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The hawk inclined their head. “The pleasure is mine.” The hold is quiet. In the sense that its noises are small, but not silent. A page being flipped, something mechanical getting calibrated, the not-so-distant sea lapping at rock. The desolation is not diluted but amplified by the presence of their meagre company. Fewer yet were greeting their arrival in the dining room - there was no food being served, they note.
“Should you require anything, let us know.” The Priestess offers, “I am sorry we have not the remedy for your impairment.” The Guardian shook their head. “Be assured, it shall not impede me in battle.” The expression on her face was hard to read, while the Menial standing beside her tilted his metallic head back ever so slightly. The feathered knight wondered if he was possessed of a soul, or merely animated to perform the likeness of life.
They both bowed before leaving them to their own devices. No orders or rules, no structure. They should have become accustomed to this untethered state of being long ago, but it remains troubling all the same. When it was just them and their exile made non-negotiable by the annihilation of their people, the loss was devastating, but they had not the need to maintain any semblance of normalcy. Now, a new egg had been found in their burnt and charcoaled nest, and they felt too old and feeble to keep it from breaking.
Taking a deep breath, they stood and turned towards the great opening in the room. Looking as if it was chomped off the building by a gigantic beast, it floods the small hall with natural light. The sun here is felt but seldom seen. The day itself seemed ethereal, thin, as if missing its material substance. The Guardian listened. Then they heard it, an almost imperceptible, slow swishing sound, occasionally mixed with bright clinks, coming from the ruin-strewn garden.
The Pinionfolk prided themselves on well-groomed and maintained talons. It was not their way to walk upon the earth and so there was no culture on the intricacies of how one should place their feet in accordance with stature, occasion, or needs. In all their years of wandering and fighting, grounded, the Guardian had not learned any different. All that has changed was their musculature, having inevitably shifted to accommodate their deviant usage. An unbearable weight that settled beneath to support their fall. Or as it often felt like, an aerodynamic stall that gripped their very flesh, deepening their agonising sink.
They walked up to the source of the sound in their heavy-footed gait. A brittle-looking wooden bench under a fallen archway. Someone was cleaning a selection of brushes, knives and a palette with a small bowl of cloudy water. They held both wings close to their torso and gave a slight bow. “May I ask for your name, comrade?” The figure wrapped in red-tinted gold stopped their motion and seemed to look up towards their voice. The Guardian could not see their eyes - if indeed there were any. Their new compatriot seemed to consider for a moment, then put the bowl on the bench. With intrigue, the hawk watched as the armoured artist performed a small gesture with both hands. Left hand held out and its palm facing inward, the right hand came right next to it, cutting in a downward motion.
△
For each company, there is a painting.
One is a handsome horse with broken legs.
One is something dark, gentle, small.
One is a lone sail, submerged to its mast.
One is pale, a fire with cracks and fractures.
One is a clocksmith who seeks a locksmith.
One is a spring gale, in a world without seasons.
Paintings are not hung in frames,
paintings are not painted.
Paintings take space,
of another kind.
▽
Rarely did the nightfarers dine communally. The disparities in their personalities were as varied as their tastes and diets. Naturally, the dining room saw more traffic as an entryway to the west wing greens than as a place to gather and feed, its fire as dormant as joy itself in this hold. The Guardian sits alone at the far end of the long table, taking measured bites out of a venison steak as they ponder upon their nearby flockmate. Who has all but dissolved into his canvas, making bold yet deliberate strokes with a concentration no less intense than when he unsheathes his cursed sword. A sacred act. The hawk speculates with a degree of inexplicable certainty. They noticed the painter was in a black dress today, letting loose more of his grassy white hair than usual. Come to think of it, the Guardian has never seen him eat.
Some time later, the hawk returns from cleaning their dishes to see that the masked figure has gone still. Unmoving. Breathing, but just barely. He is staring at his < Erdtree >. But how can that be? The Guardian is not sure. Having gone on a few expeditions together in the past few weeks, they have come to learn a moderate deal about their fellow warriors through the necessities of combat. But none of them were ready to be entirely forthright with their deeper, messier truths this early in the relationship. The Executor - such is his callsign, the Guardian is told - has not been pulling back more to withhold from them than anyone else. But as things stand, the knight can’t help but find his shape to be the most elusive amidst a cloudy sky. They awaited for the artist’s trance to break, or temporarily let up, as the case may be. They were here not only to lunch.
