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Dismas had learned twiceover not to take sunlight for granted. The first time, it was in his prison cell, where at best only the thinnest slivers of gold ever hit the wall across the window. The second time was during his long tenure in the hamlet. He swore the weather bowed to the general air of hopelessness, resulting in an almost neverending cloud cover.
That changed today. The sky was bright and blue—Light above, he almost forgot how deep that blue could get. Dismas decided the moment the uncovered sun crested over the horizon that he was going to take advantage.
In a meadow just outside of town, he’d abandoned his coat and laid down in the grass. There had been warm days here before. Humid days where heat and sweat clung to people, and where expeditions to all fronts save for the cooler tunnels of the ruins were utterly unenviable. The things he’d smelled…ugh. The warmth today, warmth from that prodigal sun, soaked pleasantly through his skin and into his bones.
The wild grass and flowers of the meadow seemed all the more colorful. Birdsong was carried on a gentle breeze. For a moment, Dismas was able to convince himself that the estate grounds were actually starting to heal. His eyes drifted shut…
…then came the nudge of a boot against his side.
He must’ve fallen asleep. Reynauld was anything but stealthy, even without a mountain of plate armor clanking with every step. “The heir has summoned you.”
“Has he, now?” Dismas adjusted to make himself more comfortable. “S’pose it’s too much to ask for a day off on account of the weather, eh?”
“In my experience, good weather is always a promise of more work. Never less. Get up. I have already spent an inordinate amount of time searching for you.”
Not happening. Not right now. Both of them knew it. Dismas had long learned how much fun it was to annoy the crusader and push how far his good graces could go. He closed his eyes again. “No, thank you. I’m doing fine right here. Gotta ask, how long did you spend looking at the tavern?”
“Too long,” Reynauld conceded with a sigh.
“Fair. This ain’t exactly my usual haunt. I bet the doc put you on the right path, yeah? She was up, would’ve seen which way I was heading through her window.” He smiled a crooked smile up at him. “It’s too bad, I’ve gotten rather comfortable here. Think I’ll stay, unless you decide to carry me back.”
A long silence followed. Dismas could see Reynauld mulling the option over through his ever-stern eyes. He opened his mouth to respond, and Dismas interjected. “Don’t.”
“I am not going to entertain your sloth, Dismas. You are wanted for an expedition. I do not believe it’s asking too much to have you tend to the work you were hired for in the first place.”
“Hm. You know what, I’m in a good enough mood to cut a deal with you.”
“You cannot—”
“Hear me out! Nobody knows you found me yet, right? A few minutes of your time, crusader, that’s all I ask. Lay down by me. Instead of sloth, you can think of it as…” He thought for a moment. “...taking a moment to enjoy a gift from the Light. Then I’ll get up and head back with you. No fuss.”
Reynauld sighed again. This time it was even longer. Heavier. Almost childishly so. However, he conceded to his demands, sitting down with a stiff posture in the grass. Dismas laughed once.
“Close enough. Come on, it’s gorgeous out. We may not get another day like this to enjoy, especially me. This expedition could be my last, you never know.”
The borderline pout on Reynauld’s face shifted. His brows knit with concern, gaze focused on him. “I hardly think that is a good mindset to go into it with. You have survived so far. There’s no reason to think this time will be different.”
“Maybe. Won’t be long before we’re being tossed to the manor, though.” Soon. Very soon. Too soon. “You were there when Alhazred tried some scrying technique to get a look inside, right? I have never seen him so pale. Hard to have high hopes about getting out of there once we’re in.”
“Such a callous way to speak of your own life. Have you no value for yourself?” Rey scoffed. “The way you talk sometimes, the way you ‘joke’, it concerns me quite often, friend. If I did not know better, I’d believe you wanted to die.”
He turned his head to the side so Reynauld wouldn’t catch him rolling his eyes. Damn his mouth, and damn the crusader for never letting a bit of gallows talk pass him by. He followed those threads so well to get Dismas to open up more than he wanted. “It’s easier for you.” He said it without a hint of bitterness. “You know? Yer’ here on assignment. Sent by the church. Once all is said and done, they’re gonna want you back, right? I’m here ‘cuz I got nothing else to do and nothing to return to. If I survive everything this place throws at us, I don’t exactly have plans on what to do after.”
