Soft light from a setting sun danced along the edges of the tall grass as it swayed. A breeze moved it, almost melodically so. A late summer's warmth laid on his skin as he turned and looked around.
A flutter of a green cloak alerted him to the one some odd steps before him. Unhooded, watching, his hands laying still at his side as if they never needed to grasp a weapon.
"Cedmon!" Galtharian cried out, mustering all his strength to dash to the other's side, yet his footsteps were slow, weighed down, barely fighting against the distance between them.
"Hurry up."
"Where are we going? How are you here?"
Silence. "Hurry up."
"Cedmon, where are we? You-..."
"Hurry up."
Their feet carried them through the peaceful fields that stood stretching around them. Endless. Warm. For a moment, Galtharian could watch the other's back as he led him away, weary footsteps silent in the buzz of nature around them. A symphony. Still, his eyes could not spare the time to search for answers as he looked up their journey was done.
A mansion of white stone stood before them. Wrought not by a hand of Elf or Dwarf, it was the craft of Men that shone in the misty glow of the day slipping into eve. Magnificent before their eyes, it laid upon the field as if all of the lands around it were only its garden.
Before it, two figures stood with pride. The man, one hand on a hilt of his sword, his chest decorated with armor of dragon scales while his hair escaped under the brim of the pompous hat, clicked his tongue at them "You're late." The figure next to him took off his helmet, his golden locks falling onto his shoulders as he grinned at them "We were waiting for you."
Galtharian dashed past Cedmon, running to them, a hand reaching to those he searched for for so long. He gasped the air as if he were drowning, finally, after so long, after so many years of fruitless worry. Of waiting. Of tears. If only he could cling to them now, make sure they never were to leave his side again, he-
In an instant, he was pulled back, a hand holding the hilt of his sword as it stood sheathed. He turned back and a scream stuck in his throat. Bright blue eyes searched Cedmon's face for answers but the other stood silent, panting, a trembling hand gripping the hilt of the sword in desperation as the other laid frozen across his chest, fruitlessly holding the wound that poured blood over his garment.
In an instant, he tried to turn once more, yet once again, he was pulled back. Dolothrion stood behind him, his gloved hand gripping the younger's olive cloak with such intensity that for a moment all that was heard was the ripping of fabric. There was no smile left on the soldier's face, his eyes were cold and his golden hair was now intertwined with dead branches that twisted around his form. Dark, decaying... Perhaps too familiar to both of them. His face twisted, the hair that once shone like strings of precious metals now draped around his face like spiderwebs of their once-home. All that he was running from.
Tears poured down his face as he turned in desperation to his last hope. To the one who named him. To the one that molded him after this word that he offered so freely. Friend. Yet the eyes that met his were different, tired, old. Lupold was no longer the one that greeted him with ale enough to share, there was no call to adventure in the slouched and trembling form of a dying man before him. His face wrinkled, eyes watery and unclear, skin thin and spotted, he reached out to the young Silvan. An unsteady hand grabbed onto the wildflowers weaved upon the dark head of hair, tearing them off and letting them silently fall to the ground.
Somewhere far away, there was a voice that started singing as Galtharian fell to his knees, shivering from the cold.
He opened his eyes.
He was awake. He was captured. Cedmon was dead.
The cell in which he was kept was dark and cold. His skin burned from where he was injured. His chest felt heavy from days spent weeping, hoping to wake up from an ever-living nightmare. But there was no peaceful home to wake up to. No day to greet with a warm smile and an easy step.
He felt as if his heart was bound by icy chains. His hands felt almost lifeless at his side. His ears rang with nothing but the pounding in his chest. In his mind, he recalled all the letters that promised him hope for so long:
...for only you and I remain, from those that came to Bree. The stars will shine once more...
He had no more tears left to cry.
No, Cedmon, only I remain.
