RP:Someone to Watch Over Me

From HollowWiki

Part of the What You Leave Behind Arc


Part of the What Dreams May Come Arc


Summary: Ravaged by exhaustion and constant conflict, Lionel fears a madness has overtaken him. Valrae becomes his guiding hand. At her insistence he continues his strange carvings, working through the night until at last he finds sleep. What Valrae discovers thereafter may help turn the tide in the war.

Somewhere Northeast of Venturil

The drums of war do not know refrain. Through the forests they go, and through the plains, and on through deserts and oceans blue. The alliance’s war camps and Kahran’s, ever-clashing, leave corpses across the realm. Heroes fight and heroes fall, in deepest wildernesses, so that those behind city gates can sleep in fitful hopes the very real monsters roaming the night won’t return. Every week reports grow dimmer: the darkness spreads and the countryside burns. Villages vanish and those who do not number among the dead are nowhere to be found. Faithful companions to the light, such as Esche and Thrace, boldly strategize to take back what can be retaken. Their legions march through harshest fog, densest wastes, thickest swamps, to do what must be done.


Lionel oversees it all, as passionate as he’s ever felt, traveling in the field, fighting battle after battle until he’s leaner than lean, tired beyond measure, his head’s a daze and his muscles scream. The alliance is scattered and diverse, with no real organizational structure past an intrinsic need to save the world they live in. They trust him, some more than others, to lead the charge and rally. Of late there are whispers; some deem him foolhardy for refusing Larketian aid. But the proud witches who answered Uma Abelin’s call see a man who has held firm to mandatory conviction, and so his honor spreads even as it wanes. The drums of politics, of ever-shifting perception in a land as complicated as it is beautiful, do not know refrain either.


Through the fields, the battles, the fatal losses and the too-brief wins, Lionel’s crystal skull is with him always. His thoughts turn cold at Mulgrew’s apparent hold over him; no one wants to be controlled, but perhaps Lionel least of all. It was Elazul, a Dark Immortal whom Kahran once served like a nameless foe in the ranks, who took possession of Lionel’s body to slay Alexia Isis, the one woman who ever caught him, kept him, and came for him. She saved him from Khasad’s clutches, but Elazul found them both. Lionel was too weak from torture to move swiftly, and Alexia was too vampire to stop The First Vampire himself. It was Elazul, but it was Lionel’s blade, and it was Lionel’s heart crushed when his own eyes watched it happen, his own arms ached to feel the slice, his own limbs twitched violently to watch her die. But the truth cannot be erased.


It would be so much easier to break the skull, to burn it like his murderous sword loves to burn, but he cannot fathom such a thing when another woman, a woman whose fiery spirit casts such unyielding trance in him, can only be made whole again if Lionel plays his part. So he plays it, gripping the skull when no one’s looking, wondering when it was that Lionel O’Connor, a widower at age 19 and a loner ever since, found time amid the war to end all wars to feel so committed to the preservation of another woman’s ideals. In the short silences between skirmishes, the drum beats on and on, and he contemplates how in the seven hells that he -- him of all people! -- could notice the beauty of another person, and want to be closer to that person.


Nor does Lionel know when he began to carve into desks, chiseling out resin to forge strange patterns in the wood. The crystal skulls glows when he does, but he doesn’t see it. Hellfire, ever a beacon of magical dangers, never even warns him. The carvings have taken on such detailed shapes, yet none make the slightest sense to him. Desperate to confide these antics but far from Khitti, his surrogate sister, he can only call upon Esche to survey his odd behaviors. Esche studies the carvings for some time, surveys his friend in turn, and shakes his head sorrowfully.


“I cannot tell you a thing,” the elf intones, “but that you must rest and ease your troubled mind, my friend. Any man would feel this stress, and I shall be here for you in whatever way I can.”


In a war camp far to Venturil’s dusty northeast, sitting in a corner of a small converted quarters with his hurting hands over his knees, Lionel peers at his ruined desk. He peers, too, at the walls, covered in engravings, their meaning shrouded if indeed it exists at all. “I’ve gone mad.”


“ ‘A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.’ ” A voice as cool as morning rain echoes around the repurposed, ominously carved room. “I’ve forgotten who said it now… But I feel as if the point remains.” Just behind him and farther still, Valrae spoke from beyond the veil of death. The skull Lionel so often gripped was wicked with power. It beat through her soul as loudly as any war drum. She pulls herself together, willing a form to knit itself whole with the borrowed power that pulsed from the ancient crystal skull.


She moved from behind him and though she made no sound, she could imagine the soft footfall and rustle of skirts. As if she were real, something more tangible than the wind, she trailed her hand across his shoulders as she went. It changed nothing. She stood before him, golden but reflecting no light. Her skirts were gossamer, spun from spider’s silk and as white as the gleaming face of the moon. While she herself was motionless they curled the way fog rolled over still water.


