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"I can't, I can't-" Clancy's words blurred together into an unintelligible, rapid slur of sound. He shook his head, sending his hair flying, hands fisted so tightly his nails bit into his palms.
"You can," Torchbearer promised, his voice soft. He wanted to reach out, put a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder, but that… it wouldn't feel right. None of this felt right. Nothing had, not for a long time. He'd known for a while that this one would break. He'd just hoped against all odds that he'd survive somehow.
Clancy whipped around to glare at him, dirty blond strands of hair sticking to his face, clinging to the tear trails. "You have no idea," he spat and the raw pain in his voice hit Torchbearer like a physical blow.
Torchbearer looked away. Clancy wasn't wrong, not really. They both knew he wasn't truly like the others. He'd never been in the city. It couldn't touch him, not in the same way it did for them.
"You'll never know what it's like, to have that constant, horrible tug-of-war in your brain. To wonder if maybe you're going crazy and maybe dying wouldn't be so bad. To want it." Clancy continued, his jaw set, angry gray eyes almost shooting sparks. "You can't do that because you're not really human, Torchbearer. That's all you are, all you'll ever be: just a symbol, something that pretends it understands, that it can help us… but you can't do anything. You'll never understand, not when you can't feel what we do."
He looked away, silent. What could he say? Clancy knew the truth—Torchbearer was something other, not quite human, even if he looked like it. He'd never felt the city's pull, the siren song of Vialism had never reached his ears. He didn't think it could, if he was being honest. Could he really understand what all the people he'd guided out had lived through? Was it really fair of him to tell them they could survive it—better yet, learn to thrive?
He didn't think it was. There wasn't much he could do to change it, though.
Clancy's mouth twisted in a bitter mockery of a smile. "Yeah. That's what I thought."
"I'm sorry." Torchbearer knew the words wouldn't change anything. Clancy's fate had been written in indelible ink from the moment he'd first imagined life outside the concrete city walls. Torchbearer knew it, even if Clancy didn't know, not yet. The worst part was that Torchbearer couldn't change Clancy's fate, try as he might.
The best he could do was mourn Clancy. Torchbearer lived in perpetual agony, mourning all the lives he couldn't save. He remembered them all, every one of the thousands of names and faces he'd become familiar with over the years. Some had blurred with time, others… he always recalled the ones who returned in perfect, aching clarity. He could picture them now, every feature, every shadow and line on their faces, could recall their exact tone and way they enunciated their words.
Clancy stared at him, his expression still twisted and cynical. "Yeah." He said finally "I know you are. But sorry's not enough to get anyone out of this hell."
Torchbearer looked away. What else could he say? Clancy wouldn't hear him, not really. He was too far gone already.
When had that happened? Torchbearer should've noticed, should've tried harder, should've done something. He'd failed this Clancy, somehow. He… he just didn't know how.
His lack of understanding of human emotion was painfully clear. And he did not know how to remedy it, when all he was was a being in the rough shape of a human, matter formed with a singular purpose, and woven into existence to serve that purpose. He had not been created to understand their souls, only to guide, to be a beacon.
"Whatever," Clancy shook his head and got up, teeth still gritted. "Just… whatever."
"Clancy…" Torchbearer called after him, his voice faltering in the warmth of the dusky summer night. He knew already that what he said wouldn't change anything. But he wanted to try, impossible though he knew it was.
This one's fate was clear as the stars sparking to life overhead. And he had known, ever since he had first met Clancy. But he did not say anything, he'd allowed everyone to hope, to wonder if this one might be their savior.
Did that make him evil? He wasn't sure anymore.
All he knew was that it ached. Somewhere deep inside, a visceral, raw pain ate at him because he could not understand. He did not know how to mend it, ease the pain their minds put them through. He could not fix anything and it ate at him.
Torchbearer wondered sometimes if life was composed solely of varying shades of pain. It seemed to be all anyone ever experienced, in the city or otherwise.
Would they ever move beyond that pain, he wondered.
He began to doubt that possibility ever more with every bandito who returned. Every soul who'd fought so hard, overcome so much, only to slide back, give in to the internal struggle he could never understand. And he wondered if that was wrong of him, to lose the hope that had been woven into his being.
Nico had seen him once before, Torchbearer had never forgotten that moment. He doubt Nico had forgotten, either. They'd both known, on an instinctive level, that they were diametrically opposed. No introduction had been necessary, their very essences were antithetical to one another.
Torchbearer had not said a word, he didn't feel the need to. What could he say to a creature like that, anyway? Someone who spent his life selling the gilded lie that your life was meaningless, better spent ending it than living it?
