Waking Nightmare (RP Story)

[JediMaestro 240]

Waking Nightmare

or

What Matters Most

Spoiler

 

OOC: Please don't metagame :)

 

For the third night in a row, Solveig lay in bed, wide-awake. Before, she had stayed awake mourning what she had lost the day before. Tonight, however, she feared what she might lose in the day after.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Three nights ago, Solveig had slept like a babe. Snuggled up against her snoring husband, Bronadron Callaghan, she hadn’t bothered to sit up and look around their beautiful cottage home.

 

She hadn’t sat out in the family room next to the twins’ room and watched the fireplace, reminiscing on when they had hosted the Prince of Idunia on that very same couch.

 

She hadn’t walked through the kitchen, eyes lingering on the kitchen table where her family had sat for breakfast and dinner every day since it began.

 

She hadn’t walked outside to listen to the murmuring lake or to sit at the little bench where she and Bron had lazed about and cracked jokes and next to which Bron had trained her in the use of a sword.

 

Why would she? This was the house they had shared together for the past ten years. It was the home in which they were watching their children grow up. It was the home in which they would grow old together.

 

And so, bright and early the next morning, Solveig had donned the nun’s habit she wore every day, ate breakfast with the family, and then had headed to Alduun for her duties. As she had picked her way through the dense trees to reach the road, she had not looked back for one last glance at the home of which she had dreamed for as long as she and Bron had planned a future together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Two nights ago, Solveig had tossed and turned fruitlessly in a strange bed in a cramped safehouse in [REDACTED]. Next to her, Bron had been silent: whether due to a sleep of pure exhaustion or whether he too could not sleep, Solveig had not known. She might have spoken up, shared her thoughts and fears with her husband, but only a few feet away, the twins had slumbered peacefully in their own bunk bed, assured by Bron’s jokes and Solveig’s assurances that everything was under control.

 

Despite urging Bron to rest, Solveig had found sleep elusive. Her head had spun with the travails of past, present and future.

 

She had endured an exhausting day: a panicked escape from Idunia with her two children in tow on foot, with Bron having already gone ahead. After having received a letter from Bron and leaving Alduun in a panic (though without being stopped), she had hurried back to Tir-Glas to find the house already packed and moved, with her children, Andor and Muriel, awaiting her return.

 

Off they had went, on foot and carrying nothing. Setting forth on the road towards Petra, Solveig had turned towards Adria and walked along the banks of its gentle river until she had reached its gentlest and narrowest segment. There she had forded the river, lifting the twins above the waist-high water that might otherwise have carried them away. No sooner had they arrived on the other side than Solveig had slowly started to pick her way up steep, snowy hills, stopping now and again to give her children a leg up.

 

She had walked down that long, freezing, Norlandic road, hand-in-hand with the sleepy and confused twins, with the sun swiftly setting and the evening chill setting in. All the way she had gone to the capital, just to find a place where she might send a letter to Bron about finding a place to meet. With the letter sent, she had waited what felt like hours. And then the reunion and then the journey to the safehouse and then the hushed conversations.

 

And yet still, on this night, Solveig hadn’t slept a wink. In that strange silence, she had done all the things she had not done the night prior. In her mind’s eye, she had surveyed each room of the house and walked outside to the lake.

 

Though she had done all of this, Solveig had found it wanting. Their house was forever gone, an artifact of a time now lost, a period in their shared history as idyllic as it had been turbulent. For all their troubles: the secrets they had kept, their continual clash with Iudas and Idunia, their struggle just to live as other families did - yet they had also had the sweetness of shared domesticity, jobs that helped others, loving family. These things, which had once seemed like basic necessities, had now become luxuries for Solveig and her family.

 

It had not been only bitter nostalgia that had kept Solveig awake that night. Though cloistered far beyond the reach of whispers and rumors, Solveig had known how likely it was that hunters already swept the four corners of the continental Empire to find Bron, to punish him for telling Idunia’s leaders an unwelcome truth about its own. She had feared any moment that Bron might find himself given up by traitors or that she might wake to the sounds of their safehouse under siege.

 

Too she had pondered on their future, what a life as fugitives of the High Kingdom might look like. After all, they could not live in a safehouse forever.

 

And though sleep had eluded her the whole night, she had stayed in bed all the while, ruminating.

 

She had not shifted to look upon the face of her sleeping husband.

 

She had not kissed his forehead or put her hand into his.

 

She had not whispered “I love you” into his ear with all the sweetness and sincerity that filled her heart every time she said those words.