Her eyes, as emerald as the skull and filled with its power, looked down at the carvings between them. Sooty lashes cast false shadows over the lie of flushed cheeks. The waterfalling golden waves of her hair had been pulled away from her face with ribbons of crimson red. “The living must rest,” She whispers, looking at him again after a heavy quiet settled between them. He looked haggard, worn from the battles and blood. Even though she was far removed from her life now, looking at him could summon the weighted memory of the burden of leadership. “You do not.” Her conjured frown was disapproving and the furrow of her brow anxious.


Lionel’s own imagination lends no sound to the rustling of Valrae’s skirts. Neither does his mind configure that they ought to be rustling. So caught up in her voice, his throat catches, and he softens, listening to her words. Her hand suggests a trace over his shoulders, so he raises his own hand to meet it, but it passes straight through hers to deny him the warmth. A little madness goes a long way; he feels the comfort of the act anyway. “I know,” he admits with a sigh. “Deep down, I know. But I think I’ve forgotten what it means to rest.” Ten years without restful sleep; ten years without sleeping in even once. Ten years trapped between earth and hell, past and present, hope and trauma, the living and the dead. How ironic that it should come to this: that he should idolize a woman whose existence is now the very personification of that pain.


When she moves to examine the carvings, his cheeks flush in tired embarrassment. Suddenly he’s aware that the spirit is standing -- as spirits can stand, at least -- and he is not. He rises briskly, but steps toward her slowly. The last thing he wants to do is surprise her, startle her; what if he steps too quickly and it pushes her away? Consciously, Lionel is certain he’s mentally mulling over tomes of phantom lore with their warnings of the fleeting nature of the otherworldly. Inwardly, he’s just a man who doesn’t want a woman gone.


It’s a foreign feeling, one he’s rarely felt. But there’s something else, something more, as Lionel reaches Valrae. Something vibrant pulses from the skull, and it will linger in Valrae, herself a ghost, but the sensation is that of someone else’s ghost, something stirred from the wellspring beyond, something that will cast fresh light on Lionel’s manic etchings and latch inside of her in greater clarity. The next time she lays her eyes, so filled with the artifact’s essence, upon what Lionel has wrought, Valrae will discern a pattern he himself cannot see. The purpose of that pattern -- even its exact flow -- will elude her. But for all the arrows, all the crosses, all the unidentifiable symbols between them, the impression of a map may emerge.


Lionel, however, is lost within her eyes. He smiles faintly and whispers, “I missed you.”


She watches him speak through her lashes. The image of her face is soft, her chin turned downward demurely. As the spirit of a woman who once was, Valrae feels. What was left for her but to feel? His words spark memories of her life but they’re far away from her now, hung above her high and as cold as the stars. They pass through her mind, echoing in parallel with Lionel’s thoughts. Waking before the sun or watching it crest over the horizon without ever filling the space between one sunrise or another with sleep. Making lists, making speeches, making decisions. Shouldering the consequences of those decisions. But the memory of her people burned brighter still, a flame in the absence of her heart.


“Remember and rest for those of us who cannot,” The ghost answers as the man stands. Valrae remains motionless as he nears, her only movement the tilt of her chin. She turns her face up to him and smiles sadly. Death had changed everything and somehow nothing at all. If fear came with it, Valrae hasn’t known it yet. Her eyes meet his as the smoke thin image of her finger trails down a line carved into the desk. “Lionel, I-”


The power of the skull suddenly pulses, stopping the words as they leave her. The image of Valrae burst into more vivid color, for a heart beat there seemed to be a woman of flesh and blood and vital life before Lionel. Some awareness takes her then, roaring over words that would have stirred regret and bitter hopelessness in her. The witch’s head turns, golden hair flying with the abrupt movement, and her eyes find the carvings again. Her hand passes over it as she takes in a startled breath. Some knowing has clutched itself around her, some knowledge not her own and just out of reach. A pattern emerges, familiar and not. Valrae’s hand moves from the desk to Lionel’s arm. It wasn’t until her fingertips met with him that for the smallest most maddening second she could truly feel it.


Even with the sensation of touch, it took herculean effort to pull her eyes away from the desk and find Lionel’s again. “You have to finish it,” She breathes, “Something is here. This isn’t madness.” As quickly as it had taken her the power leaves. She fades again to thin and pale colors. Her hand falls. “Finish it.”


Water wells up in Lionel’s blue eyes, giving the appearance of two small lakes. Valrae cannot rest. A pang of guilt shoots through his stomach. How dare he mock his own lack of sleep in front of someone damned never to know it again unless they succeed? Or otherwise to know sleep and only sleep, if he’s not quick enough? In that moment, as Valrae peers up at Lionel, the hourglass in the mind of Catal’s Last Prince is less for Cenril and more for her. When did Lionel O’Connor decide that he was racing to bring her back before the sands poured downward completely, rather than racing to save the city? In truth, it’s both, but seeing her, hearing her half-sentence, unfinished words, catching shortest inexplicable glimpse of the fullness of her fallen form, it feels like one over the other. And it doesn’t feel wrong.


