#ninjas writing
Imagine if PoF had happened before HoT. Mainly, imagine Trahearne coming off the ship, to find the Commanders body after the departing. Imagine him dropping to his knees with an earth shattering keen as he finds them, twisted beyond recognition, burned to a lump, and swears to the shattered armour that he will show that impostor of a God what real fury looks like.
Imagine his reaction when the Commanders chest stretches with breath, as they gasp and choke as they come to. As he cradles them as they ask about Aurene and stagger to their feet, him holding them up as they did for him in Orr
Damnit Sole!
Kasmeer teleports them to the smouldering and smoke covered pillar of rock and the first thing that greets Trahearne is the colour of dark grey smoke.
The second thing to greet him is the smell.
Thick and choking.
Tear summoning and gag inducing.
Stomach turning and hope plummeting.
The smell of spilt and burnt blood, of overcooked flesh and meat, of melted metal at too high of a heat, of hair caught on fire.
He weezes as he steps away from the teleportation pool and the sound of beating sap drowns out Rytlock’s whine, drowns out Kasmeer’s gagging, drowns out Canach’s swearing, drowns out Vlast’s cry as the Dragon lands.
And for a second, the smoke clears.
The last thing to greet Trahearne is the Commander.
Near ripped in two, charred black skin cracked into tiny sections, hair burnt away, splayed out over blood soaked sand and eyes open but unseeing.
He doesn’t remember screeming.
He doesn’t remember stumbling over.
He doesn’t remember his knees hitting the mixture of sand, glass and blood.
He does remember throwing out one of the few group healing spells he knows.
He does remember gently laying his hands on the Commanders’ cheeks, trying to get unseeing eyes to focus on him.
He remembers thinking “I can raise the dead.”
But after Elona, after the stifling suffocating heat and the shifting of sand underfoot- the smell of smoke and burnt flesh, smooth glass under your fingers-
The Commander, knelt above a body, caldabogh buried to its hilt in flesh. You never miss after all. Maguuma is a writhing mess of colors and rot around you. You don’t notice.
You wait for him to wake up. For him to sputter awake, gasping and choking, chest stretching, that familiar orange and purple glow lighting up the grooves of his skin. You wait for him to smile at you and call you his Commander again.
You wait for a very long time.
(Canach pulls you to your feet and holds you up and away, and it’s not the same.)
You’re trecking over the sand and rock of the Silverwastes chasing after Caithe who ran off to an unknown location with the Dragons Egg -with Vlast’s younger sibling- when the communicator Taimi made crackles to life.
You wince at the sudden noise and it takes you a few seconds to register what the noise is.
Screams and panic.
Orders and fear.
Wood and metal being torn apart.
People choking on blood and lack of air.
Claims of betrayal.
The “In coming!” from Logan.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Your heart rate picks up and shakily, you activate your communicator and you start running through names.
Taimi.
Kasmeer.
Marjory.
Rox.
Braham.
Eir.
Logan.
Zojja.
Rytlock.
…Trahearne…
You get no answer.
You don’t know this (you will never know this) but in another world, Trahearne didn’t hesistate. There had been no tremble to his voice as he asked you to cut him down.
(And you, his commander, the tremble in your voice only outmatched by that in your hands.)
In this world, Trahearne carries with him the memory of Vlast, dead in the sand- the sheer loss and longing he’d felt listening to their final messages. Of him and the commander, sitting shoulder to shoulder, knees touching, as he held those crystals in his hands and wondered at the kinship. I would have liked the company, Vlast had said, and he’d been able to envision it all too well.
In this world, Trahearne remembers thinking he’d have to bury his best friend. Of the agony, the years stretching out in front of him without respite, decades upon decades. Looking at photographs and knowing, down to his core, that this is all he has left of them. Of you. You’ve gone somewhere he can’t reach, and now there’s one chair at the table as opposed to two.
And you came back. But he still remembers that grief, the loss that dug its claws into him. In the nights after Elona, he’d seeked you out more than once. Shared your bed, laid his ear to your back and listened to the steady beat of your heart until he could breathe again.
So in this world, he hesistates. There is a terrible emotion in his eyes as he collects himself, Mordremoth’s influence a cacophony of whispers.
In this world, before he tells you to kill him- Trahearne tells you he loves you.
Balthazar hands isn’t the first death you suffer - but you don’t know that, you always forget dying via oozzies, via ogars, via wildlife, via falling- and it isn’t the last.
Joko kills you in front of Braham and Taimi over and over and over and over, each death more violent, more gore filled, more disparate as Joko’s plan to make you his falls apart with each breath you end up taking.
-hydra, sandsharks, djinn, the forged, the awakened, you die to them too, but you don’t remember any of them-
You die in Thunderhead Keep along side Vlast, your body riddled with brand were it’s passes through the young dragon who died protecting you.
-you die on your way to kill Dhuum and Qadim, a number of times, but you forget and forget and forget-
Mad King Thorn kills you, the madness, the loneliness is what makes you let him.
