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Darkness was all around. Not the kind of darkness your eyes could adjust as time went on. No, not anything like that at all. This was the kind of darkness that threatened to swallow one whole if they weren't careful. Consume you from the inside out if it were allowed to. One wrong move and you'd be gone. Gone forever.
It went on forever, with seemingly no end in sight. Suffocating, hard to breathe. Viessa never thought she'd experience anything like it.
Then, just when she thought there was a light in the darkness... It fooled her. What she thought was a ray of light... A smidgen of hope... Turned out to be a pair of dull and milky white eyes. Decaying flesh, the eyes sunken in, and large teeth that could put a wolf's canines to shame. It was none other than a dark spawn.
No matter how she wished for her body to move, it wouldn't. Her feet were stuck in place, so no matter how she tried to force them forward... They wouldn't go. Her eyes widened, fearful stare on the approaching creature.
If she couldn't move, she wasn't able to use her magic or anything to defend herself. Become a Grey Warden only to fall to a dark spawn. How ironic that would have been.
Large teeth bared down at her, a haunting growl erupting from the creature.
No, no, no. It can't end this way! No!
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, a pair of concerned ones staring down at her. The night sky, twinkling with stars, behind the one the eyes belonged to. Gone was the suffocating darkness, along with the dark spawn.
Rapid pants caused her chest to heave, though as she realized she was safe, it began to slowly even out.
The eyes staring back at her belonged to none other than Alistair, worry etched on his features.
"Are you okay?" He asked, his voice low as he spoke to her. Concern laced his words just as much as it was all over his face.
"Y... Yeah." She replied, slowly pushing herself up into a sitting position. A hand lifted, soon running through the dark locks of her shoulder length hair.
Not quite the truth. She wasn't okay. And she knew he could see it as well. But it was an attempt to keep him from worrying too much.
This was the price of being a Grey Warden, the price to be able to fight the dark spawn and save people from the Blight. She tried to remind herself, in the times where the nightmares were worse than normal. Most of the time, it was enough to keep her going. Every so often, there was doubt. But... The Maker chose her for this.
A touch on her shoulder was enough to rip her out of her thoughts. Her head snapped in the direction, to find Alistair's hand on her shoulder.
"It's alright to not be okay, you know." It was a soft reassurance, from one who was normally so silly and cracking jokes. "This is a lot to get used to."
"...I know." The words were murmured in reply to him, her hand lifting to rest over his.
Surprise flitted over his features, before an easy half-smilesettled onto his face. It looked right at home there. It didn't look right for him to not be at least smiling.
"Thank you." Another murmur from her, the ghost of a smile brushing over her features as she looked at him.
"You're, um, you're welcome." Light pink dusted along his cheeks, his smile widening some as he made eye contact with her. Silence overtook them, but it wasn't an awkward. It was comforting, just enjoying each other's presence.