There Is Nothing To Struggle Against
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the_dawn_will_comeWho: Kylan & Imekari-Rasaan Saarebas Issala
What: Learning how to be (and not even necessarily how to be a person) is a long, arduous process.
When: 2 years prior to the Conclave
Where: Qunandar, then Seheron, featuring a brief pit stop in Rivain, and making our debut in some nameless Orlesian tavern
Rating: PG-13 because desire demons and also PUNCHING PEOPLE
Status: Ongoing
The waters of the small bay were womb-heat warm, shiningly kissed by Qunandar’s sun: a harsh, all-seeing eye set in sapphire.
Through the thick jungle overgrowth, the peaks of the old pyramids loomed, acting as a sundial to count away the hours. Imekari glanced at them from time to time, his already more nervy temperament making him more anxious as each hour lazily passed in the summer heat.
“Should we not go back?” he fretted to his two companions where they were stretched out on the sand. The two of them were naked from their most recent swim, sunning themselves like lizards. The largest of the trio lifted her head long enough to shake the sand from the ridges where her horns were growing in and rolled over to fix him with a hard stare.
“Don’t be so gutless, Imekari-Raas,” she said scornfully. “We’ll be in well before the meal horn sings and you’ll have your bread.”
“I’m not–” he began heatedly, “I don’t–”
He deflated in defeat and looked to their other companion imploringly. The final of their number had sat up, watching the two of them with dark eyes, his initiate markings glowing in the sun. He caught a handful of sand in his fist and let it trickle between his fingers as he sat silent, admiring the contrast between the bone white sand and his own copper-dark skin.
“We will go,” the initiate decided. The other two exchanged a heavy, almost reverent glance as they quickly stood to brush off what sand they could and don their still-damp clothing.
“Yes Imekari-Rasaan.”
Struggle is an illusion.
He trailed behind them at a more sedate pace as they raced from the beach, white sand kicked up in shining arcs by their heels. Their laughter became distant as they crashed through the emerald jungle growth, cutting through to the main road.
The tide rises, the tide falls.
Rasaan paused at the edge of the jungle and shaded his eyes with one hand as he looked back towards the beach. Already the sea was moving in to erase the signs of their presence that day; it was transient. It did not matter. Both are true.
But the sea is changeless.
The bronze-enameled walls of Qunandar shone in the late afternoon sun as he sped through the wilds after his companions, the promised meal horn echoing through the air over the cries of the gulls as they took wing. At the gates stood his friends, bouncing from foot to foot in impatience, waving their arms and calling for him to hurry. He fought back a smile and, feeling suddenly lighter, ran faster towards them.
There is nothing to struggle against.
Saarebas startled awake, eyes rolling in panic as he grasped the collar around his neck, pulling on it uselessly. The only sound that escaped past his sewn-shut lips was muffled gargling; it became a single quiet moan before it lapsed into nothing. The scent of stale blood, burnt flesh, and acrid gouts of gaatlok fog hung heavy in the air; the customary song of the Seheron jungle’s night insects and howling monkeys was silent.
The weight of Arvaarad’s neatly-hewn corpse was heavy across his chest.
His staff lay in shattered pieces on the scorched ground, haloing around his head.
Arvaarad’s blood had soaked into his clothing, thick and wet and so cold against Saarebas’s skin. Slowly, mindful of his own injuries, he pushed the mangled body off of his own and sat up. He was wrist-deep in rancid mud, churned into a paste with blood and pulverised flesh.
The golden binding rod lay a scant metre from his feet, half-sunken into the mud with a gory red handprint smeared down its centre.
The words of the Qun, half-obscured by the watery moonlight, seemed to stare back at him accusingly from where they were carved on the inside of his mask. The chains hanging from his wrists seemed to clink in the quiet like a warning as he reached out hesitantly. The next karataam patrol would pass in the morning once theirs had failed to report in past moonrise; it would be so easy, then, to have that choice taken from his hands.
Existence is a choice. There is no chaos in the world, only complexity.
And yet…and yet–
Suffering is a choice, and we can refuse it.
There is nothing to struggle against.
The barge sailed into the harbour of Kont-arr with little fanfare and only the slightly-drunken yells of her captain to guide her into her berth. Saarebas remained silent in his darkened corner belowdecks; the voyage across the Venification Sea from Seheron had been too long and too arduous for him to be caught in a Rivaini port and sent back now. He ducked behind a tall stack of crates as the hold door swung open with a loud creak and men poured in to begin emptying it of its burden. With something akin to shock, he recognised other Qunari–Tal-Vashoth–amongst the men, many with their horns hewn off, shouldering the heavy loads silently. This would be easier, then.
He trailed a finger over the heavy metal cord threaded through his lips and paused, knowing it would give him away in a moment.
…he’d just have to be more careful.
