Work Text:
Sylphrena, The Ancient Daughter, was confused. Now, this was a semi-common occurrence for her, but still. Kaladin did not seem well. He lay slumped against the wall of the barracks, just staring at a puddle. He had seemed to have lost all the fight, the burning need to protect; that had first drawn her to him. The rain drizzled, passing through her form, but soaking Kaladin. He just...ignored it. Syl had noticed that he seemed to be doing this more, getting lost in his thoughts. What was it he could be thinking so hard about
Another bridgemen lay nearby; one Syl hadn’t thought Kaladin was particularly close to. Why wasn’t the bridgeman getting up? She hovered over his shoulder, steeling herself. “Kaladin?” She asked softly, floating down and landing on his leg. “Kaladin?” She repeated, worried.
“My father used to say that there are two kinds of people in the world,” Kaladin whispered in a raspy voice. “He said there are those who take lives. And that there are those who save lives.”
Syl frowned, head dropping a bit. That didn't make sense; life was more complicated than that. Why would Kaladin’s father simplify such a complex situation by that much?
“I used to think he was wrong. I thought there was a third group. People who killed in order to save.” Kaladin shook his head. “I was a fool. There is a third group, a big one, but it isn’t what I thought.” He laughed, a light, self-deprecating type of laugh.
“What group?” She said, face scrunching up as she moved to sit.
“The people who exist to be saved or to be killed. The group in the middle. The ones who can’t do anything but die or be protected. The victims. That’s all I am.” Kaladin raised his head, gaze vacant. His hollow eyes, dim of any hope, looked out amongst the barracks. Syl’s heart-nonexistent as it may be-plummeted. “We exist to be killed,” Kaladin said. “If we’re not dead already.”
———————————————————————
Syl knew she had to do something. This wasn’t the Kaladin she had bonded, just a mere wisp of him. She refused to let him waste away in the shadows, alone. All she had to do was restore his hope. Syl thought back to all her interactions (that she could remember; her early memories are pretty fuzzy) she had with Kaladin. She thought and thought and thought, only getting distracted by cremling ) TWICE. Which is practically unheard of for Syl. A leaf blew in the wind, grabbing Syl’s attention. It danced in the wind, the narrow shape tumbling end over end. A couple of windspren (her baby cousins!) moved with it, gigging. One of them turned to Syl, beckoning her to join. She joined them, laughing as they zipped about. Syl looked at the leaf once more, dark green against the pale sky. She stopped; an amazing idea had struck. When Kaladin was still in the slave wagons, he had gotten a leaf. The leaf had stoked the fire of his fight, but when he had lost it by accidentally crushing it, he became despondent. Kinda like now, honestly. At least Syl has a plan of action now.
———————————————————————
“I hate seeing you like this,” Syl said, buzzing around Kaladin’s head. He ignored her (rude!) and continued working silently. She bravely continued on despite Kaladin’s disinterest. “You used to be vibrant,” she said. “So many looked up to you Kaladin. Your squad of soldiers. The enemies you fought. The other slaves. Even some lighteyes.” She floated down in front of his face. It was imperative that he understood what she was saying. “I used to watch you fight,” Syl said. “I can barely remember it. My memories of then are fuzzy. Like looking through a rainstorm.” She had been stupid back then, only being able to play with the windspren. Not able to think coherently, like now. Kaladin hesitated, earning a lash from a taskmaster’s whip.
Bridge Four lifted the log into the pile and went to get another. A voice cried out, “Gaz!” A soldier stood at the end of the bridge grounds. A group of miserable looking, and likely miserable, men huddled behind the soldier. A scowling one-eyed man (Gaz?) and the soldier conversed, but Syl didn’t really care to listen.
“Tien?” Kaladin’s choked whisper catches her attention. He looked so...sad. Syl knew what she had to do, and she needs to do it now.
She landed on the log Kaladin was dragging. “Kaladin,” Syl said, “I’m going to leave.”
Kaladin whispered, voice cracking, “No.”
“I’ll try to come back,” she said. “But I don’t know what will happen when I leave you. Things are strange. I have odd memories. No, most of them aren’t even memories. Instincts. One of those tells me that if I leave you, I might lose myself.”
“Then don’t go,” Kaladin begged, looking heartbreakingly terrified.
