Wren was doing his best to keep his eyes open, constantly having to adjust them with the harsh light, and eventually he gave up and cast a small spell. It dimmed the room and he eased out a sigh as he looked over to Silvia. She wore the Sol's version of blood slave attire, though they hadn't had slaves in centuries. It had taken some digging to find. Silvia wrapped it all up in a desert cloak and hood to block the sands through the long trek back.
It was so foreign thinking about leaving this place. For the last fifty years, this was all he'd known, dank cells, torture, and solitude. It was noisy up here, and it was only the whispers of the Sols as they went about their day, avoiding them in the throne room near the main doors. Too much light, too much sound, too much space. Wren wanted to stuff himself in a closet just so that something was familiar. Sure, he didn't want to still be in the cells, but the world outside of it was just so heavy.
"Silvia Copse," Shan said to them as they prepared to depart, and Wren turned back to see the Sol general waiting with an empty expression on his face.
The Sol general looked depressed. It was the same look that Talamayas had worn since the moment he'd pulled him in and embraced him. Wren wasn't even sure what to make of that. The man had wanted to touch him, but not to harm him. For a moment, Wren had wanted to reach back and touch his torturer. He'd been too startled by his flip in behavior to feel pity for him. All he'd wanted was to be able to run his fingers across something that had always been out of his reach, always too fierce to escape unscathed if he'd tried.
Talamayas crying gently on him made him almost appear human. Sure Talamayas had shed tears in rage before, but it had not been the same. Just the two of them standing there, Talamayas hugging his midsection as if it were all that was keeping stable, had shown Wren a different side of Talamayas. Another one. There were times that the man had shown pity for Adagio, kindness enough to give him a last moment with his father, and forgiveness that had allowed him to bury Lieder next to his son.
None of this had ever been shown to Wren, so when Talamayas broke down, it had struck Wren as a mirage. Talamayas didn't want to let him go. Wren understood that, but he'd expected anger, spite, some sort of something else. Not anguish. Talamayas hadn't appeared frustrated to lose him as a prisoner, but more terrified of losing a friend. They weren't friends. Sure, he didn't hate the man, but he also wasn't yearning to stay close to him.
"What?" Silvia asked, jumping back from Shan and slipping behind Wren nervously.
Wren couldn't help but chuckle as Shan's shoulders sank. Whoever this Neil was, both Talamayas and Shan cared about him and were upset about what had happened with the mage next to him.
"Talamayas asked me to wish you well and tell you that you are welcome in the Sol territory any time. If you need a place to go, we will take you in," Shan said in as soft a voice as the general could manage. The man had a deep even tone most times and it mixed well with kindness in a way that Talamayas' never could.
"Thanks. Gonna pass on that," Silvia growled from behind Wren's bicep. "Talamayas is clearly too busy to see me off, so I wouldn't want to burden him." The insult stiffened Shan's shoulders, and he looked as if he wanted to break her in half, but he spun on his heels and left them.
That wasn't the reason at all. Talamayas couldn't bear to watch his precious prisoner escape. It hadn't taken Wren much thinking to figure that one out.
"You don't have to come with me," Silvia said up to him, concern showing in her dark eyes as they neared the door.
"I've got nowhere better to go, and you seem in need of help. I can help you with some things, even if I'm half a husk here," Wren assured her, and she eyed him as if it might be better to just ditch him. Thanks for the vote of confidence.
They headed out of the Sol castle and it was a series of maze-like portals that the guards guided them through before they were out of the desert, and Silvia Copse look like she'd been spun like a top.
"Holy Hell, that never gets old, does it?" Silvia said, and Wren smiled lightly.
"The Sols litter their territory with antimagic, so you have to slip between the cracks that they created with their own magic. They lack for nothing concerning caution and protecting of their house. Speaking of which, you mentioned that you were working with a Neil? I'm not familiar with him."
"Yes, Neil Arc, but you can't say that out here, man..." Silvia grumbled, but as a thought occurred to her, she shifted her hands uncomfortably. "Can you make a transportation spell to where I want to go? In all the hating Talamayas Sol's guts, I forgot that I needed a return ride."
"You... can't form a transportation spell?" Wren asked, appalled, and she narrowed her eyes at him. That was basic magic, one of the first spells most junior mages learned. Children went to school with them for heaven's sake. This was an operative working to shut down Angelus? The mages must really be short of allies here. "I can, just hold my hand and imagine the destination please."
Silvia's hand was small in his, and her eyes wandered over his scars again as he did so. They had absorbed her interest the first time she's really gotten a look at him, and it had Wren a little self-conscious. Light magic wrapped around them, and it pulled them away to their destination deep within the forests of the battlegrounds.