It was the work of a moment (and some more subtle magic that he’d had time to practice in the long, dark weeks) to slip in with the Tal-Vashoth, keeping his head bowed low as he heaved a tall stack of bagged rye meal into his arms. The Tal-Vashoth foreman only lifted his chin in acknowledgement and waved Saarebas forward and up the gangplank, pointing towards the bustling harbour and speaking a few words in an odd patois of Qunlat and Rivaini.
Freedom was close enough to smell, and it stank of piss and rancid fish.
This isn’t how it went, a rich voice seemed to whisper in his ear. Languid arms draped over his shoulders as he fell into line with the other labourers, hauling their loads to a waiting warehouse. Just a few moments more, he willed himself, a few hours longer of hiding and then he could escape under the cover of night.
All at once, the bustle of the harbour froze. He bumped into the back of the Tal-Vashoth in front of him and flinched as the other’s head rolled back on a loose neck to regard him with one blank, glowing eye.
You’re being unkind. That same rich, feminine voice spoke again, echoing through the deadened silence. Saarebas stood rooted to the spot as every eye turned to him, glowing with a demon’s light, faces expressionless. After all, haven’t I been listening to you all this time?
The sensation of arms lifted slowly from his shoulders, replaced by the feeling of sharp nails dragging slowly down his back, leaving trails of goosebumps behind. He blinked once and just as suddenly there was a…a woman or something like it in front of him, bare except for her jewelry, giving him a feline smile as she spread her hands over his chest and pressed against him lazily, pink skin flushed.
Wouldn’t it have been nice, she said, watching the glint of her rings as she traced delicate whorls on his collarbone, if it had been this easy?
He stared down at her wordlessly, mind ablaze with panic. She pouted up at him, full lips parting on a tsk.
You’re supposed to say yes, she chided him. She drummed her fingernails on his breastbone in a slow, patient rhythm, tilting her head as if listening to something from far away.
You’re dreaming, you know, she said finally. But you are here, with me. In the Fade. It’s much nicer, other parts of it. I can make it however you like, if you tell me what you want. You want nice dreams, don’t you? I just want to help you.
The harbour flickered, as if the sun had gone out and flashed back on, like a guttering candle flame. In the flashes between the darkness, the ruined buildings smoked and embers of burnt wood glowed red. A child’s abandoned rag doll lay in the middle of the shattered cobblestone street.
No.
Yes, she said quietly, pressing her lips over his heart and trailing her way up his throat, murmuring the words against his lips. I think you do. You didn’t want this to happen, did you? I’ll take it away, if you want me to. I’ll make it so it never happened. You’ll have such lovely dreams then, if you’ll just say yes, if you'll just let me help you.
“You can’t make them alive again,” he heard himself whisper hoarsely. The image of the harbour flickered again as the cobblestones beneath his feet turned into a bubbling mud. He sank into it, knee-deep, unable even to struggle. The demon regarded him with an almost-amused expression as he sank deeper, and cupped his cheek with an almost maternal hand.
No, she agreed. But it’s enough that you want me to.
Sleep well. Wake up. Let me love you next time.
He blinked at the water-stained plaster walls and pushed himself upright from his pallet on the floor. Again with this. He could never tell if drinking the tavern’s swill made the dreams feel closer or further away. Maybe it wasn’t worth it, he decided, if it poisoned him into being unable to move in his own head. But she was getting more insistent every time she appeared.
He closed his hand into a tight fist, almost wincing as a crackle of static electricity sparked across his knuckles in bright purple. More bothered than he thought, then. He took deep breaths as he counted the still-unfamiliar constellations outside the attic room’s opened window, marking the time as mid-evening by the position of the first moon. It wasn’t too late, perhaps, to beg some food off of the tavern’s kitchen elves.
It was unusually loud in the common area as he made his way downstairs and took a seat at the bar as unobtrusively as someone his size could; the benefit was, however, that his being so massive generally tended to discourage all but the most determined of brawlers. The general uproar tonight seemed to be over a newcomer at the gaming tables, earning a king’s ransom in bets over whatever bas card game the humans were playing.
(As an unspoken rule, only the humans were allowed at the gaming tables. The elves huddled together in one far corner, with a careful space separating the city elves from the Dalish. A handful of dwarves gathered around another table, regarding each other with what looked like suspicion as they poured each other drinks. Odd.)
Easy enough to ignore them when they all seemed to be yelling in the fluid tones of Orlesian. He could hear some Ferelden threaded throughout, but he was barely fluent enough to ask for food and board as it was. The gaming party grew louder and more bawdy, switching from cards to darts to some form of drunken charades as he worked his way slowly through the cook’s terrible stale bread and even worse stewed…something. Nug?
The shouting worked its way into a fever-pitch until very suddenly, a thrown tankard smashed into the side of his head, showering him with stale beer.
