Work Text:
“I can feel your faith waver, little flame.”
The words did not carry as an accusation, there was no malice or aggravation in the voice that floated on the wind. There was only observation, and the feeling of something deep and unvoiced being pulled from within the Torchbearer, a secret freed from the prison of his soul.
He often escaped to the forest to think; far enough away where the sounds of the camp faded into nothing but tweeting birds and the flowing river, isolated in a way that helped him focus his thoughts and seek comfort in the embrace of the land that gave him life.
Torch felt Trench’s voice pass through him like a current, a murmur that was both within him and surrounding him, above and below, in his heart as much as it was on the tips of his fingers. His hands fisted the ground, one clutched tight around a pile of green moss, the other crushing the leaves that fell with the changing of the seasons.
Green cargo pants that had been patched up to oblivion grew damp from where he was knelt on the forest floor, the rain that often accompanied the ninth moon cycle of the year absorbed by the weathered fabric. It grounded him, connected him to the soft voice of the motherly presence that seemed to be at its strongest when she had multiple pathways to channel herself through.
Trench spoke to him through the whistling of the breeze through the golden-tipped branches, the steady rush of icy water, and the warm beams of sun that caressed his weary body.
“Your light dims. Something within you has weakened, my sweet child. You have a purpose in your wandering, yet you do not wander with purpose.”
Torch let out a defeated hum, as the ever-burning flame of his namesake light flickered from where the wooden handle was wedged into the dirt beside him. It spoke where his own words failed.
“I have not lost faith in him-”
“No, but you are losing it in yourself.”
The breeze swirled around him, wafting through his dark curls like a mother’s hand would play with her child’s hair. A comfort, oddly human in its touch, yet divine in its retreat.
“We are getting close again.” Torch remarked, his words shaking slightly under the acknowledgement. “I thought I would have a few more cycles before I had to face those towers again.”
“But you did know. From the moment you met this Clancy, my boy, you knew he would be different.”
“I couldn’t allow myself to hope.”
The air fell still, and Torch thought for a moment that his connection to what he could only refer to as his Mother had fallen, yet another thing in his life doomed to leave.
Instead, a warmth rose – an almost blinding ray of light that made the dust motes of the forest shimmer in an ethereal glow. The heat wrapped around Torch’s frame like arms encircling him, a hug in every way apart from physically. A sob slipped free from between his bitten lips, a sound that should have echoed, if not for Trench keeping it contained in a way that freed her son to collapse under the tremendous pressure he felt.
“Oh, my little flame.” she cooed, a softness lacing her tone, “You carry all this on your own, shoulders heavy from the burden. My child, you are stronger than I ever could have wished for you to be. Your own hope is what shall guide him, he needs to know that you believe in him or the cycle will be doomed to begin anew once more.”
The wind wiped the tears from his cheeks, his face flushing pink from the bite of the cold air. Trench knew how to comfort him, she understood the pain in his soul without needing him to speak, she coaxed his sore muscles back into action every time he seemed ready to give up. She cared deeply for her son, trusting him to carry her symbol and put the needs of the many before his own, knowing that Torch was hers to take care of when the weight of it all became too much.
“I don’t want to let him down. I don’t want to get attached and see him fall again. I fear that I won't ever come back from it.”
“You are a child of the earth, Torchbearer. When you falter, I raise you back up. Whether he falls or not, you cannot close yourself off from the joy of knowing him, he restores your power as much as I do, my son.” The warmth on Torch’s back and the wind on his face grew stronger, like one final squeeze of a hug before letting go. “I feel him coming closer, he searches for you. Embrace the Son of Dema, reinforce the bridge between you so that if the time comes where the call of darkness is too much to bear, a light shall still exist to guide him back home.”
Torch nodded, nervous and far more meekly than he’d ever allow anyone to see. “I thank you for your advice, Mother. I won’t fail him again.”
“You didn’t before, my little flame.”
He felt the voice’s presence retreat, like the roaring flame of the camp bonfire being reduced to embers by the time the morning sun rose. The soft half-hearted crunch of damp leaves alerted Torch to someone approaching him; someone that he understood to be Clancy thanks to Trench’s warning.