Wren had been in no condition to do much for Silvia, so he'd mostly watched another injured mage until he'd been able to ferry himself home. It left him with little to do, and he left not shortly after to wander, but he didn't have much of a destination. His people were gone. Being out of the cells should have been revitalizing to him, and he was certainly happy to not be waiting for the moment someone interrupted his slumber to burn his skin off. It was hard feeling to name or place.
It was loneliness when he didn't so much miss anyone.
Overwhelmingly vast when he'd never liked being in a cell.
Perhaps something about him just preferred to be stuffed in the dark now.
Wren chuckled as he slid though a transportation spell. There wasn't anyone he wanted to meet, though he could find some mages who'd been around in his time. It wasn't in him to communicate with anyone just yet, not with how he didn't understand what he was feeling. They would think him warped if he said that something inside of him missed the Sol accommodations even though he didn't want to return to them. It was just comfortable, normal, predictable. Anything could happen out here, and he wasn't ready to face other people, so he slid into the far reaches of the Copse territory.
It was nearing dawn, and he curled up near a bluff that bordered the Charge territory. The heights kept mages from visiting the border often and he'd be safe saddled between two mage territories. Fifty years in Talamayas' cells had him as nocturnal as they were, and he slumped under the shade of the trees. The only nearby vampire border was miles to the north and was the Arcs, and he doubted they'd bother him at this point. Neil Arc had been the one working with Silvia.
Wren felt poorly that he couldn't have done more for the girl. Those two along with Vice were on their own to take down Angelus, and he hoped nothing happened to her. Talamayas had been brutal to her, as he was with everyone, and he hoped that this Neil was kinder. Vampires didn't communicate with mages, and Wren had never known them to work together for any mission, so something had changed over the years. Whether relations between their kinds was better, he couldn't say, but it was different.
The shade was nice, cool like the dungeons, and it would give him a reprieve from the light of the sun as it rose just over the horizon. As he drifted off, he knew that even this far from the Sol territory, his nightmares would haunt him. This far out, if he woke screaming, no mages would hear him. No vampire would appear out of nowhere and then curse at him. They didn't always, but some of the more devoted guards wondered if he wasn't dying sometimes with the way he screamed.
It felt empty as he finally fell into the abyss where he knew he was going to murder that woman again. In his dream world, he rose like a wraith into the scenery his mind had selected for the night, and he was unsurprised to find himself back in the desert. The woman wasn't there and instead he found himself standing side by side with Talamayas. The Sol leader was standing out in the desert and looking up at the stars, his hands in the pockets of his pants and his body bare from his neck to his waist.
"Wren," Talamayas said his name and only turned his head enough to see him out of his peripheral vision.
This should be frightening. But it wasn't. Why?
"What are you looking at?" Wren found himself asking, not wanting to say anything that might interrupt the tranquility of the scene.
"I'm not," Talamayas said with a smug smile that really glowed in Talamayas' eyes. This was the first time Wren had ever seen the man look happy. "I'm counting," Talamayas said, raising his eyes back to the blackness.
"Why? That will take forever," Wren prodded, slipping in closer, and it drew Talamayas to face him in a quarter turn.
"If I don't focus on something, my mind wanders." Talamayas leaned into Wren, and he stiffened as the man inhaled near his neck. A low growl slipped out between his lips, and Wren didn't know what to do when his hands came for him.
This was his dream, so he'd expected it to get violent, but he still trembled as Talamayas fingers connected with him. Ice glided across the side of his face, and Wren choked off his breath as he looked into those crimson eyes.
"I can't hurt you, Wren Song," Talamayas reminded him, and Wren let out a slow breath.
This was a dream. This Talamayas was a phantom. Anything was possible.
"Does my touch bother you that much?" Talamayas asked, and Wren tilted his head. This dream Talamayas sure asked strange questions, but the real Talamayas had asked this before. "I'm sorry." Talamayas clenched his teeth. "I get an insatiable urge to touch you sometimes, not to hurt you, and I don't why."
"I don't think it's your touch that bothers me so much as the fact that I'm used to you burning my skin off. I never know when the feel of your cool skin gliding over mine with ignite and take my flesh with them," Wren said with a shiver, and Talamayas looked to his hands.
"If you know I won't hurt you, can I touch you?" Talamayas asked, and Wren craned an eyebrow.
"Go ahead, I guess." Wren chuckled. This dream couldn't get any weirder, and at some point, it always got violent, so what harm was it in humoring the man formed of his subconscious.
Ice trailed over the sides of his face, and Wren closed his eyes as Talamayas wrapped his arms around him. Suddenly they were falling, and it yanked Wren's eyes open as they landed in the sand. Wren hacked up some of the dust as Talamayas laughed and held him to his chest. A sound escaped Talamayas then, a mix between a hiss and a growl that took Wren's stomach for a ride. It sounded so hostile that he cringed when Talamayas slipped his face into his hair and inhaled near his neck.