In stories, death and redemption so often went hand on hand. That’s what he really wanted out of this place, wasn’t it? Redemption? The warm bed, the hot food, the pay, and the good company currently beside him—those were all bonuses. Wicked wretches like him so often earned a single good word to say about them with some brave sacrifice. No, he didn’t want to die, but the notion that he would seemed right.
What worried him more was the fact that thinking of dying didn’t really scare him.
Dismas really shouldn’t have turned his head back. What waited for him were two deep, brown wells of pity in the shape of Reynauld’s eyes. Perhaps ‘ever-stern’ was too much of an exaggeration. His expression could be so painfully gentle at times that it made Dismas’s chest tighten. “I am valuable to the church,” he agreed. “And you are valuable to me. I know religious work does not suit you, but if you returned with me to the city after the end of our mission, I am certain we can find you a new purpose.”
His shoulder twitched in mild surprise. Oh, he didn’t like that. Not the idea itself, no, just how many thoughts that idea put into his head when all he wanted was some lazy lounging in the sun (his life would’ve been so much easier if he were born a cat). A long term plan for a future, that’s what Reynauld offered.
“I will not ask you to give me an answer now, but think it over.” He leaned in a bit closer. “Whether you come with me or not, have faith that you will survive this place. The Light is with you, Dismas. It will mean a lot to me for you to see the end of this story.”
After that, there was finally a few minutes allowed for some relaxing. Dismas brought the tone back to something more lighthearted, offering a teasing, subtle insinuation that maybe his city colleagues in the church would be fine with him because they were already used to a thief lurking about. Reynauld feigned ignorance.
He couldn’t put work off forever. Soon they were walking on the path back to the hamlet. Back to the barracks, where he’d learn who else was going on the new expedition alongside him. Dismas gripped the doorknob to the drab block of a building, twisted it, and…
…Reynauld’s room felt so empty now.
He didn’t have many personal possessions, that was true, but there was still enough before to make it clear it was his room. A banner carefully propped up in the corner. Holy texts stacked beside the bed. A scattered coin or two always hinting but never revealing the location of Reynauld’s secret loot stash. Now it was all gone.
Lacking a body, his personal effects were going to be buried today instead. Well, most of his personal effects were going to be buried anyway.
It was a beautiful day for a funeral. The sun made more and more cameos since the thing at the heart of the manor was killed…killed? Was it really killed? Dismas could only hope so. Today was the first time since then that the sky was totally clear, though. That’s what reminded him of the day in the meadow, of the offer Reynauld made to him pending Dismas’s survival.
Yes, he’d believed death and redemption went hand in hand.
In the manor, Dismas learned that death didn’t care at all for redemption.
Most of the battle was a blur, but he remembered that moment so clearly. His shaky hands desperately tried to reload his pistol as quickly as possible, relying more on muscle memory than rational thought to do so. Reynauld suddenly cried out. His voice drew his attention even though the words were lost to the chaos. In a snap, he was gone. Snatched by the thing, the—the Heart, into nothingness. All that was left behind was his helmet. Had he thrown it off? Was it somehow dislodged from the force of his obliteration? It was impossible to tell.
As a keepsake of his friend, he was allowed to keep the helmet with him. For now, it sat on his bed, polished and clean.
“Are you ready?” Paracelsus gently called to him from the door. William and Barristan were at her side, all three radiating a kind of pity that made his blood boil.
“Yes.” He didn’t let his distaste show. “Yes, of course.” Dismas trudged out and closed the door behind him. It wasn’t Reynauld’s room anymore. It was just a room. There was nothing left for him inside.
People were celebrating outside. Unattended children ran down cobbled roads, townsfolk were putting up decorations, and people were openly chatting and laughing in stark contrast to the eerie silence dominating the streets when Dismas first arrived. There was going to be some big festival to mark the destruction of the manor and everything it stood for at the end of the week.
How ironic, to grieve while the world around him celebrated.
He’d never been to a proper church funeral before. When he was younger, Dismas experienced a couple services done at the deceased’s home. Only afterwards was the body brought to the local churchyard for burial or burning. Hell, during his time as a lowlife, sometimes a funeral was merely a few hushed words spoken to some poor dead sod in an alley.
