Private What Dreams May Come

[Gerwald Lechner]

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WEARING: xxx
ALLIES: Naedira Darcrath

A force storm had been his undoing. Gerwald had tried to counter a storm that had carried the scent of the force with it. A powerful being had conjured something which had been directed toward the ship he had been on. The Maw had determined that none would escape, and had been willing to go to lengths which the lupine could not comprehend nor justify. He had thought he knew true evil, but it seemed he had been wrong.

A scream echoed in his mind as he lay in the medical ward of the Ventress. He was unresponsive. Vital signs seemed to indicate that something of the wolf remained alive, but even they were minimal. For now it seemed as though the machines were keeping him from slipping away entirely as the medical team frantically tried to deduce what it was that had caused the Lord Commander to slip into a comatose state.

The lupine had summoned his own storm. It was the scream that still echoed in his mind. While he was not aware of the world around him, something else was taking place. Gerwald was not simply comatose, but he was between worlds. Trapped somewhere, a purgatory of sorts. He had long given up on the religious superstitions of his home world after the learning of the Force, yet he found himself in a holding place.

Ironic.

There was nothing special about it, other than it was too familiar. The dark solitude was something the wolf knew all too well. It was damp, and yet everything was dry. He could feel the cold, and yet his blood almost boiled inside his veins. The sensation that something… someone… was there with him, and yet when he looked, Gerwald was alone.

He ran.

It was the dream which seemed to always haunt him, and yet for once it did not feel like a dream. The urgency that he needed to move or fall victim to something beyond his ability to best took over his senses. It was rare that the predator himself ran from danger. After all, he had killed a shamunaar to protect the Knights who attended the celebration of his ascension to Lord Commander. The beast was certainly a formidable one, but something about the place where Gerwald found himself, it made him fear.

The wolf steeled his nerves as his feet finally came to a stop. If this was where duty had finally led him, Gerwald had to face it with confidence. How many times had he wished for death to take him. The lupine had seen so many sacrifice to keep him alive, and with every battle, Gerwald had longed for the moment when it would finally be his right to lay down his life for others.

Why?

He had grown tired of watching others die so he might live. It was not simply duty which led others to do so. Some had made the sacrifice because duty demanded it, but others had done it out of some sense of loyalty which Gerwald seemed to inspire. It was exhausting to think that he was worth such loyalty. When had the day come when Gerwald’s life seemed to have more value than another. He had never liked the implications of those sacrifices.

Whatever was waiting for him, whoever was waiting for him. Gerwald would face it all knowing he had fulfilled his duty. His death had seen every promise kept, save one.

One promise… his first. Leaving it unfulfilled would torture him in death, but at least he had laid out plans for another to carry that duty. His only regret would be that he did not live to see her freed.

“Show yourself then… It is time I face this once and for all.”
​

 

[Naedira Darcrath]

The veil was thin.

From the depths of her domain she moved, pulling, tearing, and clawing her way through the Noćna Mora as one would pull themselves free of a thousand chains. They held her trapped. She, held them. They followed in her shadow and the Sith Poison they excreted had left marks on the tatters of her soul that could never be removed. What was left of her was held together by the grace of the Force and something beyond that; A darkness, that pulled.​

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The violence of her passing. Perhaps, it was the death of the boy. The one the Devourer took.​

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His sacrifice was her salvation. It caused the Noćna to split their focus. It gave her a way in while he brought unthinkable chinks in their armor. It let her fashion protection from their hide. Weapons, of their charred bones. How deeply they obeyed her now. Symbiosis.​

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Auburn tresses flowed with the flame of the Devourer and shining topaz eyes landed on the form of a man. He should not be here. In this place. This world between worlds. Delicate hips swayed when he called to her from the mists like a craven thing. Who was he to make demands of her? Who was he to disturb her from her duties? She could not leave the Noćna unattended—Not for long.​

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They were always looking for a way back. Always.​

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“You have come to me—Not the other way around.”​