 

Why would she? They had made it safely to a safehouse that Solveig knew was borderline unassailable. It was a place that would serve them well for as long as they needed until the Idunians got bored and stopped searching. His was a face she would look upon in delight every day and night of their stay here. Whether here or somewhere else in Azuras, someday they would grow old together.

 

And so, bright and early the next morning, Solveig had risen, quite sleepless, to find the safehouse still safe, to hear her husband’s yawn and the children stirring, to prepare a breakfast of rations and hastily-packed food from the pantry. As Bron had risen and announced he was going to check the mail, Solveig had not glanced up from her play with the children to regard the man she loved more than life itself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

One night ago, Solveig had lain, sobbing, on a bedroll under the stars in [REDACTED]. The children slept safe at a distance from her, closed up behind walls that would obscure the sounds of her desperate crying, allowed the peace that Solveig would now never have, if only for one more night. Only a few hours ago, Solveig had spoken to an old friend, and he had confirmed the worst:

 

Bron was dead.

 

It had been confirmation of what Solveig had already known in her heart since the moment that she had gone out after Bron to the mailbox and found him missing. She had heard from those around that Bron had been snatched by a group of hunters, and her blood had run cold. She had collapsed to her knees then and there, knowing that only one possible fate had awaited the man to whom fate itself had never given any quarter.

 

Despite offers to assist, to take her to the Idunian capital, Solveig had refused, knowing that only death or capture would await her if she was recognized, knowing that her children now depended solely on her for survival. It was with that keen knowledge that she had gained the strength to rise to her feet and return to her children, telling them only as much as would explain away Bron’s absence without causing them to worry.

 

A turbulent day had followed, full of deception and struggle. But all the while, the day had passed like a dream before her eyes for the simple fact that her Bron was now gone: unkissed, unheld, unloved.

 

As she had lain in bed, wracked with grief, she had replayed all of their loveliest memories in her head, held Bron in her arms in her mind’s eye, and rained kisses on his face. And yet, it had comforted her not a whit with the knowledge that Bron was forever gone. What she had come to take for granted - their quiet chats at the kitchen table or surrounded by friends at the tavern at Alduun, their moments teasing and playing with the twins together, the way they would hold each other close - she now would have paid all she had or severed a limb just to experience one more time.

 

After hours of weeping, when her throat had grown raw from the wrenching sobs and her eyes had reddened, when at last she had grown quiet while the night was still dark, she had resolved to no more take things for granted.

 

She had risen from her bed and walked to where the children slept.

 

She had bent over and kissed each twin on the forehead after wiping her eyes free of tears.

 

She had whispered to them softly, “I love you.”

 

Despite all she had lost, despite the enormously heavy cost of this lesson, Solveig would not become so consumed by what had been that she would lose sight of the only precious possessions she still had left: her own children. Though she had longed to die and join Bron wherever his soul found purchase, she had resolved to live for her children, to see them safely to adulthood. And there the matter might have ended: a grim but practical view toward the future, except . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

For the third night in a row, Solveig lay in bed, wide-awake, in a drab but cozy space in [REDACTED]. Across the room, the children dozed in peaceful slumber. And next to her . . . next to her lay Nickolai, the man once known as Bronadron Callaghan, her husband.

 

The matter beggared belief and defied all description. Having sat with her children the rest of the previous tear-soaked night, Solveig had risen, beyond exhausted. Again, the day had begun to pass like a dream as she had striven to remain focused despite her profound lack of sleep. She had met new people, created plans for the future of what her family’s life would look like. But then had come a thunderclap: a letter stating that Bron was alive and well and holed up in the safehouse where they had started this whole sordid affair.

 

In that moment, Solveig had felt terror and confusion. The friend who had told her of Bron’s demise was not one to spin tall tales or to exaggerate: he had told her that, though he had not been allowed near, he had known for a fact that Bron had died with dignity. So what could this letter mean? In Solveig’s view, there had been one likely explanation: a trap set by Magister Iudas to ensnare her and her family and drag them back to Idunia.

 

And though terror had consumed her, a yet more terrifying emotion had glimmered in the corner of her mind: hope. It was beyond reason to believe that he could be alive. Still, love too was beyond reason, and so Solveig had convinced others to come with her, either to fight for their lives against whatever Idunian forces lurked in secret, or else to reunite her with her lost love.

 

There, dozing gently with a peace Solveig had not known in days, had sat the man she had believed dead. Solveig had tearfully reunited with Bron, who, having now experienced Idunian hospitality, had rejected his Idunian name in favor of his birth name: Nickolai. Doubtless he had been pleased to see her, and yet confusion had filled his eyes, for according to him, he had not died, only awoken in a forest after being beaten senseless.

