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Honour and justice and duty be damned, you should never have joined the Pact. You shouldn’t have signed up for the Vigil, all hopeful sapling eyes; you should have stayed at home, maybe worked as a Warden, and been safe.
All joining the Pact has done has given you a low life expectancy, and, well…
“Come to me, and let me consume you,” the dragon says, echoing in your head. You mutter soft curses, trying not to wake anyone up. You’re pretty sure you haven’t slept in days - but that’s fine. You don’t want saplings inheriting… this from you.
“You were born to be mine,” the dragon booms. Your nails are digging into your palms, and you can feel sticky sap-blood beginning to coat your skin, but… it’s fine. The pain is something concrete to focus on, rather than the way your vision blurs at the edges or the way the voice in your head is so much louder than your thoughts.
Thorns, you wish you were at home, in your soft bed in the Dreamers’ Terrace, rather than sitting here, deathly afraid that something in you will snap and then you’ll be lost to the dragon. He’d probably make you slaughter everyone here, you think, before squashing that thought at the rush of yes, of wanting that had flooded in.
You don’t know what thoughts are your own and what are Mordemoth’s when it comes to violence.
You try and re-focus on ordinary things, mundane things. You think of the way the sand ran in between your toes, and how the first time you felt it, you felt overjoyed at the sensation. You think of the sprigs of Caledon Lavender you used to collect, on errands for the menders. You think of the dawn birdsong waking you up in the morning for a new day of odd jobs and wide smiles.
Birdsong.
You can hear birdsong.
You look around, feeling suddenly frantic, trying to work out where it’s coming from. You’ve never heard birdsong in the Maguuma Wastes - and certainly not when it’s barely past midnight.
The charr on the bedroll next to you stirs, yawning widely. You don't remember her name - it seems unimportant right now, anyway, what with the dragon sitting in your brain and trying to make you think of how good it’d be to see her warm blood spilling across the sandy floor.
And the birdsong, the thorn-blighted birdsong.
By the Pale Mother, you’re going to go mad before Mordremoth ever gets his claws stuck into you.
With a grumbling sigh, as if the world itself is on her shoulders, the charr next to you pushes herself up into a sitting position. That might have been it - she’d get up, go on her way, and never think to look at you as she tried to tire herself out.
“Kill those who would presume to destroy me,” the familiar echoing voice says, low like it’s about to try to sear itself into your brain. So much for your hard-earned control. You curse under your breath again, squeezing your eyes shut.
“Gawain?” It takes a few moments for you to remember that it’s your name and a few more for you to place the voice as the charr beside you. “Gawain, are you okay?” The voice is careful, like its owner isn’t used to compassion. Brilliant, she cares.
In your blurred, pitchy mind, you scramble for information about her. By the Tree, even her name will do. All you get is that she’s Vigil like you, she was in the same squad as you from recruitment, and slit her throat with your dagger and then kill the others. You open your eyes in one slow movement, trying to stay steady on the rocking boat that is the world.
The birds are still calling, somewhere inside your brain.
“I’m okay,” you say. Or, well. That’s what you try to say. Your words come out twisted, and wrong, and your voice has never sounded so distant or unfamiliar. The sounds you make certainly aren’t recognisable as ‘I’m okay’, that’s for sure.
You clear your throat with a cough that’s a little too much like a growl, and try again.
You position your mouth just right to hit the first sound in that simple phrase, but when you try to speak again, you barely get further than “I,” before your mouth refuses to cooperate and the sound dies on your lips.
“Gawain?” Her tone is warier this time, and further away. You can’t risk looking at her, not with-- Thorns, how did this suddenly get so bad, so quickly?
“Give in, and find peace.” The dragon’s voice has an undertone, something you can’t quite perceive, but that almost makes you relax for a moment before your thoughts catch up.
You try to say… something, anything. The words die before they’re even begun, as if your mouth can’t remember how to make them. You just need to tell her that you’re fine.
The seconds seem to stretch into an eternity, and then it’s like something shifts, deep inside you.
You find yourself joining the chorus of birdsong in your head. You click and chirp involuntarily, desperately, as the sounds rip themselves from your throat. Once you’ve started, it’s like you’ve opened the floodgates, turning from a simple reassurance to a speech that you’re saying so quickly that you can’t keep track of.
You can feel your pulse beating woodpecker fast, and you think, distantly, that this is what losing control feels like. You are wide-eyed, but you still won’t look at the charr to the side of you.
“Join your siblings,” and now you can place the undertone, place the birdsong, because Mordremoth is speaking that private language, the language that is for sylvari, and only for sylvari. “Join your family.”
Thorns.
The clicking and twittering sounds that you’re making ratchet up a pace.
Distantly, you hear the sound of a blade being unsheathed.
Of course. If it had been a sylvari who had awoken, they would be chirping right back in comfort. If it had been the humans or the norn, they might have gotten you further away. The asura would have scoffed and studied you until you fell completely to the corruption that is chipping away at your will.
But you’re dealing with a charr. A practical, war-minded, charr . She’s going to stab you in the chest before you ever become a threat.
Not if I get there first , something traitorous whispers in your brain. But it’s true, it would be so easy to fight back. Your daggers are underneath your pillow, as always. With the venom coating them, it wouldn’t be long before she died.
“Take up arms, defend yourself.”
Without moving your head, you pull out a dagger, holding it at the ready. It’s just self-defense, right? Nothing wrong with that.
Thorns prickle against your tongue, and you taste blood.
“Gawain,” the charr says, voice hard, this time - unyielding as stone.
Your mouth is still chittering on without you, but now you’re beginning to understand more of the words that you’re saying: obey the jungle dragon, serve Mordremoth, let the world be cleansed by jungle.
Thorns, you’re doomed.
You hear someone shift at your other side, and you slash out with a shaky hand. You hear a gasp, a muffled curse, and you find yourself crowing in satisfaction.
But the presence to that side of you doesn’t move away. They murmur something in foreign words, and then slowly enter your line of sight.
It’s a sylvari. Your victorious crowing turns suddenly conspiratorial - your sister can join you, and you can kill these soldiers together.
You barely have time to be shocked at your words before she coos and twitters back.
She talks of home, of people, of the way the dusk light shone into the Grove and made everything look magical. She talks of the summer-gold taste of nectar, of the delicacies of home, and of sitting in the cafes in the Grove and talking with friends.
Your desperate war-cries stutter to a halt as you listen to your sister.
In your hazy, blurred mind, you lose track of time. But your sister’s voice seems louder than the dragon’s, and when you see the sun begin to light up the world, you realise that you’ve made it through the night.
“Thank you,” you manage, quietly, taking long, steady breaths.
Thorns, you should never have joined the Pact.