solaire

It’s been nearly a century since Oleg was laid to rest, but Morgott still finds his thoughts drifting to him more times than he’d care to admit.

Tolbren’s blood on silver armor, fox-red hair gleaming in the sunlight as Oleg, damn him, presents a wilting sunflower to him with a smile. The phantom shape of a bag of serpent-shaped medals in his hand. The lilt to Oleg’s voice as he calls him ‘Beastie’ - spoken the way a man would call his wife ‘darling.’ What an insufferable creature, Morgott reflects, grimacing, and yet…

Some part of him, buried bone-deep, misses Margit being looked at like he isn’t a stain on the sole of someone’s boot; and he misses Morgott being treated as a friend by someone who didn’t hesitate to slay countless traitors at his command. Oleg was more than just another mercenary, or even some loyal knight groveling for his favor. He had cared far beyond his expected payment. Oleg had seen past the Grace-Given Lord to the wretched thing underneath and hadn’t looked away. Oleg had built for him a mountain of corpses to raise him to the throne of Leyndell.

But was it even worth it, in the end? Leyndell is a skeleton of a city, sparsely guarded and bleached white by the sun. No matter how fierce its defenders, it would only take one undying, particularly stubborn invader - the Tarnished who has already bested him twice comes to mind - to breach the city and take the last Rold Medallion from his corpse.

Not long ago, he would never have let such doubts take hold in his heart. It’s enough that the Erdtree still stands, he would insist, that he kept it standing for as long as he did. Now, as the stalemate stretches on, and the ruined battlefield that was once the Lands Between slowly rots like driftwood in stagnant water, he looks out beyond the capital and wonders if any of it could possibly be worth ruling anymore.

He almost wants to let the Tarnished take it from him and drown it in ash, if only so that he gets the last laugh when all they have to rule over is a long-dead carcass.

Morgott shakes these thoughts free of his head and sets his quill back in the inkwell. It’s late, and the nightmares have kept him awake long enough for the anger and doubt to come creeping in like an infection upon his mind. His false form lays all the more uncomfortably over his fur. He sits back and closes his eyes to try and ward off an oncoming headache.

On the backs of his eyelids, he sees a flash of fox-red hair and the gold of a wilted sunflower.

He hadn’t expected to encounter another living soul besides himself and Alina in these mountains, but nonetheless, there’s a figure of a man cutting through the icy monotony outside of their meager shelter. Alina is asleep inside, bundled up warm by the fire. If the stranger is hostile, Vyke will try to deal with them quickly and quietly to avoid waking her.

As the stranger drifts closer, Vyke can see that they wear an appalling mask. Staring back at him through the twilight is the visage of a man with his eyes put out, rendered in wood or stone, with a mysterious wry smirk on its lifeless lips. Vyke tightens his grip on his spear, shifting the butt of the haft loose from the snow. “Hail, stranger,” he greets them, firm but quiet so Alina won’t hear. “These lands were closed off years ago. How have you come to find yourself here?”

The stranger does not reply for a long moment. Then; “So you are the Tarnished who would become Lord,” they say appraisingly, sounding as if they’re giving him a once-over in spite of the apparent lack of eye holes in their mask. Vyke is unnerved by their strangely un-muffled voice.

“How can you tell?” He demands, wary of their intentions. “Who are you? Set your mask aside, let me see your face.” His fingers twitch around the haft of his spear, as if his arm is preparing to lift it and brandish it at the stranger, but he feels like his limbs are made of lead, heavy and cumbersome. When was the last time he’d been so rooted in place by fear?

Those two hollow spaces stare back at him, then, impossibly, the carved lips pull into a wider smile. “I wear no mask,” the stranger says calmly.

Vyke feels his stomach drop, then lurch with sudden nausea. “No mask?” he scoffs in disbelief, but it comes out as a shaky gasp.

The mask - not a mask - frowns. “Oh, my. I fear I’ve frightened you unduly. Fret not, I come to you in peace.” They raise their hands placatingly, “I am only trying to warn you, before you do something you will regret.”

Their voice is so genuine, past that ghastly visage, that Vyke can’t help but feel he had judged them unfairly. “I apologize,” he stammers, “But I think it only fair that I be wary of a stranger in a forbidden land. So, you know I’m set for Lordship, do you?” He squares his shoulders and lifts his chin, trying to dispel some of the childish fear that still clings to his heart. “I ask again, who are you? And what could you possibly have to warn me about?”

The stranger smiles. “I am Shabriri. And you are about to make a grave mistake.”