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Her gifts were a unique mix of the Force and something new. A black magic that the Devourers craved. She could hear them singing. Ever speaking, telepathically, in the deep bass tongue that spoke of limitless age and a keening wail for power. Even when they were not present their thoughts could be felt in her bones. She could summon them, if she wished, at will. “You should not be here, Gerwald.”​

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It was a repeat of words he had heard several times before. He had a way of being in places he should not be. Of pressing into matters, especially, her own affairs. She had accepted her state. Her position. She would only last as long as her strength could hold out against the tide of the beasts that called her their own. The curse that the Mountain had made had been warped.​

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He bound her to the Mora. Now, she was well and truly.​

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“You are sleeping. Wake up.”​

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Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

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WEARING: xxx
ALLIES: Naedira Darcrath

HER voice was not what he had expected to hear. Gerwald’s icy blue gaze took in the woman as her hips swayed with every step forward. She was different here, different than the last time they had met. The wolf could feel it eminanting from her, a raw and exotic strength she did not possess in life. Even her hair seemed changed. It was Naedira, and yet, it was not.

“You should not be here, Gerwald.”

He had heard those words many times frome her. When would she realize that these encounters were not of his making? There had been times when she crossed a thin veil to reach out to him, to another. She had helped them on Naalol. Her words had given him the confidence to step into his role as the Lord Commander. They were still connected, somehow, even in her death.

“I woke up here,” he said as his only retort, moving closer to her.

The wolf had expected to fight the Nocna Mora. All logic had convinced him it was the beast that chased him in his nightmares. Had it been her all along? It was a mystery that Gerwald wanted the answers to. His curiosity would demand satisfaction, and there would be no leaving without it. Yes, the lupine understood she had accepted her fate. Even now she remained out of a sense of duty. Yet, Gerwald could still remember her request. She did want to live. She had wanted to be free.

“You are sleeping. Wake up.”

He shook his head.

“No, not sleeping. Not this time.”

His answer came with a rush of memories, ones that seemed to play about in the darkness between them. She would see Rhand and the battle which had been fought. It was a blur, moving quickly as though someone were advancing to the only moment that mattered.

The Force Storm.

It had threatened to destroy the ship, and what lives they had been able to spare. Gerwald had saved them by fighting one storm with another. The effort had taken every ounce of strength the wolf had to offer before everything had gone black. He was not because he had found a way in.

Gerwald was there because he was dying.

Perhaps he was there to make a choice, to face something he did not wish. It was here in this moment, that he was neither living nor dead, and the lupine would have to decide. Naedira wanted him to wake up. It brought a playful smirk to his face as the wolf let out a small chuckle thinking about it once more.

“This place is more familiar to me than you know. Ever since you died, this place has haunted my dreams. The darkness, the damp yet dry air, the heat which bites like a cold winter. And always… there is a sense of something… someone chasing me.”

He grew quiet for a moment.

“No, I am not sleeping. This is more real than any dream. In all my dreams I would wake up before I could see what was chasing me…”

She had called him by name, and without hesitancy. The thought dawned on Gerwald that in that moment, Naedira knew who he was. This was not like their other meetings.

“...If I was dreaming you would not be here.”
​

 

[Naedira Darcrath]

The armor she wore fit her form like a glove. A second skin, made of those who held her, who kept her, and now who called her their own. The break-in reality that had spawned the Mora back to the waking world had taken its toll. The attempt to break the tether on Naalol. The attempt to destroy her ring. It only made them stronger. Made the curse, the violence, more complete. Her hair swayed despite her stillness and the raised flickers of living flame licked along the side of a seemingly heart-shaped face.

“I have warned you. Do not make me repeat myself. They—”

She flickered. Almost, like a holo-vid that had been played too many times. Pixelated. She tapped her temple. “They are here.”

He claimed that he awoke in this pitiless shard of fate and a dark laugh pulled from nigh sinful lips. She was not exactly the she he had known. Nor, was she not that woman. She was something else. She laughed slowly. The sound echoed in the chamber, the voice her own, and yet that of the Devourer. It filled her sluggish heart and spilled from her like water from a sieve. “Wrong. You did not wake, here.”