“Oh fuck,” someone said distinctly.
What: Learning how to be (and not even necessarily how to be a person) is a long, arduous process.
When: 2 years prior to the Conclave
Where: Qunandar, then Seheron, featuring a brief pit stop in Rivain, and making our debut in some nameless Orlesian tavern
Rating: PG-13 because desire demons and also PUNCHING PEOPLE
Status: Ongoing
The waters of the small bay were womb-heat warm, shiningly kissed by Qunandar’s sun: a harsh, all-seeing eye set in sapphire.
Through the thick jungle overgrowth, the peaks of the old pyramids loomed, acting as a sundial to count away the hours. Imekari glanced at them from time to time, his already more nervy temperament making him more anxious as each hour lazily passed in the summer heat.
“Should we not go back?” he fretted to his two companions where they were stretched out on the sand. The two of them were naked from their most recent swim, sunning themselves like lizards. The largest of the trio lifted her head long enough to shake the sand from the ridges where her horns were growing in and rolled over to fix him with a hard stare.
“Don’t be so gutless, Imekari-Raas,” she said scornfully. “We’ll be in well before the meal horn sings and you’ll have your bread.”
“I’m not–” he began heatedly, “I don’t–”
He deflated in defeat and looked to their other companion imploringly. The final of their number had sat up, watching the two of them with dark eyes, his initiate markings glowing in the sun. He caught a handful of sand in his fist and let it trickle between his fingers as he sat silent, admiring the contrast between the bone white sand and his own copper-dark skin.
“We will go,” the initiate decided. The other two exchanged a heavy, almost reverent glance as they quickly stood to brush off what sand they could and don their still-damp clothing.
“Yes Imekari-Rasaan.”
Struggle is an illusion.
He trailed behind them at a more sedate pace as they raced from the beach, white sand kicked up in shining arcs by their heels. Their laughter became distant as they crashed through the emerald jungle growth, cutting through to the main road.
The tide rises, the tide falls.
Rasaan paused at the edge of the jungle and shaded his eyes with one hand as he looked back towards the beach. Already the sea was moving in to erase the signs of their presence that day; it was transient. It did not matter. Both are true.
But the sea is changeless.
The bronze-enameled walls of Qunandar shone in the late afternoon sun as he sped through the wilds after his companions, the promised meal horn echoing through the air over the cries of the gulls as they took wing. At the gates stood his friends, bouncing from foot to foot in impatience, waving their arms and calling for him to hurry. He fought back a smile and, feeling suddenly lighter, ran faster towards them.
There is nothing to struggle against.
Saarebas startled awake, eyes rolling in panic as he grasped the collar around his neck, pulling on it uselessly. The only sound that escaped past his sewn-shut lips was muffled gargling; it became a single quiet moan before it lapsed into nothing. The scent of stale blood, burnt flesh, and acrid gouts of gaatlok fog hung heavy in the air; the customary song of the Seheron jungle’s night insects and howling monkeys was silent.
The weight of Arvaarad’s neatly-hewn corpse was heavy across his chest.
His staff lay in shattered pieces on the scorched ground, haloing around his head.
Arvaarad’s blood had soaked into his clothing, thick and wet and so cold against Saarebas’s skin. Slowly, mindful of his own injuries, he pushed the mangled body off of his own and sat up. He was wrist-deep in rancid mud, churned into a paste with blood and pulverised flesh.
The golden binding rod lay a scant metre from his feet, half-sunken into the mud with a gory red handprint smeared down its centre.
The words of the Qun, half-obscured by the watery moonlight, seemed to stare back at him accusingly from where they were carved on the inside of his mask. The chains hanging from his wrists seemed to clink in the quiet like a warning as he reached out hesitantly. The next karataam patrol would pass in the morning once theirs had failed to report in past moonrise; it would be so easy, then, to have that choice taken from his hands.
Existence is a choice. There is no chaos in the world, only complexity.
And yet…and yet–
Suffering is a choice, and we can refuse it.
There is nothing to struggle against.
The barge sailed into the harbour of Kont-arr with little fanfare and only the slightly-drunken yells of her captain to guide her into her berth. Saarebas remained silent in his darkened corner belowdecks; the voyage across the Venification Sea from Seheron had been too long and too arduous for him to be caught in a Rivaini port and sent back now. He ducked behind a tall stack of crates as the hold door swung open with a loud creak and men poured in to begin emptying it of its burden. With something akin to shock, he recognised other Qunari–Tal-Vashoth–amongst the men, many with their horns hewn off, shouldering the heavy loads silently. This would be easier, then.
He trailed a finger over the heavy metal cord threaded through his lips and paused, knowing it would give him away in a moment.
…he’d just have to be more careful.
