, or how miserable Walter looked - like how Aelius felt, or the fact that they just weren't moving on. Maybe it was just the weight of everything from that day.

Eyes full of fire were not supposed to be extinguished by tears. But he couldn't help it. He'd always been a crybaby, no matter how much they tried to beat it out of him. 'I left you.' 'I'm sorry.' Words that doused the remaining cinders in his eyes, the bright ruby red dimming to a beautiful warm umber, shining with moisture. Another moment where he looked almost human.

He listened. He had so many thoughts, so much to say in response, but couldn't bring himself to open his mouth. If he did, more than words would spill over. He had to swallow it down. He couldn't be weak in front of...

...it... it was just the two of them, wasn't it? And they... had far too much in common. There were things they understood of each other that nobody else could understand, without even speaking of it in plain words yet. And, Walter seemed to be healing himself as he spoke - those nasty bruises and cuts fading and sinking into his flesh, leaving little evidence. Of course... they truly were alike, weren't they? Couldn't let anyone else take care of them.

As the baron's sincere, broken words faded into silence, Aelius heaved in a deep, shaky breath. Let the silence hang a moment more. Tried to gather his own words. The lump in his throat prevented any words from forming. And so, without words to express anything, he chose another way -

The paladin took a step closer to Walter and sunk down, wrapping his powerful arms around him in a tight yet gentle hug. His head fell heavy on the man's shoulder - the unhurt one - and even just with that, Aelius' weight upon Walter was... heavy. The weight of his pain surely added. And his touch, as always, was warm. His whole body like a weighted blanket warmed by the stove.

He didn't say anything - he couldn't yet. Hot, uneven, shaky breaths against Walter's neck. Collar slowly growing wet with tears. Arms clinging, but not too tight, as if instinctively afraid of hurting the man. His tears were silent and contained, reserved only for the small space shared between them, the only space that felt safe enough to let them fall.
 
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