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after the fall
Dec. 10th, 2017 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baguablade[ Cain's slept for days — been unconscious, rather. Just long enough for the dust of Tordhid's fall to settle, for the embers of the kingdom's ruin to cool into ashes. Long enough for him and the rest of the survivors to be carried to safety, far enough away that not even Cain, with the empty, writhing hole of his loss in his chest,would be able to head back to look for his brother. Whatever's left of his brother, surely nothing more than a corpse lying to rot in one of the capital's now-empty streets.
He has no idea what's happened to Leona; all he can imagine is the worst, that she's lying at his brother's cold side, carrion birds picking at them.
The last thing he remembers is a man from his brother's unit bending over him. Shielding him, as blood dripped down the man's face.
Finding out where he is and what's happening is better than staying on his cot, giving in to the miserable swirl of grief that threatens to overwhelm him if he thinks about it (Abel, Leona, Torhid, an entire kingdom of people, everything he's ever known in his life— ) and even with the dizziness that greets him when he stands and the shakiness of his limbs, Cain forces himself to take one step, and then another. He walks out of the tent (temporary, easy to travel with, some distant part of him thinks) and into a refugee camp. All that's left of the kingdom that once ruled Nalhegrande.
It's a relief when someone spots him, ushers him away to get him cleaned up and stuffed into fresh clothes. At least the simple tedium of routine keeps him from thinking, and then he has someone to ask questions of. Questions about what's happened, how he got here, who's leading this ragtag band.
Reinhardtzar. A name only vaguely familiar. Someone his brother (something twinges in his chest) had mentioned from time to time. And the man, he's told, who'd saved Cain's life. Saved Cain and been injured in the process, still recovering from his own wounds.
A simple decision, then, to pay the man a visit. Being the younger brother of one of Torhid's most respected officers still carries some weight, and that and a little bratty refusal to listen to reason soon has Cain slipping into Reinhardtzar's tent to check on his savior.
The man he remembers from Torhid's fall. Of course. It shouldn't be as much of a surprise as it is for the man's face to be so familiar, even without the blood, smoothed by sleep and one eye covered now by a makeshift scrap of cloth. Cain kneels by Reinhardtzar's mattress, reaches for the cloth to lift it, but it's only to confirm what he already knows. His head feels fuzzy, white noise between his ears, a sick lurch of shock as he stares at the red, healing scar over Reinhardtzar's eye.
He doesn't realize he's made a noise until Reinhardtzar's waking, and by then, it's too late to make an escape. ]
He has no idea what's happened to Leona; all he can imagine is the worst, that she's lying at his brother's cold side, carrion birds picking at them.
The last thing he remembers is a man from his brother's unit bending over him. Shielding him, as blood dripped down the man's face.
Finding out where he is and what's happening is better than staying on his cot, giving in to the miserable swirl of grief that threatens to overwhelm him if he thinks about it (Abel, Leona, Torhid, an entire kingdom of people, everything he's ever known in his life— ) and even with the dizziness that greets him when he stands and the shakiness of his limbs, Cain forces himself to take one step, and then another. He walks out of the tent (temporary, easy to travel with, some distant part of him thinks) and into a refugee camp. All that's left of the kingdom that once ruled Nalhegrande.
It's a relief when someone spots him, ushers him away to get him cleaned up and stuffed into fresh clothes. At least the simple tedium of routine keeps him from thinking, and then he has someone to ask questions of. Questions about what's happened, how he got here, who's leading this ragtag band.
Reinhardtzar. A name only vaguely familiar. Someone his brother (something twinges in his chest) had mentioned from time to time. And the man, he's told, who'd saved Cain's life. Saved Cain and been injured in the process, still recovering from his own wounds.
A simple decision, then, to pay the man a visit. Being the younger brother of one of Torhid's most respected officers still carries some weight, and that and a little bratty refusal to listen to reason soon has Cain slipping into Reinhardtzar's tent to check on his savior.
The man he remembers from Torhid's fall. Of course. It shouldn't be as much of a surprise as it is for the man's face to be so familiar, even without the blood, smoothed by sleep and one eye covered now by a makeshift scrap of cloth. Cain kneels by Reinhardtzar's mattress, reaches for the cloth to lift it, but it's only to confirm what he already knows. His head feels fuzzy, white noise between his ears, a sick lurch of shock as he stares at the red, healing scar over Reinhardtzar's eye.
He doesn't realize he's made a noise until Reinhardtzar's waking, and by then, it's too late to make an escape. ]