-the inquest get their hands on you and you don’t remember the amount of times you die in the labs, but you do remember them threatening Tiami-
You die in Lions Arch -as Scarlet tears the city apart- pushing a young cub out from under a falling ship and you awaken to the sounds of the cub crying and claws scratching at wood.
-you fall to pocket raptors and to once allies stabbing you in the back and to frogs and to mushrooms and poison and insects as you track over the jungle, but you don’t remember any of them-
Trahearne isn’t the only one to die with the words of love on his lips and his heart stabbed through.
You do as well.
Imagine if PoF had happened before HoT. Mainly, imagine Trahearne coming off the ship, to find the Commanders body after the departing. Imagine him dropping to his knees with an earth shattering keen as he finds them, twisted beyond recognition, burned to a lump, and swears to the shattered armour that he will show that impostor of a God what real fury looks like.
Imagine his reaction when the Commanders chest stretches with breath, as they gasp and choke as they come to. As he cradles them as they ask about Aurene and stagger to their feet, him holding them up as they did for him in Orr
Damnit Sole!
Kasmeer teleports them to the smouldering and smoke covered pillar of rock and the first thing that greets Trahearne is the colour of dark grey smoke.
The second thing to greet him is the smell.
Thick and choking.
Tear summoning and gag inducing.
Stomach turning and hope plummeting.
The smell of spilt and burnt blood, of overcooked flesh and meat, of melted metal at too high of a heat, of hair caught on fire.
He weezes as he steps away from the teleportation pool and the sound of beating sap drowns out Rytlock’s whine, drowns out Kasmeer’s gagging, drowns out Canach’s swearing, drowns out Vlast’s cry as the Dragon lands.
And for a second, the smoke clears.
The last thing to greet Trahearne is the Commander.
Near ripped in two, charred black skin cracked into tiny sections, hair burnt away, splayed out over blood soaked sand and eyes open but unseeing.
He doesn’t remember screeming.
He doesn’t remember stumbling over.
He doesn’t remember his knees hitting the mixture of sand, glass and blood.
He does remember throwing out one of the few group healing spells he knows.
He does remember gently laying his hands on the Commanders’ cheeks, trying to get unseeing eyes to focus on him.
He remembers thinking “I can raise the dead.”
But after Elona, after the stifling suffocating heat and the shifting of sand underfoot- the smell of smoke and burnt flesh, smooth glass under your fingers-
The Commander, knelt above a body, caldabogh buried to its hilt in flesh. You never miss after all. Maguuma is a writhing mess of colors and rot around you. You don’t notice.
You wait for him to wake up. For him to sputter awake, gasping and choking, chest stretching, that familiar orange and purple glow lighting up the grooves of his skin. You wait for him to smile at you and call you his Commander again.
You wait for a very long time.
(Canach pulls you to your feet and holds you up and away, and it’s not the same.)
You’re trecking over the sand and rock of the Silverwastes chasing after Caithe who ran off to an unknown location with the Dragons Egg -with Vlast’s younger sibling- when the communicator Taimi made crackles to life.
You wince at the sudden noise and it takes you a few seconds to register what the noise is.
Screams and panic.
Orders and fear.
Wood and metal being torn apart.
People choking on blood and lack of air.
Claims of betrayal.
The “In coming!” from Logan.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Your heart rate picks up and shakily, you activate your communicator and you start running through names.
Taimi.
Kasmeer.
Marjory.
Rox.
Braham.
Eir.
Logan.
Zojja.
Rytlock.
…Trahearne…
You get no answer.
Imagine if PoF had happened before HoT. Mainly, imagine Trahearne coming off the ship, to find the Commanders body after the departing. Imagine him dropping to his knees with an earth shattering keen as he finds them, twisted beyond recognition, burned to a lump, and swears to the shattered armour that he will show that impostor of a God what real fury looks like.
Imagine his reaction when the Commanders chest stretches with breath, as they gasp and choke as they come to. As he cradles them as they ask about Aurene and stagger to their feet, him holding them up as they did for him in Orr
Damnit Sole!
Kasmeer teleports them to the smouldering and smoke covered pillar of rock and the first thing that greets Trahearne is the colour of dark grey smoke.
The second thing to greet him is the smell.
Thick and choking.
Tear summoning and gag inducing.
Stomach turning and hope plummeting.
The smell of spilt and burnt blood, of overcooked flesh and meat, of melted metal at too high of a heat, of hair caught on fire.
He weezes as he steps away from the teleportation pool and the sound of beating sap drowns out Rytlock’s whine, drowns out Kasmeer’s gagging, drowns out Canach’s swearing, drowns out Vlast’s cry as the Dragon lands.
And for a second, the smoke clears.
The last thing to greet Trahearne is the Commander.
Near ripped in two, charred black skin cracked into tiny sections, hair burnt away, splayed out over blood soaked sand and eyes open but unseeing.
He doesn’t remember screeming.
He doesn’t remember stumbling over.
He doesn’t remember his knees hitting the mixture of sand, glass and blood.
He does remember throwing out one of the few group healing spells he knows.
He does remember gently laying his hands on the Commanders’ cheeks, trying to get unseeing eyes to focus on him.
He remembers thinking “I can raise the dead.”