“I was wondering where you were.” Clancy chuckled, although something strained lurked beneath the sound.
“Just… clearing my head.”
Clancy nodded, unseen by Torch who still had his back turned. Behind the mask, his eyes landed on Torch’s hands, still fisted in the moss and leaves, knuckles turned white.
“You’re holding on like the ground owes you something.”
“Hm? Oh.” Torch released his grip, shaking out his hands to try and relieve the cramping sensation that tugged at his joints. “The easiest way for me to find a connection is if I can actually feel Trench around me. Noticing how damp the ground is or how the sun’s rays tingle across my back make it seem like she’s actually here with me. Physically, I mean.”
“She is, in her own way.” reassured Clancy. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
Torch watched as Clancy sat beside him, seeing his deep brown eyes twinkle with hope, and the scar across his lip distort his gentle smile. He used to find it cruel, being sent the same face to fail at saving, with only the slightest differences that couldn’t allow him to pretend each one was the same. Scars in different places, eyes a slightly different colour, a different gait, a deeper voice. There was always something to separate each Clancy from the last.
Now, Torch wondered if it was a comfort, knowing that it wasn't one Clancy suffering each time, but multiple who would only know of failure once. The last Clancy – or Nova now, as he had named himself – had been a particularly hard cycle to let go of. Torch had been so sure that success was finally within their grasp, but it had slipped away like trails of smoke, parting between his fingers and fading in the breeze. This next Clancy remembered, memories coming to him in prophetic flickers, dreams and visions that spilled details that not even Torch had been privy to before.
“I’m getting there,” sighed Torch, “I think that what I'm looking for has always been out of my hands to obtain. There’s nothing else I can do.”
Clancy had told him before that it was like his soul knew what was at stake, like the cycle within had grown tired and craved one last shot at success; a drag path for him to follow, mistakes and errors mapped out in hopes of avoiding them when the time drew close once more. They both felt the pull of those concrete towers; plans had been drawn up, the mask had been handed over, and now the only thing left to do was hope for success when the moment to storm the city arrived.
Hands that were littered with little scars and burns beneath the smeared black tugged at the bottom of his cat-like mask, with Clancy slowly peeling it from his face before dropping it into his lap. Torch thought back to Voldsøy, and how Clancy’s hair had stuck up in every direction whenever he removed his woollen hat, but now all that remained were tiny stubbled strands of dark hair from where Clancy had shaved it the moment he set foot back into the camp. ‘A new beginning, just like before,’ he had said.
“She’s been kind to you, but there’s only so much that she has control over.”
“You sound just like her, Clancy. I should teach you to communicate with her sometime.” If we make it out of this battle, that is.
“I’d like that.” He smiled, but below it, Clancy was just as unsure. “I can thank her for sending you to me.”
The air turned solemn.
“Clancy, I-” Torch’s hand twitched, as if he was debating whether to place it on Clancy’s knee or leave it where it sat on the earth below. “I’m sorry I haven’t been the best Torchbearer for you.”
“Look where we are, Torch. How many times can you say that you led two consecutive cycles to the very end?”
Torch hesitated before replying with a quiet “Never.”
“Maybe you haven’t been the best, maybe the idea of the best is an unobtainable standard that you hold yourself to. Either way, you’ve been more than enough for me. The fact that you still tried after what happened last time is proof of that.”
“Of course I tried. It was still you.”
“Tell me about him,” Clancy asked quietly, an almost inaudible plea to allow the memories of his past self to live on. “I want to understand him through your eyes.”
The request had Torch sucking in a shuddered breath, years worth of memories flooding back in an instant; pain and struggle and anger and more happiness than he’d ever known returning to his body from where he’d pushed them back to the recesses of his mind.
Torch steeled himself, and began to talk.
“He was… different. Not different like you remembering cycles before, but different in the way that I’d never seen such a burning desire to be free. Even through the worst of it, even when he was broken and beaten, all he ever spoke about was how one day he’d be free of that wretched place. I should’ve known the path he was going down the second he started going on about some sort of higher purpose, but I was just so in lo-”
“Go on. You need to say it to begin accepting it.” The only look on Clancy’s face was one of understanding, he knew this story, he knew of every emotion and late nights under the stars, but he also recognised that Torch has stopped himself from moving on.
