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I.
He is awake: he has never been here in his dreams. It is too peaceful, too quiet.
The old man, still busy with his hammer. The girl, humming a song under her breath. The heat of the forge. The sparks flying around. The snowfall. His sword, just out of reach.
He knows he should be in pain, and yet he cannot feel it.
He cannot move either: the very thought of it seems just as heavy as his limbs are. His chest is burning and too tight. The bandages cling to his skin, soaked with sweat, suffocating.
The hammer meets the steel: the sound is muffled, as if they are underwater. Clang, clang, clang, not unlike the melody of the clash of swords. A dance of sparks. A sudden glint of metal. The joy of a dream taking shape.
It is a sword, he notices, a sword yet unborn. Made to kill, meant to die.
Swords break. His own did. Its time had come. They also just die: inside a noble’s coffer, above its owner’s grave.
He remembers he has once stood in a sea of swords: there were crows above his head, and the ground was covered with snow. When could that be? When he was a boy? Or in a dream?
He tries to sit up, but his body does not obey. He tries to speak yet cannot find his tongue. He feels the bandages hugging his chest even tighter. It is too hot and then almost too cold.
The girl is nodding off in the corner; the old man is still at work. They spare him no glance.
He feels an arm wrap around his shoulder. He feels a hand caress his chest. He knows he should hate it but does not. It is but a dream, he tells himself, and yet he is still here, so he must be awake.
The arms around him tighten. He hears a sharp intake of breath: a puff of freezing cold against the skin of his neck. There is no one there; he knows who it is. It cannot be: they will never meet again, but in a dream nothing is impossible.
I bet he’s already forgotten the sound of my voice.
At some point everyone will, he is sure.
He is also sure some of these thoughts are not quite his own.
II.
He is in the cold water. Or is it snow? Or an exquisite rug, stained by a spilled vial of oil? His chest is heavy and as hot as a furnace; his heart is swollen and ripe as an overgrown fruit.
It is the first time he has ever thought about it. A strong hand, a sharp eye and a clear head—he has never found much use for the heart.
None of them did; none but Casca, and look where that got her now. Did it, though? What a strange thought.
I bet they’re all safe and sound. Safe, sound and happy.
He wonders if he is happy. He wonders if he is warm.
He himself certainly is not. He is too cold and then almost too hot.
III.
Dreams, just like sparks, come and go without a trace.
The sky is very blue; the field is vast. His knees have long gone numb; the hilt of a broken sword is impossibly heavy in his grip. Has he ever touched it before? Maybe not, but his own sword certainly did.
I bet he’s got a new one now. I bet he’s gotten himself a sword fit for a king.
He does not regret leaving: there is no place for him among the scented silks; no air to dream; nobody to fight. He does not belong on the rugs woven with gold. He will not bend the knee.
He is on his knees now, though. He is on his knees in the snow, and the nails of the invisible hands that are still digging into his skin are almost as sharp as claws.
I bet he’s forgotten all about me by now.
IV.
He does not miss them, he thinks, when it gets so dark he suddenly cannot see a thing. He does not miss him either and is more than sure he is not missed in return.
They—he—are the warmth lost to time, and he is incapable of mourning.
Besides, can one mourn a person who is not dead yet?
He feels the hands lurk inside his chest, and his useless heart stirs. It should be impossible; he is already free.
It is nothing but a dream, though. A foolish dream that does not really mean a thing. A dream of another man.
V.
He is asleep; he has seen this place many times before yet can never recall it come morrow. It is too solemn, too lifeless.
The sun is hanging low on the horizon, overshadowed by the moon. The sky is crimson red; the lake is shallow, and its water is as thick as blood.
He has been stabbed, he thinks, surprised at how little he cares. He is lightheaded and dizzy; there are sparks wherever his eyes can reach. They travel from one broken sword to another: a whole sea of them, defeated and dead.
He feels like he knows who they used to belong to.
His own sword is nowhere to be seen, and yet it does not seem to matter.
He does not need it, he thinks.
His hand is tangled in someone’s hair: their face is buried in the crook of his neck; their fingers are caressing his chest; their two hearts are beating as one, pumping the warm blood out to the lake. Bthump. Bthump. Bthump.
He has stabbed him too, hasn’t he.
He used to be mad with rage, he thinks, staring up at the sky bleeding with red. He used to dream of a moment like this, though why, he is not exactly sure.
Because he wanted him gone? Because he wanted to hold him in his arms? Never before has he thought of that, has he.
Only in a dream, for anything is possible within the world of dreams.
I bet he never dreams about me the way I dream about him.
He is enveloped in warmth. He prays he never wakes up.