Chapter Text
It was cold.
The stone walls smelled of water, the darkness didn't yield even to his eyes that usually peered easily into the night, and there was a constant feeling of being watched, making the fur stand up on the back of Teor's neck.
But it was the cold that got to him the most. The cold he could feel under the rough skin covering his feet. The cold that seemed to try and swallow him whole when they split up. The cold brought with grabbing fingers and corpse bites and steel pushing into his body.
A fight shouldn't be this cold. Battlefields were filled with bodies and blood and hatred and fear and those were always burning hot. The cold was what came after, when the scavengers got to work and all of the emotions burned out, leaving behind the icky, black whole inside your soul; the kind you had to later fill with booze and stories told around the campfire.
This one, though. This one felt cold from the start. And it ended in cold, too.
There was a cold blade piercing through his chest when Teor thought about Thimble. His fingers went numb, suddenly unable hold the weapon, when Kattigan's name entered his mind. He fell to the ground, cold stone pressed against his cheek as Teor remembered Julien. He really hoped the boy will lift his sister's curse. A younger sibling needing to be saved was something Teor knew very much about.
It was dark and cold. And then, somewhere far and close at the same time, there was a small bit of light. Like a single candle trying to light up a great, dark hall, all on its own.
It reminded him of Wick. A spot of light in a pit filled with choking darkness that would try to snuff the flame out. So small. So naive. So beautiful and worthy of protection.
The light was there and Teor couldn't take his eyes away from it.
And then, there was nothing at all.