Dreaming Of The Dead
Summary: While going through reconstruction surgery, Jarek is visited by his late wife in his dreams
Date: 03/01/2014
Related: All Logs related to The Long Road South
Jarek 


May 3rd, 3014 — GenMed, Spikka - Imperious


The beeping, constant, repetitive and calming. Over and over that monotone sounds through Jarek's medicine dulled mind. The pain is slowly fading out and he's losing grip of consciousness quickly, which causes a panic in his mind to try and shout through the muffle of the drugs. He fights and fights, starting to win the battle until that voice and that song begin to sing in his mind. He knows this presence, knows this song and this voice. She's sung it to him before and it kept him with her when times got hard, and now it's being sung again to calm him and bring him to her again. So he goes, he stops fighting and just goes to her like he's been wanting to do all along.

The image of golden armor walks into Jarek's world, a knightly image that he faintly recognizes but can't be sure as the face is covered by too general a helm. He tilts his head and her voice sounds in his mind, telling him to be calm and asking him what's happened. So he tells her, he has no reason not to tell her everything that happened, despite how painful it might be both emotionally and physically for him. He loves her, trusts her, and she promised to always be there for him, so why shouldn't he tell her?

"I heard a scream in the Mystic's Cove, so I went to check it out… a woman and her babe were being approached by a drake. The beast was going to take them so I fought it with my sword. It tried to burn us all, but I was able to push them behind a road marker. There wasn't enough space and my left arm caught much of the blast. I tried to look and my helm ripped open by its teeth, the heat from one of the steam vents struck me right in the face and the pain almost knocked me out." Jarek pauses in his telling and just looks at this knight, it has to be her… he's felt this presence before and it's given him so much confidence in the past that it must be whom he seems to know it to be.

The feeling that he should continue nudges him gently and keeps going, "I tried to run her to safety, to one side of the valley so she could find shelter. My armor stopped working, and the drake took hold of me with one claw. I was flung up out of the mists and into a rock wall, the beast came after me and I threw my spear. One of its scales was impaled, I remember, before it breathed fire at me again and all sense left me at the heat and pain of it. I remember that it didn't take all of me in the blaze. Just my left, as I know now, so I perhaps ducked or moved a little? I can't remember, there's too much pain blocking it."

"I fell, I know I fell because I saw the hole in the ceiling of the dead drake nest. I stood up, I walked. That was it, the Six aren't letting me die and I can't understand. I'm marked, with the deaths of those innocents at Cape Amran, with the deaths of those at Deepinghollow, with her's… your death. I'm marked, so why won't they just let go? Why do they make me live when my soul isn't worth it? The taint of my sins, of watching as those I swore to protect are slain in cold heartless blood, of killing an opponent without remorse what so ever, of knowing that I would slay their young without blinking…" Jarek drops off and looks up at the knightly figure before him, asking in a strangled voice "Why?"

There's no answer, not one verbally, but there is a feeling. There's the feeling he has when Pyotr is with him, when Laryn is with him, when each of his siblings is with him. There's the feeling he gets when his father and mother are there with him, and then there's the feeling he gets when his cousins are there with him. As the feelings he gets when each of his family members begins to flood into him, Jarek's one eye waters and tears begin to flow down his cheek. As soon as he's crying, all those feelings disappear and it's as if he wasn't there with them anymore. It shocks him, scares him to the very core and there's a rasped and ragged scream of pain from the knight.

There's no explanation, but this sensation repeats and then repeats… each time just as, if not more then, painful as the last time. He screams out, 'Why' but there is no answer. Just the pain of losing them all again and again and again until his heart can't take it anymore. Finally he begs for it to stop, and helmeted figure tilts that head just slightly as if asking him something. Again no words but the feeling that he should speak nudges him so he talks, with his now shaken and dry throated voice.

"I don't understand, no wait!" Jarek puts up his hands as the figure nearly turns to leave, that feeling of abandonment washing over him like water on the beach lapping his toes. "I don't understand, but there's something… a lesson? You want me to learn, I can understand that, but I ask why." he pauses and looks at this golden armored knight, the same presence he's felt in the past that just must be her… if only that helm were gone to make him certain. "The pain, of losing them, I fear it… I fear it more than anything else. It's eaten away at me slowly over the years and in the past few months its as though the maggots of that mind-killer have molted into moths that are consuming my confidence. I don't know what I need to do… I don't know how to keep going."

It isn't so much a feeling this time, though still just absolute silence from the figure before him. This time it's images, of various suits of armor he's worn over the years from his first suit of light armor to his most recent refurbished suit of antiquated aggressor armor. Then he's shown technology, comms and holoprojections. Hardlight HUDs and medical equipment. Jarek shakes his head, his addled mind too slow to pick up on what he's being shown or why, and once more that feeling of abandonment laps at his toes to make him panic and speed up his thoughts.

"Armor… you're showing me armor and technology. I'm not the greatest with computers, I know how to work them at a basic level but I've never much relied on them. And my armor? I couldn't be that sort of burden to the hou-" he's stopped as the pain in his heart intensifies ten fold with that feeling as though all his loved ones are being ripped away from him. But this is different, it isn't as though they are being killed that he's feeling, is as though he's being killed and losing them that he's feeling. Understanding blooms inside him and he finally rises to stand before the golden armor.

"That's why this image… armor. My armor, I'm more of an emotional burden to everyone by neglecting good armor. They worry about me and I pay it no attention." Jarek shakes his head, the understand and realizations that come with these sorts of experiences are the most shattering on one's mind. "I've been such a selfish fool, caring only to throw away what they've worked so hard to keep alive." he looks to the knight now, and there's a determination in his eyes. "I want to live, I want to fight… I want to lead that fight and I want to send those things that seek only to destroy what we've built up into the black folds of the devil's abyssal domain where they belong." he spits on the ground and anger seethes in his veins.

The knightly visage nods, and for a moment the peaceful feeling that only she could ever produce in him washes over his mind and calms that boiling rage as if water cooling lava. He breathes her in, one last time, and there's a hard twang where his heart should be… and emptiness that he'll have to learn to close without flooding it with the black bile of vengeance. Her scent invades his nostrils and the soft compress of her lips touch his as he slowly sinks back down into the sudden arrival of sand beneath his feet. Her warm during the night snuggles into his side and the sense of her presence right beside him slowly eases him to sleep. Tears well in his one eye and for the first time since she'd fallen, Jarek grieves her loss.

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