It was the work of a moment (and some more subtle magic that he’d had time to practice in the long, dark weeks) to slip in with the Tal-Vashoth, keeping his head bowed low as he heaved a tall stack of bagged rye meal into his arms. The Tal-Vashoth foreman only lifted his chin in acknowledgement and waved Saarebas forward and up the gangplank, pointing towards the bustling harbour and speaking a few words in an odd patois of Qunlat and Rivaini.
Freedom was close enough to smell, and it stank of piss and rancid fish.
This isn’t how it went, a rich voice seemed to whisper in his ear. Languid arms draped over his shoulders as he fell into line with the other labourers, hauling their loads to a waiting warehouse. Just a few moments more, he willed himself, a few hours longer of hiding and then he could escape under the cover of night.
All at once, the bustle of the harbour froze. He bumped into the back of the Tal-Vashoth in front of him and flinched as the other’s head rolled back on a loose neck to regard him with one blank, glowing eye.
You’re being unkind. That same rich, feminine voice spoke again, echoing through the deadened silence. Saarebas stood rooted to the spot as every eye turned to him, glowing with a demon’s light, faces expressionless. After all, haven’t I been listening to you all this time?
The sensation of arms lifted slowly from his shoulders, replaced by the feeling of sharp nails dragging slowly down his back, leaving trails of goosebumps behind. He blinked once and just as suddenly there was a…a woman or something like it in front of him, bare except for her jewelry, giving him a feline smile as she spread her hands over his chest and pressed against him lazily, pink skin flushed.
Wouldn’t it have been nice, she said, watching the glint of her rings as she traced delicate whorls on his collarbone, if it had been this easy?
He stared down at her wordlessly, mind ablaze with panic. She pouted up at him, full lips parting on a tsk.
You’re supposed to say yes, she chided him. She drummed her fingernails on his breastbone in a slow, patient rhythm, tilting her head as if listening to something from far away.
You’re dreaming, you know, she said finally. But you are here, with me. In the Fade. It’s much nicer, other parts of it. I can make it however you like, if you tell me what you want. You want nice dreams, don’t you? I just want to help you.
The harbour flickered, as if the sun had gone out and flashed back on, like a guttering candle flame. In the flashes between the darkness, the ruined buildings smoked and embers of burnt wood glowed red. A child’s abandoned rag doll lay in the middle of the shattered cobblestone street.
No.
Yes, she said quietly, pressing her lips over his heart and trailing her way up his throat, murmuring the words against his lips. I think you do. You didn’t want this to happen, did you? I’ll take it away, if you want me to. I’ll make it so it never happened. You’ll have such lovely dreams then, if you’ll just say yes, if you'll just let me help you.
“You can’t make them alive again,” he heard himself whisper hoarsely. The image of the harbour flickered again as the cobblestones beneath his feet turned into a bubbling mud. He sank into it, knee-deep, unable even to struggle. The demon regarded him with an almost-amused expression as he sank deeper, and cupped his cheek with an almost maternal hand.
No, she agreed. But it’s enough that you want me to.
Sleep well. Wake up. Let me love you next time.
He blinked at the water-stained plaster walls and pushed himself upright from his pallet on the floor. Again with this. He could never tell if drinking the tavern’s swill made the dreams feel closer or further away. Maybe it wasn’t worth it, he decided, if it poisoned him into being unable to move in his own head. But she was getting more insistent every time she appeared.
He closed his hand into a tight fist, almost wincing as a crackle of static electricity sparked across his knuckles in bright purple. More bothered than he thought, then. He took deep breaths as he counted the still-unfamiliar constellations outside the attic room’s opened window, marking the time as mid-evening by the position of the first moon. It wasn’t too late, perhaps, to beg some food off of the tavern’s kitchen elves.
It was unusually loud in the common area as he made his way downstairs and took a seat at the bar as unobtrusively as someone his size could; the benefit was, however, that his being so massive generally tended to discourage all but the most determined of brawlers. The general uproar tonight seemed to be over a newcomer at the gaming tables, earning a king’s ransom in bets over whatever bas card game the humans were playing.
(As an unspoken rule, only the humans were allowed at the gaming tables. The elves huddled together in one far corner, with a careful space separating the city elves from the Dalish. A handful of dwarves gathered around another table, regarding each other with what looked like suspicion as they poured each other drinks. Odd.)
Easy enough to ignore them when they all seemed to be yelling in the fluid tones of Orlesian. He could hear some Ferelden threaded throughout, but he was barely fluent enough to ask for food and board as it was. The gaming party grew louder and more bawdy, switching from cards to darts to some form of drunken charades as he worked his way slowly through the cook’s terrible stale bread and even worse stewed…something. Nug?
The shouting worked its way into a fever-pitch until very suddenly, a thrown tankard smashed into the side of his head, showering him with stale beer.
“Oh fuck,” someone said distinctly.