“I was just so in love with him that I thought it would be enough to save him.”
“You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved, Torch.”
“I know.”
The scar across Clancy’s lip moved as his soft smile became a sympathetic frown, and Torch found himself shedding the weight of the past, eyes focused solely on the future, on the Clancy right in front of him.
“It’s hard to reconcile the Clancy I knew with the way Nova is now. Nico was so much worse, but to see someone I loved morph into something that he swore he’d fight until his last breath? I’m grieving the living every single day.”
Clancy shuffled closer to Torch, dropping his head to rest on the other man’s shoulder, a quiet comfort that didn’t need words to explain.
“We’ll do it this time.” he said, words more confident than Torch had ever heard before the battle before.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I have you, and your light is too bright to turn away from. Like a moth to a flame.”
“You’re much prettier than a moth.”
“I don’t know dude, I guess you haven’t seen some of the moths around here.”
Torch chuckled. “I’ve seen a crap-ton of them, tiny little brown things that burn themselves to a crisp in the campfire.”
“Not just brown. I saw some around the ragwort plants that were black and red. I asked one of the others what it was, and they called it a cinnabar moth. I think they’re cool, they have all the metamorphosis of a butterfly, but are totally underestimated because they aren’t thought of as highly. Sounds like me.”
“I think highly of you.” The words came out more loving than Torch had anticipated when they first flashed in his mind. “I always have.”
“I know you do, Torch.” Clancy’s smile was kind, if not a little sad. “I’m not going to take that for granted this time. I won’t let you down.”
“You- He didn’t last time. The cycle had its claws in him from the moment we met, I don’t think it ever had a chance of ending differently with him.”
“It does now. Even if I stumble, even if I fail–”
“–I’ll be there. I’m not walking away again. We’ll find the way forward.”
The words were spoken more like a truth than a promise, like accepting the possibility cleared a path to turn it into something good, something manageable. Torch felt the heat of the flame he carried grow brighter from where the wooden stick was still wedged into the ground, a physical response to how his resolve had strengthened. Reinforcing bridges so his light could grow bright enough to guide Clancy back home.
He reached a hand out to the flame, watching as the orange glow danced over his skin, smoke and fire parting between his fingertips. It never burned him, it just let itself be played with; twisting and wafting, swirling and warming. Torch uttered a quiet thank you under his breath, knowing that Trench would hear his gratitude.
“How do you feel it?” Clancy asked, his words quiet and cautious. “Trench, I mean.”
Torch considered the question for a moment, wondering what the best way was to describe something that had always been an innate part of him. His eyes drifted to his torch, and further still to the broken piece of antler that was still stained red from Nova’s blood. The thought of trying to clean it had crossed his mind once, but Torch had never been able to bring himself to sever that connection.
He unhooked it from the stick, and handed it over to Clancy, watching as the other man traced the ivory bone. “You’ve got to find a way to channel the feeling,” he began, “Like when you seize and use the antlers as a conduit for your power. I find the easiest way is for me to be in touch with the earth in as many ways as possible, listening to the wind or the animals, feeling the warmth or the cold and knowing it all originates from the same place.”
“Can you teach me?”
Torch nodded, shifting his body to face Clancy fully. “Think of how the antler feels in your hands, then place them on the ground and try to harness that same sensation.”
Clancy followed Torch’s instruction, passing his dark fingers over the antler fragment, noting how his pulse began to thrum under his skin, and a chill crawled up his spine. He took control of that feeling, before placing the sharp bone piece aside and resting his hands on the dirt and the moss like he had seen Torch do when Clancy found him. The energy ebbed and flowed within him, as if it was assessing the worthiness of his spirit in seeking a connection. It dimmed, before holding steady as he looked to Torch for the next step.
“Listen to the world around you, not to me or my voice, but to the way the leaves rustle in the breeze, or the creek that flows beside us. Trench speaks when you simply listen.”
Closing his eyes, Clancy focused on each sound that made up the song of Trench, listening to how the world around him harmonised in melodic whistles and echoes. Still, his mind drifted; those whistles and echoes of nature morphed into those of his cell in Dema, footsteps reverberating off metal and concrete, the only company he received being that of a harsh lesson from a Bishop.