His memories came to her in a wave and she scowled. They were unfocused. It left her breathless. Jumbled. The shattered glass in the sky of her home would whirl in malcontent if it knew. Here…It could not reach her. Not now, not yet. The Mora would know of her weakness. Her inability to keep him from their mind. The slashing roars, anger, would be punishing.

She locked him out.

“You possess not the skill, nor the strength, to remain in my mind. You sleep, Lord Commander. We are of the in-between. I can smell the dream.”

His looming, perhaps impending demise, failed to elicit a response. Naedira would have howled in agony at the notion of his passing, but this being, could only look at it with careful, simple, skepticism. They knew what they knew. Felt what they felt. “If you die—It’s because you decided it would be so.”

Sacrifice. Naedira had died, because, she chose to.

Would Gerwald make that same mistake?

His laugh and following review of their current situation caused the woman to come nearer. She moved as if her every muscle had become honed to the furthest extent, svelte, and as smooth as a chill that ran down the spine. “How do you propose to know what may come in a dream? Why do you think that a dream is no less real than the world you call home?”

“The tether binds us. You sleep—And you have come to me.”

She was not as she was. Her memory, fragmented, had picked itself up. It was not whole…But it was not the scattered holes he would expect. Topaz eyes followed the line of his form and she reached out with a pale hand. It rest against his chest, soft, though he would feel a less than subtle warmth. It was the might of the Devourer, twisting, and writhing against her human frailty.

“Be gone.”
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Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

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WEARING: xxx
ALLIES: Naedira Darcrath

Gerwald’s nostrils flared at her warning. It was paired with something that he could only interpret as a threat. Every time they had met, every time he crossed into the realm where Naedira had decided he did not belong, she was always telling him to leave. There was always a threat. She had decided he needed to be protected when she offered herself on Taanab. It had been for the many, not just him, but had it truly been her decision to make? Gerwald had experienced much since Naalol. A squire who had stubbornly not allowed him to offer his life in her place. It had taught him that sacrifice was not as cut and dry as it seemed.

Naedira was constantly trying to keep him away, keep him out of the hands of the beast which tormented her. She would hate to hear it, but it was no longer her duty or decision. There was something else about her which caused the embers of rage to spark within the lupine. She was herself, and yet she was not. Gerwald had heard her voice clearly, but the way she spoke, how she commanded him, it was different. The woman he knew had always been firm, but she handled it with a gentle grace that could make mountains tremble. Now her speech was… primal. Her demands were given in such a condescending manner that the wolf knew what the man did not want to admit.

His head shook, the long mane of his hair free from whatever bind he kept in usually. It was rare anyone would see the Lord Commander with his hair down, but Naedira had never been just anyone. It was why he would always try and take every opportunity presented to keep the promise he had made to her. If this was another, he would seize it.

“Perhaps not, and yet here I am, nor of my choice.”

She knew he did not simply will himself to where they stood. If Gerwald had held that power the woman he loved would be free from the tether that kept her bound. The life she wanted to live would be hers once more. He may not have been in her mind, or in her domain, but the lupine was not in a world of his own making either.

It seemed she could read his thoughts in this place, or some of them. If he died it would be his choice. Her revelation elicited a chuckle, one which found humor in the way she stated the obvious. Yet, that was the crux of why he was here. Gerwald had to choose.

Life or Death.

The wolf nodded slowly. “I know.”

His answer had likely been the first serious thing he had truly admitted to the woman that seemed like any sort of agreement or common ground between them. He knew why he was there, and yet it did not seem so simple. There had to be another reason he was there. Naedira’s presence had to mean something, it had to have a purpose. She had to be more than the face of some mystical guide to walk him through whatever things lay between him and choosing to return to the land of the living.

Gerwald needed it to be so.

A low rumbling echo paired with her voice. Someone else spoke with her, as her, as if they were one. It was unmistakably familiar. He knew it from Naalol. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as Gerwald understood what was happening, why she was not herself, and yet, she was. She spoke once more, and the wolf listened, separating the distinct voices which danced about in his ears. Even in this plane Gerwald’s hearing was sharp. He tried to focus on her, but they were truly one.

