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I woke with such a start. The smell of damp grass filled my nose and I jerked my head up. I wasn’t on the beach anymore and it was the middle of the night. I sat up to get a better look around and felt a heavy arm slump off of me. I scanned my surroundings and found all, but Bal Vyr, were asleep.The Drow was propped up against a tree reading a book.
“Blackwing, what’s the matter?” Harbinger mumbled as he sat up too. I realized I was panting and in a cold sweat, as though I had been running for some time. The dream flooded back to me. It seemed so incredibly real. And the mix of emotions! It horrified me to think Sven’s circlet had been placed upon my head! How had it gotten there? Yet I got to go home! I hated how happy that made me feel!
Instinctively I reached for my head and examined my hands. No circlet and all ten fingers. I then checked for my tattoos and mark. They were back.
“Hey hey,” the Goliath said gently, rubbing the space between my wings, “It’s alright, I’m here,” he continued to console, “Bad dream?”
I finally looked into his concerned eyes. He really was there and I hugged him tightly thankful he wasn’t gone. After a long embrace, Harbinger rubbing my back, I finally felt I could speak.
“It was so real,” I began, “I had Sven’s circlet on my head, you and everyone else were gone... and I went home!” It was strange saying those things. Sven filled me with anger and terror, while everyone’s absence left me confused, and of course having gone home had me joyful. The conflicting emotions were overwhelming and all I wanted to do was cry because I was confused about how to feel.
“Well, who’s Sven? What’s with his circlet that scares you?” Harbinger asked. I held to the Goliath as the sensation of my head being pierced by the circlet played in my memories.
“It’s a cursed item that bares the soul or power of some being named Sven. The first time I came across the circlet, I thought it was just a token of his power. An item with such strong magicks that it made him nearly invincible. So I placed the circlet upon my head and the cursed contraption latched on, piecing my skull.
“I had just enough sense left in me, before he took control, to call upon a friend for help. As luck would have it, my friend saved me, but just so,” I choked as the image of Gemmel and his battered body came to mind. I never meant to call upon him to save me again, but I did. Always selfless he was.
Harbinger continued to rub my back as I went on, “Anyways, in the dream I had woken up on a tall tower. Below was a town that I have no memory of. Giants walked about and some woman was telling me how the city was lost. She even called me master. I then felt the circlet upon me in my delirium, only this time I was aware.
“Eventually I made my way down the tower to confront the Giants. It turned out they were protecting the town and even tried to help me remove the circlet, but I knew if they did I would die.” The Goliath scoffed, “I know right?” I said, a smile creeping at the corner of my mouth. I figured Harbinger would be disgusted by the idea of ‘nice and helpful’ Giants. “They were so nice even though I accused them of enslaving the people. Goodness, when I had done that they looked at me in such away I felt embarrassed for making such an accusation.”
“They were probably lying to you,” Harbinger stated. I looked at him quizzically.
“I doubt that really matters since it was just a dream,” I reminded him, “There was one Giant that stood out. He was larger than anything I’ve ever beheld. He looked upon the circlet and myself and told me that there was no saving me. I had limited days before the evil came back and controlled me. However despite saying I couldn’t be saved, he sang to me a song,” I sang the song with perfect clarity, “and said ‘if you do this, then you will free yourself of the circlet and never will anything have power over you again.’”
The song danced about my mind as I pondered what came next in the dream. “As much as I didn’t want to do it, I felt strongly that I needed to go home. I tried reasoning with myself, that I knew what he had done and what he had become, but my mind filled with the hope that perhaps all was just a big misunderstanding. So I flew all the way back to the Kingdom.
“When I got there, it was as glorious as I remembered it being,” my chest began to tighten with emotion, “but something was off. It was unusually silent. I could hear the ocean waves below me and the flapping of my wings, but something was amiss. When I got to shore, there wasn’t an animal or Angelic in sight, but that’s as far as I got for I fell to the ground with exhaustion.”
We sat silently for a few minutes. I looked about and was reminded the Drow was awake. However he appeared to be engrossed with his story that I was hopeful he hadn’t heard anything.
“Well,” Harbinger finally said, “It was a curious dream you had. At least this time it wasn’t so random.” I nodded in agreement. The last nightmare I had was so overwhelming in it’s intensity and randomness that though it wasn’t much of anything had me waking in a fit.
“If there’s any meaning to it, my guess would be that you need to go home. Maybe the circlet represents the mark we bear now and we have a deity to seek for help in it’s removal,” Harbinger elaborated.
“But, if that’s what the interpretation of the dream is, it sounds as though I received a vision for us all. What I would want to know is why? I’m not a favored angel among the deities anymore and find it hard to believe that they would give me such a revelation. Surely you’d be the first to gain any spiritual insight if ever any of us were to be guided.”
The Goliath smiled, “You are so unfairly critical of yourself you know,” he said giving me a squeeze.
“It’s truth though. Do you not see the blackness of my wings? The whiteness of my skin? I was cast out without the hope of returning.”
“Maybe,” Harbinger mused, “but time seems to heal old wounds and not every God will hold whatever happened between you and Heironious against you. Quite possibly there’s another deity partitioning for your allegiance.”
I furrowed my brows unconvinced. I kept my silence too, not because I had nothing to say, but rather something peculiar welled up in me. I didn’t want any other God. I wanted Heironious back...
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