The Guardian is not sure how much time has passed. They were awakened by a gentle shake on the right shoulder. It was the Executor, seated beside them at the table and shrouded in the same air of serenity and surreality as ever. He takes his hand back and makes no further movement. The hawk scents a faint aroma of hot bread from deeper within the hold. The Wylder is making something. That may have been the intrusion that released the painter from his all-consuming thoughts. Wordlessly, the Guardian reached for their inner pocket and produced a small cloth bag tied with a knot. The old fabric is stained with deep grey blotches. The Executor opened it after some palming, picking up a stick of its content and held it close to his helm. A profoundly dark charcoal, found in a brazier that once held a small echo of the Fell God’s Flame. He smiled. Even in the lingering haze of sleep, the Guardian was confident of the sharpness of their vision.
△
A small child once told me,
that broken things cannot mend.
This, they know.
It’s always the ones who were not the cup,
that pretend.
I looked at her.
It is not so.
The cup was not the seamless china.
The cup was not reformed and glazed earth.
The cup was the tea,
the cup was warmth on someone’s hands.
The cup was herbal remedy,
long conversations,
unexpected guests,
autumn moons,
and wine that tasted like memory.
A mended cup is no longer unbroken.
Yet it holds.
It holds small things,
thick and sticky things,
bitter things,
light and lovely things,
Beautiful things.
The wind runs by,
making music with her hair.
The child told me of her mother.
I see her,
with large and piercing eyes.
They remind me,
of a woman I dream of often.
I wonder if the others see her also?
▽
A night of deluge.
The Katana wielder pulls on their arms with great effort. Close by, the Guardian hears a magic cocktail being concocted. It vaguely sounded like a holy mixture, but they could not be sure. Their feathers were wet and heavy, soaked through with something thicker than water.
The sound of something stiff hitting solid ground. The hawk realises, a moment later, that it was their own body. Vision, touch, sound, temperature, each sensation is being conducted through a viscous liquid. Clarity feels like a faraway place beyond memory.
The Executor puts a hand on their face, moving in a way that can only be described as lost. Fingers lingered for a few seconds near the hidden openings that were the hawk’s ears, then moved away again. [He knows not my features - where to find my breath.] The Guardian thought, almost fondly.
In the distance, thunder rolls, languid and blue.
△
Very few things of old have remained.
A scene obscured by rain.
Rain that bites and eats.
A painting full of burned holes.
Too many things of old have remained.
A great river,
with no end nor beginning.
Ancient fires,
both dark and ashen.
A field of reeds,
under a bleeding moon.
I find it to be fortunate,
that I have the eyes to see them all.
Quiet eyes, one-third full.
Eyes that are allowed to search.
One day,
I looked upon these stars,
And The Moon-eyed asked a question.
Has it not been night for you all along.
Ah.
Alas, stars do not truly live in the night sky.
For the cosmos knows not of our sun,
of what is the colour of day.
So I sign to him.
As one closes their eyes,
no colour is seen.
As one disconnects from temperature,
neither warmth nor cold is felt.
Many called me silent.
But the Moon-eyed is quieter still.
At times,
The Whale-roader speaks without meaning to,
Of him.
Of his bright and striking eyes.
I see this brilliance.
Grossly luminescent enough,
to counterfeit the very sun.
Heralds of a false dawn.
▽
It is the truth. The first time the knight saw him, large, they were on edge. Putting down a book they found on the history of Leyndell, the lost capital of The Lands Between, they stepped out from the Recluse’s company for fresh air. They elected to visit the backside of the hold, but were careful not to put their feet on the beach. It was always a hassle to brush the sand out from between their toes. The wind and the water are mischievous twins. Capable of causing havoc alone, they bonded to weave apocalyptic dragons that twist and churn the very sky. The Knights of The Storm were able to harness this power, but only if they were studious, reverent, and always acted as one. They had fear for no army, no city, no monarch or lord. But they did fear the wind itself. For its agency beyond their understanding. For its nature of being alive. To them, fear was respect by another name.
The Stormcaller reminisced. Recalling long-distance flight plans in the regiment that followed the curvature of the coast. How the world shrank in the wake of their endless and seamless wings, casting immense shades upon the land as if they were an extension of the clouds. Clouds that shifted and warped and changed colour and density in ways that cannot be understood by visual observation alone. They did not scroll in a perpetual silence. And the sea’s water did not move tirelessly back and forth, without ever receding or rising. The Guardian turned to look at the crumbling hold.