“It’s just folly,” Lionel says sheepishly as she approaches the carvings. He parts his lips to speak again, but feels her urgency and stammers. He’s bewildered by Valrae’s vibrancy and then it’s gone. A tease, a taunt, but something so rich and sharp and graphic and desired. She’s urgent, insistent. Lionel’s hand droops to his side and his fingers clutch the hem of his pants just to feel something, anything; he scrambles over to her and stares at the carvings anew. “I will,” he says, instantly. For someone so fresh in his life, he trusts her immeasurably. Why wouldn’t he? Her life was dedicated to the things he holds dear and her death has brought them impeccably close. His voice is almost authoritative in its certainty. He leans over and takes his small steel knife to an incomplete set of line segments, forging a pattern that then links to another nearby pattern. He sets about connecting the patterns piece by piece, and occasionally making fresh engravings in the empty spaces along the way. “Please,” he mutters midway through an elaborate branch, taking his right hand to hover Valrae’s. His eyes flicker to hers as he says it, hopeful she’ll oblige, and then he’s right back to work.


Minutes pass. Maybe even hours. Few events betray the lateness of the night: the footsteps of patrolling scouts just outside his quarters; the dulling of the lanterns as their wicks burn low; the slow and steady lowering of faint moonlight through canvas fabric. Lionel holds Valrae’s hand without truly holding it, but he holds it as best he can, and in holding it he feels like nothing can stop them.


He cannot say just when it is that he falls asleep. How did he lay the knife down on the desk? When did he reach his arms out around his muse’s spectral form in a futile but heartfelt attempt to cling to her? A songbird trills outside the door. A soldier knocks, gets no answer, and leaves. Lionel dreams, devil-may-care, bone-weary but slumbering softly. A faint smile sticks to his lips; clearly, his arms have not informed his mind that he cannot actually embrace the woman who has just shaped their destinies without either of them even realizing it.


But she may come to realize it. An emerald ray from the crystal skull envelops them, a fluorescent beam that blankets them, and paints itself over all the carvings beautifully. They’re bathed in green light, Lionel sleeping through it but Valrae incapable of joining him. Perhaps, for one fleeting morning, it is for the best that she cannot. For Valrae will see the map in its entirety, and know with shuddering certainty that the first of the dungeons Mulgrew declared could help save the world -- the very same woman who gifted Lionel this skull and set about the events which may yet lead to Valrae’s own resurrection -- is somewhere far inside the Nameless Desert, begging to be found.


The way forward has been illuminated.


Valrae watched Lionel work with a sense of urgency that was not truly her own. Though the initial power of the skull had worn away it lingered on her like the scent of smoke. He carved lines, connecting some or forging new ones, and something knowing whispered that things were unfolding as they needed to be. If her heart were beating it would pound against the cage of her chest. The desire to reach out again, the sheer want to touch him was maddening. When had this happened? Away from him, away from the power of the skull, the echoing spirit of the witch walked over the ground of her life and felt… Faraway. As she moved through the halls of her home, the place she’d filled with life and love and happiness with her husband she felt only the echo of familiarity. Her soul reached out and returned lonely, emptier for it. When had Lionel become the tethering point of what little was left of her? Looking at him now it somehow doesn’t feel wrong.


The spirit whispered soft encouragement when the room pressed too silently around them and wished she could reach out and brush her hand over his. As if the thought moved Lionel to action, his hand rests over where Valrae’s should be. Her eyes move slowly from the emerging map and to where their hands might have met before finally looking into his own. She holds his gaze, the lying image of her eyes emerald pools of foreign knowledge and bitter sorrow. The ghost, having no words to answer this request, only nods.


For Valrae time moved beyond the walls of the room but never entered it. Even as the light changes, the fires around them burned low. She watched and waited and was unmoving in a way that came only from death.


She could mark the moment Lionel drifted into sleep. The ghost of the witch had moved as he tired, leaning over him a whispering to him as she wished reaching out and taking the knife from him could be so easy. “Rest now. It’s finished.” And he did. Something fragile and painful took her as he moved his arms around her form and drifted away. Valrae watched him sleep and thoughtfully moved a hand through his hair without really disturbing it. If she hadn’t already been among the dead, she would have died for wanting.


As he sleeps, she dreams. Though no real hope could cling to her, she dreams of living. She dreams of feeling the air rush into her chest. She dreams of the way the forest smells after rain or the way the sun beat down on her skin at the beach. She dreams of her people, dirty faces filled with hope and fire and determination. She dreams of Cenril, her first home. She dreams of fighting for something that mattered. She dreams of holding the man in front of her… But not even the darkest, most desperately naive parts of her dare hope for any of it.


The soldier’s knock jolts through her. Had she breath to hold, she would have held it watching Lionel’s sleeping face. Emerald light envelops them and to the spirit it feels like staring into the sun. Something drives her to turn away from him, to look again at what his hands had made of the desk. As a knowing pierces her, she moves. Valrae passes through the circle of his arms without so much as disturbing the air. Standing beside him as he sleeps, the ghost looks over the newly made map and feels as if she were standing over a very tall ledge and preparing herself to fall.


The little strings that Mulgrew had spread before Lionel, before the alliance against Kahran and his evil, seemed to culminate here. The knowing of it shudders through her. The map before them was a new thread to follow.