“I do not purpose to know anything about this place or this dream, yet now I understand more. If I come here when I sleep… then the ring is not the only tether you have to my world.”

Right or wrong. Her words had made Gerwald believe it to be so. He was not an expert on how a force bond worked, but they were connected, and if he could find her in this place…

...he would find her prison.

Her hand rested on Gerwald’s chest, the touch washing away whatever burden the Lord Commander had been carrying. She had always had that effect on him ever since she had joined their minds on the day they met. She had fought as him, and he had fought knowing her. The battle meld they had shared carried much further than it had ever been intended to. He could not lie to her, but she could not fool him either.

His sapphire gaze searched hers when she spoke her command.

Be gone.

Yet he still stood in front of her.

His own hand reached for her, settling on her cheek. His eyes did not part from hers as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. It was time for him to speak a truth that he had known for some time.

“You would command your Lord Commander? You keep saying you are dead, and yet the Mountain made it so you were not. You are, but you are not.”

With every bit of truth, Gerwald would speak his next words. Oh, he knew she would likely have some retort or reply to what he was about to say, but she had to understand.

“Saving you from it is my duty to you as much as keeping me from it is yours to me.”

She had given a command, and he would make a demand of her.

“Let me fulfill my duty.”
​

 

[Naedira Darcrath]

Tempestuous.

Rebellious.

Dark eyes that were filled with black fire, slashed with topaz, seemed to evaluate the lupine more thoroughly than he had ever been before. As if at that moment she could summon the value of his true worth in a few mere seconds. As if, within such a gaze, he could see eternity. The cosmos as they moved, on and on, without any thought to the life that burned into existence and winked out just as quickly. There was recognition in her expression. “…You must leave.”


He didn’t understand. He would never. How could he?

The Sith poison that rolled in her veins made everything feel as if it were spinning on another plane of existence. That included the wayward wolf that stood before her. He claimed to know, yet, he did not know. What did he plan to do? Stay? Stay here? In a place that could crumble into nothing by the time the new moon broke dawn? She would return, to the Devourer. He would be lost. Traveling, walking, wandering the mists alone for all time. Unable to rest. Never, not truly.

“The ring is my binding. My vow—My curse.”

She knew what it was that he was trying to imply. She knew, deep down, that he reached for her through the vestiges of a Force Bond that had been whittled to cobwebs and ash by the torment of the Mora. The Mountain had beat it out of her. The Mora made sure it couldn’t find her. Made sure that he couldn’t find her. She searched for the words, but fell short when his hand rest on her cheek. The soft-touch was disconcerting. It had been too long since she had felt anything other than impact. Fire. Shards of glass that sliced skin to ribbons.

Tendrils of flame ran along the back of his hand, though, he would remain unburnt. He was relieved by her presence. By her nearness. He smiled. She frowned. The words that followed caused her to freeze in place. For a long moment, she would remain unmoving, save, for the constant ebb and flow of the fire-touched crown that adorned auburn tresses. “…You were not my Lord Commander.”

Not on the Fortressa. He was not. Not then. Now, she was a Knight no longer. She was as they willed her to be. Her form shifted closer still and her palm pressed harder against him while she began to animate once more. The topaz shades in her eyes flickered with fervor and her face neared his in deliberate defiance. He could not save Naedira. There was nothing left to save.

“You cannot save yourself. You are here—Lost, wayward.”, she pressed out between thinned lips that would reveal the tips of incisors that were entirely too sharp. Too pointed. Not human. “Your duty belongs to that which you left behind. You have no power here.”

The woman leaned near enough that he would note the faint scent of sulfur mixed with something sweet. Rominaria. The gardens outside her childhood home had been full of them. It was just one more memory that circled the drain. One more thing to lose. He would feel the warmth of her being, too hot, almost as if something was boiling beneath the surface of her skin. “Wake, Gerwald.”

“—Or press our patience. Try it, Lord Commander. Command me. We dare you.”

Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

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WEARING: xxx
ALLIES: Naedira Darcrath

Perhaps he did not understand, but Gerwald had to try. Did she not understand that there was nothing which would make him stop? He had tried… on Naalol… tried to destroy the ring, break her tether, and free her from the power of the Nocna Mora. She should have died, Gerwald knew that, but the Mountain had not been content to let her. Naedira was bound to an object, and in turn cursed to be bound to the hellish beast which had hunted her since. But with all things, there had to be a way to defy the curse.

“Why,” he demanded an answer. “I must live, I know my duty. To choose death now would be selfish.”

Gerwald understood plenty, but perhaps he had simply been unwilling to admit the truth. Everything he had done since the day she was torn away from him had all been centered around the bond he had lost. Did she not know how empty life felt, that no matter how hard he tried the place in mind where she had always been remained barren. He was incomplete. How could she not see he was the leader he was because of her.

He may not have been her Lord Commander then. Naedira may not have been a Knight now, but she had shaped the wolf. It had been her influence which set him down the path he had taken.

She made him.

Perhaps she knew, and that was why she kept pushing him to leave. Nothing made sense. He had heard her say once that she wanted to live. Gerwald promised to find a way, and yet every time he appeared she seemed as though she could not be rid of him fast enough.

His touch had not seemed welcome. Something about it bothered her. A soft sigh escaped his lips at the thought she had been tortured to the point that his kindness was unbearable. The wolf was not a soft creature, yet he had only been with her. His mind often recalled the night he knew his true feelings, knew it was not the bond between them that clouded his mind on what they were. Even that night she had tried to spare him the gruesome scene of Eshan. He had to remind her that he was a beast, and yet she brought out a side in him that Gerwald barely knew himself.

Blue eyes turned to regard his hand. It was on fire, yet he did not feel the heat. Her touch, the palm that lay on his chest burned, yet the fire on his hand did not. It threatened to consume him as she came closer. His words had angered her. He knew the truth. Gerwald had been a mere Knight when she perished. His ascension had taken time, beginning by surviving an encounter with the Mountain himself. Had she seen that in his mind as well?

“I am not lost.”

The words came quietly. He was not lost. Gerwald understood where he was, he knew what it was. His dreams had been of the dark world since the day she had passed. He had never understood it until this encounter, but he no more controlled it than she did. Naedira could not banish him, and Gerwald could not leave until he woke up.

That was proving difficult.

She dared him to provoke her. A faint smirk pulled at his lips at the mention of it. Gerwald was not stupid. Even in life Naedira had a reputation for not taking well to commands, even from those who were her superiors. The woman had always performed her duty, but she did not always see every command as justifiable.

“No one commands you,” he stated simply. “I am not dumb enough to try.”

His eyes noticed the point on her teeth. Her scent filled his nostrils. She was something else entirely, and yet, he could still sense the Naedira he had been bound to. He should have seen it sooner. Gerwald knew it, deep down he finally understood. Naedira was like him. While she was not a wolf, her nature was no longer simply human. Was she as much it, as it was her?

He stepped closer, looking into her eyes for the truth. The fire from her hair. Heat which radiated from her and tainted her touch. They were signs of what Gerwald should have noticed sooner, and yet his desire, the duty he perceived, had blinded him to it.

“But I am curious… and I will be satisfied. This place may crumble eventually, but even you cannot expect that I will simply wake on command.”

He paused.

The wolf wanted to press in further. Certainly there were demands he could make, he could try her patience. His hand fell from her cheek as his eyes fell to the ground. They closed for a time as it seemed he became resigned that once again he would fail to find a way to bring her back. Gerwald always chose duty. Every time he chose it.
He did not mean to utter his thoughts, but the question slipped from his lips without filter or restraint.

“Why must it always be a choice between my duty to them and my promise to you? When will that path cross... “

Eyes found hers again.

“I will wake up, there is no doubt what choice I will make. I know you know this. My body will mend, my mind will repair itself, and I will wake up.”

THUD

THUD

THUD​

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