That was when they saw it. A beast with characteristics most strange, perched atop a dead canopy’s shadow jutting out from the non-existent roof. Its frame was lithe, packed with impossible muscles. Unmistakably reptilian skin draped in a leonine mane interlaced with misplaced horns. A thin head that almost resembled a shrew’s, upon which was an unfamiliar pattern in place of eyes. The knight was not sure whether to call it a scar or an organ.
It did not see with eyes. The Guardian assessed with some level of unease. With a raptor’s vision, they could observe every detail on the animal with fine definition from this distance. But it’s difficult to deduce what it was doing, or the intentions it harboured. The hawk knew that the hold was not an ordinary island in a physical sea, thus it was next to impossible that an intruder could have entered without the Priestess’s knowledge. Yet, the days when flight was the same as breathing and a land-dwelling predator’s grasp beyond concern were far behind them. They were an outcast of the sky, and a runt to the earth and all the beings that belonged to it. They did not have the high ground.
“Fret not, dear champion. The Executor likes to rest in a more…fleshy form.” As if sensing their anxiety, the Iron Menial appeared from the back gate, carrying a watering can. He took a few more steps towards the Guardian, then gazed up at the vaguely canine creature. Holding a hand up to his forehead, over where eyes would be. As though on cue, the golden beast made a soundless yawn. He adjusted his head slightly to face the two below, in a manner that expressed neither threat nor interest. So it is. The knight thought. He did not need to see the sun to bask in its warmth. Just as he did not need to see his paintings to know what had been painted. It was they who looked without seeing. Mistook shape for meaning. Turning to his amber-eyed charge, the Menial held out his four arms in a friendly gesture, then departed towards his destination. A small patch of wildflowers on a rocky outcrop. The Guardian watched him go, and wondered if it was possible for one to see too much, see too clearly.
△
A forest of lightning.
Wrathful tempests that shear mountains.
The earth beneath splits and cries in waves.
Shaved and ripped and thrown from their roots,
blond furs mat with sweat.
I howled,
at the lost behemoth,
its tear-rimmed gaze turns to me.
In the cutting gale,
I couldn’t hear myself.
The eye of the storm,
two beasts circle,
at the eleventh hour.
At the other’s feet was the Fire-bender,
blown off course.
His sword,
broken and coated in magnetised dust.
From where I stood,
I did not sense his vitality.
A thunderous roar,
as if accusing the very skies,
for birthing it this way.
I reeled,
missing a beat.
My dance partner rammed me like an icebreaker.
My ribs shatter,
five, seven, maybe thirteen.
All I hear is a dull thud.
My grip slips in the shifting sand.
I miss again.
Teeth.
This time,
I felt the crunch.
A reverberation puncturing my skeleton.
My spine,
in a machine made for crushing.
A fallen leaf,
A melting carcass,
One death was small,
to the greater whole.
The tree is not pained,
The whirlpool of life does not mourn.
A fleeting century passes.
I was dropped in a place warm,
and very wet.
There was a body next to mine.
It did not want to eat us.
All the same,
I felt like tenderised steak.
Beyond my choice,
this vessel began restitching itself,
with what was left.
Clawing and leaking.
I felt skin flaying,
capillaries and neurons twisting in panic,
bones growing like seedlings,
unkempt branches piercing raw flesh,
before I felt halfway human.
That was the furthest it has ever gone, in any case.
Above,
The immense jaws tensed.
I could not tell what had captured its attention.
Every sensation was hard to reach.
Everything felt wrong.
A decade, or a moment later,
something in the air changed.
My hearing laid in ruin,
but it was a whistle sharp to one’s very skin.
First, an acute pressure,
then a spiraling gust,
clean and otherworldly,
Then impact.
The winged maw stumbled backwards.
Between it and me,
a warm wave of something emanated,
soothing like grace,
gentle like blood,
as thirst-quenching as an embrace.
Much like an embrace,
it was something that cannot be given,
only shared.
Someone made an injured noise.
We swam towards each other,
like lost tadpoles regrouping after a flood.
Wishing for death, or life,
were equally bizarre for the Crucible-blessed.
We did not bleed,
did not halt in our tracks,
did not…
ask for another day.
A stronger voice called out,
urgent yet calm.
Again and again.
I found it impossible to decipher,
but easy to understand.
The storm had not waned.
We will not step away from this night, unconsumed.
I found myself accepting.
The flock shall face the sky as one.