Entering the abbey, the smell of incense hit him like a wall. The sunlight from outside made the stained glass windows seem like they were glowing, and lit candles were packed everywhere attendants wouldn’t be sitting or standing. Reynauld’s coffin, a pretty, polished thing, sat elevated where all who arrived could clearly see it. Flowers of all colors were piled on top.
Dismas did his best to look put together for once in his life. His signature scarf was nowhere to be seen, and his coat was replaced with a dark waistcoat. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like how it fitted him. That wasn’t the waistcoat’s fault, though. Nothing he wore would’ve felt right on his body today.
Scarcely had he visited the abbey with Reynauld before. He would drag him in for services often with a promise of buying a drink at the tavern for him later. Dismas recalled his surprise when the thief perfectly spoke the right prayers at the right times, with all the right words. He remembered them from his childhood.
Now, as the funeral started, he solemnly delivered prayers of mourning, his voice lost in the chorus of his fellow heroes doing the same. The abbott guided them through the words before delivering a sermon worthy of a martyr. On the days Reynauld forced him to come, Dismas would eventually zone out. Wouldn’t be able to remember a lick of what the old man was rambling about. Today, he would listen to and commit everything he preached to memory.
Then came eulogies. There was Missandei, who praised Reynauld for being an excellent sparring partner in the training ring. Junia wistfully commented on how often he’d walk with her to the abbey. She called them ‘partners in faith’. Bigby spoke about how he slowly overcame his revulsion to his lesser half, protecting him at the end of his days the same way he protected the others.
Dismas’s turn came all too quickly. He stood up. Everything he wanted to say remained stuck in his throat as a solid, tangible ball seeking to choke him to his own grave. At least then there would be a real body to bury today. Just. Sit back down. All he had to do was sit back down. Then he wouldn’t have to speak, and everyone would understand, right?
“We hated each other when we first met,” he finally began. “Hard to like anyone when yer’ in a cramped stagecoach together for days on end, yeah? We fought good together from the start, though. Didn’t we, Rey?” Dismas glanced over at the coffin as if he actually expected an answer. He talked about those abbey trips Reynauld dragged him on and the tavern trips he’d force Reynauld to take in return. He talked about that day in the meadow and Reynauld’s offer to bring him to the city.
He talked about what it was like to be the one to watch him die.
“It took his body into oblivion, but I know him too well to say it took his soul with it. No, that part of him shined too bright for something that dark to drag down.” His face felt hot. He’d blame it on the frankly ridiculous amount of lit candles present if he could. The tears streaking slowly down his uncovered face, however, left him unable to deny himself his own sorrows. As clear to him as they were to all in attendance.
No, Reynauld wasn’t in the coffin. It still made his heart ache to watch it be lowered down into the dirt. There was such a finality to it. When it was done, so closed the book on the penitent crusader. The crowd of heroes who’d all come to pay their respects dispersed one by one, until only Dismas remained to watch the gravediggers fill up the hole. There was supposed to be some form of a reception to be held at the tavern, free food included, but he didn’t want to go. He had other ideas on how to spend the rest of the day.
He returned to his room and to the helmet that waited for him, stalwart as its former wearer. “Come on, pal.” The headwear was tucked under his arm. Dismas then left, heading down a familiar path that would carry him to the outskirts of the hamlet.
“Does it still mean a lot to you that I’m here? When you don’t get to be?” He asked as he walked. There was no response from the cold metal. “Been thinking…Maybe I’ll still go to the city. The manor payouts were bigger than we all expected, so like it or not, I suddenly have enough money to plan for a future. I’ve heard some strange things about the city recently. Some kind of unrest best I can tell, but hey, I did good work here. Maybe I can do the same down there.”
There were picnickers in the meadow. Bloody picnickers. Blankets and baskets and all—a sign of the times.
By no means was the meadow packed, though. There was still plenty of space for Dismas to find a spot to lay down in without having to worry about being bothered. He settled into the grass, helmet positioned right beside him, and gazed up at the sky. There were only a few wisps of clouds being carried along by the wind.
Warm. Warm and blue. Good weather without a promise of more work.
“Eh. I can think more about it later. Right now, let’s enjoy this gift, friend.”