Torch saw a frown begin to form on Clancy’s face, his lip scar tugging in a way that looked almost painful. “Keep your focus on the present, Clancy. You aren’t back there anymore.”
He knew exactly where Clancy’s mind had gone.
“The sounds. I-I can’t–”
“Yes you can.” Torch put his hands on top of Clancy’s own, pressing them down into the ground. “Listen to her call, she’ll answer.”
“How?”
“Focus on me, on my touch.”
Clancy nodded, allowing the warmth to seep into his cold skin, the ever-present icy tingle in his black-smeared fingertips dulling under Torch’s eternal heat. It helped centre his thoughts, feeling the bad memories thaw as the sunlight caressed his face. Something gentle, soothing, and motherly.
A voice seemed to speak directly into his mind, yet it came from all directions. The way that Torch squeezed his hands told Clancy exactly who the voice belonged to.
“Son of Dema, we speak at last.”
Trench spoke with a reverence, a divine impartiality that didn’t leave Clancy flinching at the title bestowed upon him in the way he expected. She sounded patient, as if she knew Clancy would reach out on his own terms one day.
“Talk to her.” Torch encouraged.
“Like, out loud? Or in my head?”
“Whichever way fits you best, child.” The voice answered.
“I normally speak out loud,” Torch explained, “Feels like a normal conversation then. But sometimes I keep the words in my head if it feels too exposing to say.”
Clancy nodded, thinking of what to say.
“Thank you for sending Torch to me,” he settled on. “I wouldn’t be here without him.”
“You sell yourself short, sweet fawn. My little flame has simply made your journey easier.”
“I’m scared.” admitted Clancy.
“I would worry if you weren’t. This task is no small feat, but with each other, I have faith in the outcome. You stepped into my embrace, and the cycle revealed itself to you. You are ready, child.”
“I don’t feel like I am.”
“Most never do. I cannot guarantee success, but I know that you will have tried harder than ever before. Allow my Torchbearer to stand by your side, we do not have to fight these battles alone.”
No verbal reply was given, only a mess of repeated thank you’s were looped around Clancy’s mind.
“I wish you both good luck.” Trench hummed as her voice was carried away in the breeze.
All that remained was the gentle beat of life in the forest, and the comfort of Clancy’s hands under Torch’s own. They both released a shuddery breath, bodies renewed with fighting energy, a hope settling in their souls. The future ahead was still scary to think of, but Trench’s words had calmed them, the all-encompassing feeling of her love and affection soothing something deep inside.
The task in front of them no longer seemed impossible, and the metaphorical boulder being rolled up the mountain was easier with two pairs of hands. The winds of fate had changed, and with it came a renewed sense of purpose for Clancy and the Torchbearer.
“That was…”
“Strange?” Torch asked, with a delicate smile etched on his face. “It can be an adjustment, hearing what she has to say.”
“Yeah,” Clancy sighed, like relief was consuming him. “Good strange, though. I’m thankful that she showed herself to me.”
“She likes you, and she believes in you. You’re just as special to her as I am.”
“Oh, so you put in a good word for me?” joked Clancy.
Torch chuckled. “Only the best words. Not that you needed me to vouch for you.”
Clancy moved back to how he was sitting before, resting his head on Torch’s shoulder once more as his eyes slipped shut. He wasn’t falling asleep, but rather allowing the moment to pass through him, feeling time move around the forest and making the most of the period of calm before the incoming storm. Torch laid his own head on top of Clancy’s; his hand searching amongst the moss and leaves for the one it had been holding. With their little fingers linked together, Torch permitted himself to forget his responsibilities, and just simply exist as Joshua.
A name given to him by the now-bishop, and one he knew he would carry as a reminder of how he loved before.
It took time for him to accept that the past and present could co-exist in his heart, but now the future seemed to be brighter, the pain dulled into a faint reminder of all he had overcome.
“Do we need to go back to camp?” Clancy asked.
Joshua thought for a moment, before deciding on his reply.
“No.” he said, “I think I just want to exist here with you for a little while.”