Nico had not felt the same way. He'd looked Torchbearer dead in the eyes and held his gaze, unblinking. "You never wear blue," he had said, his voice measured and slow. "Wear it one time, in view of the city, as a sign. And I will stop tormenting your… flock," a slow, flat smile spread across his darkened, aged face.
Torchbearer shivered now, in the dark of the night, alone, as he recalled that moment. The calm, predatory assurance in Nico's eyes that he would win in the end haunted him.
He'd been almost scornful, then. So confident the city would burn, that the twisted, inverted religion the bishops spread would die out, that the towers would burn.
But now?
Torchbearer found himself almost wavering in that assurance. That confidence it would all be right, in the end.
"Torchbearer?" The whisper came from his left, the only noise in an otherwise nearly silent world.
He turned, inhaling deeply in preparation for what he would surely be told.
"Clancy…" the man looked down, apologetic. "He—he's gone."
Torchbearer closed his eyes, bowing his head, and feeling something inside himself shatter. He had known, but somehow, that foreknowledge didn't lessen the pain. If anything, it compounded it.
"I'm sorry, we- we tried to talk him out of it—" the man stammered.
Torchbearer shook his head, feeling the ache inside himself worsen. "You did all you could. It's not your fault."
It was his fault. He couldn't understand what it felt like for them, what they went through. He couldn't ever be anything more than a figurehead, a silhouette with a torch, promising hope and light, but nothing more than that. He couldn't do more than physically lead someone to freedom, he lacked that understanding, that human emotion, that would allow him to truly save someone.
Clancy had been right and Torchbearer hated to admit it. But how could he not, when the evidence was so plain in front of him?
Perhaps Nico had known, somehow, all those months ago.
It always ended this way, how much longer could they continue in this cycle? Torchbearer had seen how exhausted the banditos looked. How worn out they were, from this unending battle. Trench was not an easy continent to call home, the city was a welcome respite from the constant battle against the land itself.
He didn't know how much longer he could bear to live through this pain, either. It never truly let up and only intensified with every return to Dema. Particularly this one. He felt like the ache in his soul might tear it in half.
How bad could it be, some tiny part of him whispered, to just do it? Wear blue, stand in view of the city… ease the pain of those who followed him?
He could endure whatever the Bishops would inflict on him, if only it would save the banditos. They had fought so long, so hard, didn't they deserve a respite? Besides, he had been formed with this sole purpose: to guide them, cover them, ease their burdens. Perhaps, he even deserved to suffer whatever might happen to him in Dema. It would be a fitting punishment for his failure to save them all, he thought.
Torchbearer sighed heavily, the ache in his heart spreading to the whole of his chest, and rested his head in his hands.
How many times had he done this? It had become an accidental tradition of his to keep a vigil every night someone returned.
It felt right, in some way, He had fought his hardest to guide them, lead them to freedom, and he had failed them. Thus, he ought to keep a fire burning for them throughout the night, as a memorial. Fire was a far purer memorial than the unnatural mockeries the Bishops used—the neon gravestones.
So, he lit a spark and watched it burn bright throughout the night, reliving his memories with this Clancy, wondering how he could have done better. What would have saved him. If, perhaps, he should give himself up to the Bishops and save the people he so loved.
The cold, yellow-gray promise of dawn was just flickering on the horizon when someone ran up, breathless.
"Torchbearer!" She called, her breath puffing out in smoky plumes. "There's another!"
"Another—" Torchbearer felt as if he were frozen in place. Another? Surely, she could not mean another Clancy had been found, not so soon.
"Another," she confirmed with a breathless grin and a quick nod. "Come on!" She called, already jogging back down the bluff.
Torchbearer rose slowly, his body aching and still in the cold almost-dawn. He followed her, surprised by how almost… afraid he felt. Before, another Clancy always meant renewed energy, fresh hope spreading like wildfire. Now? He found himself wondering how long it would be before he failed this Clancy, too.
He slowed as he approached the small cluster of banditos loosely gathered around a solitary figure. Could he really do this again?
He had to. He didn't have a choice in the matter, this was what he had been created for. To try, again and again and as many times as needed.
"Clancy?" He asked, walking closer.
The banditos parted before him, leaving an open path to the lonely man in plain black clothing, with a shaved head.
The man—Clancy— looked up and an electric shock ran through Torchbearer.
Fire raged in Clancy's brown eyes, fire unlike any he'd seen before. Fire that instantly burned away any thoughts he'd had of blue, of surrender. This one… this one was different, he felt it deep in his bones. He'd never seen such fire in a Clancy before.
Maybe, the cycle would end here and now, with this Clancy.