“I have to,” Syl said, cringing. “I can’t watch this anymore. I’ll try to return.” Syl felt as if she was breaking into thousands of pieces. She liked the Physical Realm, she liked Kaladin, and she liked her duty. She didn’t want to lose that. But Syl couldn’t let Kaladin keep on being so miserable. “Goodbye.” With that, she finally let herself break, blowing away as a bunch of tiny, translucent leaves.
———————————————————————
Syl traveled far. She saw Alethi hunting Parshendi, and Veden hunting Alethi. They struck and stabbed and maimed. They fell, never to rise again. Her search was not in vain, for she eventually found a plant with narrow, dark green leaves. The ends split into three pieces, like a trident. She plucked a leaf, barely being able to hold onto it with her incorporeal body. With her prize held tightly, she raced back as fast as she could.
———————————————————————
“Kaladin!” Syl cried out his name, joyously. He was on the edge of a chasm; a foot held over the void. She weaved between the droplets of weakening rain. She couldn’t keep up a smooth gait holding the leaf. Syl bobbed up and down as she surged forward, not unlike someone bearing something heavy. She switched into her usual form of a young woman, her dress fluttering around her legs. She held up the leaf, proud of her work. This should help bring back Kaladin’s hope!
“What is that?” Kaladin asked.
“These things are heavy!” Syl said, exhausted. “I brought it for you!”
“Why did you bring this to me?” He said harshly, holding the leaf between trembling fingers.
“I thought...” Syl said, shying back. “Well, you kept those other leaves so carefully. Then you lost them when you tried to help that man in the slave cages. I thought it would make you happy to have another one.” Was this not going to help Kaladin? Did she do something wrong? “Everything seemed to go wrong when you lost that leaf,” Syl said in a soft voice. “Before that, you fought.”
“I failed.”
“You don’t like it? I flew so far ...I almost forgot myself. But I came back. I came back, Kaladin.” She said, slumping down on his palm. If this didn’t work, if Kaladin died-Syl didn’t think she could survive losing another Radiant.
“Why?” He pled. “Why do you care?”
“Because I do,” Syl said stubbornly. She straightened out and looked straight at him. “I watched you, you know. Back in the army. You’d always find the young, untrained men and protect them, even though it put you in danger. I can remember it. Just barely, but I do.”
“I failed them. They’re dead now.”
“They would have died more quickly without you. You made it so they had a family in the army. I remember their gratitude. It’s what drew me in the first place. You helped them.” Syl had felt Kaladin’s passion, his want to protect those who could not protect themselves and had latched onto it. She had dragged herself out of Shadesmar to help him, to help prevent the Desolation.
“No,” he said, clutching onto the leaf like it was his lifeline. “Everything I touch withers and dies.” Syl had a momentary impulse to say that the leaf hadn’t withered so that wasn’t true, but in a rare moment of understanding social cues, she resists the impulse. (She deserves a prize for that, really.) Kaladin teetered on the edge, drawing Syl’s attention back onto him. She could hear thunder in the distance. (Shut up Dad, this has nothing to do with you!)
“Those men in the bridge crew,” Syl whispered. “You could help them.”
“Too late.” Kaladin closed his eyes and looked away, looking so devasted and so... broken. Like something precious that had shattered, one that could not be repaired. But Syl knew that wasn’t true. She just had to remind him of that. He continued on, voice forlorn. “It’s too late. I’ve failed. They’re dead. They’re all going to die, and there’s no way out.”
“What’s one more try then?” Syl kept her voice soft; Kaladin had enough harshness in his life as it was. She was resolute in getting through his stupidly stubborn head, though. “What could it hurt?”
He paused, taking a moment to reflect on her words. Good.
“You can’t fail this time, Kaladin. You’ve said it all. They’re going to die anyway. I don’t know what you mean most of the time you speak,” Syl said. “My mind is so cloudy. But it seems that if you’re worried about hurting people, you shouldn’t be afraid to help the bridgemen. What could you do to them?”
“I...”
“One more try, Kaladin,” Syl whispered. “Please.” He seemed to mull over her words, while she anxiously hovered by. Kaladin opened his eyes. He crushed the leaf and dropped the remains of it into the chasm. Syl felt a fleeting urge to become leaf parts and float down with it, but what she was doing was more important. Kaladin had crushed the leaf, her last hope for him. Was he going to...? Syl anxiously zipped by, saying, “Kaladin?”
He stepped away from the chasm, keeping a confident pace back to the war camps. She seemed to have gotten through to him, then. All that she could do now is to hope that this stuck with him. Syl would just have to hope. That’s all she can do.