Cool lips pressed to the skin of his throat, and Wren's heart jumped, but Talamayas merely trailed his lips down her flesh until he tucked his face into his collar bone and just lay on him. It took Wren a moment, but he lifted his head and found Talamayas curled around him and relaxing on his upper chest. The man was huge, so Wren groaned but let out a slow breath and relaxed into the sand.
"My dreams have found a new unique way to torture me, it seems," Wren said, lifting a hand and hesitating as he thought of touching Talamayas. It was just a dream, but it still felt like sticking his hand in the jaws of a rabid wolf.
"Torture?" Talamayas asked, flicking his eyes up to Wren as if the words had been an insult. "Is this that bad, Wren Song?"
"Well, no. But it's not real. This isn't real. Peace between us isn't even fathomable when I'm conscious, and it torments me here. My mind always shows me this life that could have been, your mother peacefully playing with the children of my people, and every night, I crush it. I murder her in cold blood, kill the children, my people, and there is nothing left of me but a monster."
"Wren, this is..." Talamayas rubbed his face, and then rolled off of him onto his back.
"I'm sorry," Wren said up to the stars. "I told you before, but I'm not sure you listened. You probably just thought I was saying it to be free, but I did not mean to kill your mother. I was afraid, that was all. I can't take it back, and each night I am forced to watch some ghost of me strangle her, take the life of an innocent woman, and then kill my own people. You're a dream specter so you must want to kill me. Why haven't you?" Wren turned to Talamayas, and he had a frown carving his cheeks with its depth.
"I can't harm you, Wren Song," Talamayas said again, and Wren groaned.
"You can if I allow it. Go ahead, Talamayas. Please, get your revenge that I know you've wanted. Take my life." It was how this dream was going to end one way or another, and Wren cringed as Talamayas sat up abruptly in the sand.
"I don't want to kill you, Wren. I don't want to hurt you even. I lost the reason for torturing you decades ago, but leaving you down there and doing nothing seemed worse. I want you, Wren."
Wren reddened and inched back from him as he leaned closer. Well, he guessed his dream could torment him in that direction. If Tala started unbuttoning his pants, Wren was never going to forget this one.
"For hell's sake, Wren, not like that." Talamayas growled low. "I want you to come back," Talamayas' voice cracked, and Wren was dumfounded as the man's shoulders shook and tears lined his eyes. It almost crushed the life out of him as Talamayas fell back onto him and squished him against his chest. "Return to me, Wren Song." There was hunger in his voice as hot tears dripped on Wren's chest, so hot they were scalding. They seared into him as the desert warped around him and the sand fell in on them and crushed the dream away to blackness.
The next day Wren spent mulling around the woods and trying to shake the way Talamayas had begged him to return. What the hell had his mind been thinking? Surely the Sol leader craved his return, but not to welcome him to anything but more torture. That left him with the Copse territory and his restless form trailing through the night air.
It was two days into his isolation that it all crumbled.
It was an ache in his stomach at first, like he'd eaten some bad mushroom or something, and then the shaking started. Standing was a chore, and he sank to sit under a tree in the moonlight. That was when the coughing had taken him in a fit. Leaning forward on his knees he coughed so hard that he felt like his insides were pouring out onto the ground, and when he touched his lips, moist red glittered on his hands in the moonlight.
By the end of the night, he was barely functional and he knew something was wrong. Wren tried to drink water or a smoked fish that he'd wrapped from earlier, but he threw up anything he tried to eat in a pool of blood that was becoming more concerning as he stared at its stain on the grass. Fear dragged him down into an abyss. Why now? Why was he getting sick now? He was finally free to go where he wanted, to do what he wanted, but his body was screaming at him.
Mages didn't get conventionally sick, so this was something deliberate, magic based, or both. Had Talamayas done something to him prior to the blood writ? No matter how much Wren thought about it, nothing had been abnormal and Talamayas wasn't one for poison. The man had let him go though, when Wren knew how hard Talamayas had been clutching onto him since his mother's loss.
Desperation drove him through a transportation spell and had him falling back into the very hell from which he'd come. Everything hurt so badly. So why had he returned to the Sols? The sands were hot against his face, and the feel of dark magic overhead frightened him, but it also eased the pain as whoever was guarding the entrance to the Sol territory leaned down to touch him. Where the vampire's hand grazed, the pain receded, but once the man stood up, Wren was back to square one.
"Take me to Talamayas," Wren rasped, though he no longer had the strength to lift his head. They didn't have to comply, not with the blood writ that had separated him from them, but part of him hoped Talamayas would have the answers to stop this, even if it was just some cruel hook to get him back into his dungeons.
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