 

It was for this reason that Solveig now feared to let her drooping eyelids fall, despite her entire body screaming out for rest. The past few days had been a waking nightmare for Solveig, in which she had constantly longed to wake up safe and sound in her precious Tir-Glas cottage. But now - now that something altogether inexplicable had happened, now she feared that she would wake up in the same place with the bed empty, a delusion conjured by a deeply wounded mind in desperate need of cheer.

 

Solveig knew that her time was limited. Soon, her body would force her to shut down into sleep, and she would wake up to discover that today’s intoxicating joys had been a fantasy. In this moment, she could not take anything for granted. She had dreamt of cutting off her right hand in exchange for one last touch, one last kiss, one last conversation. Here, she had the chance to earn it for free.

 

Sitting up with some effort, Solveig placed a hand on Nicky’s arm, causing him to stir.

 

“Solveig...” he said sleepily, “Everything ordak?”

 

“It will be. No matter what happens tomorrow. I’ll make sure of it.” Solveig responded gently, staring down at his face, willing the last waking neurons of her brain to etch that memory into stone, to savor no matter what.

 

“Nicky?” she said, tears rising to her eyes.

 

“Hm?” The man was already half-asleep again.

 

“I love you.”

 

“Ea love vy...”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Solveig awoke slowly, blinking as she adjusted to the balmy sunbeams drifting into the room. She turned her head to look next to her.

 

The bed was empty.

 

Mechanically, Solveig rose and dressed herself, heading up the steps to where she could hear the children playing.

 

There, crouching down to giggle with the children, was her own Nickolai, as real as the grass underfoot and the lazy afternoon sun that beamed down on them. Turning, he caught sight of her and broke into a goofy grin, rising to greet her.

 

In her heart of hearts, Solveig knew that she would revisit that terrible place where Bron was still dead in her dreams. It still haunted her in the day, so that she could hardly bear to let Nicky and the children out of her sight. She supposed that she would always be clingier than she used to be, always more prone to bouts of teariness, always tending towards a gloom that she herself could not fully explain, living part of her life in a world where the bed next to her remained empty.

 

And yet, that fear, it would keep her from taking for granted what she ought never to have done. It would remind her every day of what mattered most.

 

There, in the crater of what their life had been, among the seeds of what their life could be, Solveig greeted her family with a hug and a kiss each.

 

And she smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Spoiler

OOC: Whew, what a turbulent and emotionally fraught weekend this was. I won't lie: I experienced a bit of character bleed myself that left me sleepless during the two IRL days that marked Nicky's captivity, so I thought I would play on that in a slightly meta way in recounting what Solveig experienced. I did a fair amount of RP during those days, most of it to an audience of 1 or 2 at most since Solveig was, well, y'know, hiding . . . In my opinion, forum posts are best suited for introspection or character development that a character does on their own, so I mostly kept it focused on Solveig's internal life. Well, that, and I don't trust all of you not to metagame if I had put names of people and places. Hope this was a neat little read that at least sheds some small light on what was going on in the far less public other half of Bron and Solveig's escape. Tir-Glas, I'm gonna miss y'all.

 

Edited March 31 by JediMaestro

[ChainedDragons 1374]

No matter the feelings of the past, Nickolai swallowed the hurt. It was a 'us or them' mentality now. Just like the old days... At least the lessons his papaejs taught him would be of value during this time.

[Nathaniel Maxwell 66]

A peculiar, armored Giant watched on and pondered. For one day at least, good had Triumphed and light prevailed. He could be proud of what he had helped to achieve, if even for only a moment. . .

[Frisket 4538]

“Unbelievable…”

 

”Mistress?”

“ ‘Sighs…ending with a soft groan’ “

 

Vivien had been in the palace staring at the bonfire which the holy Templar knights usually used for ceremonial purposes. Yet within the non fire, she found remenants of skulls, chipped cross guards. This bonfire was fueled by the defeat of their enemies, descendant or not. The High witch was disgusted. Everywhere she went it was some unnecessary death. Whether those who pulled the strings and gave the order claimed such, it did not matter to her.

 

Bron was and could have been an asset to her plans, a proof that cursed children can be redeemed if properly treated. Yet Iudas words resounded in her ear. 
 

“How so?”

 

”For every olive branch we extend, in trust, we see it slapped out of our hands immediately after… How come then Merlin, do you expect us to react?”

 

”Hmm but that isn’t all of them…”

 

”The time to be sure has long passed”

 

it was this conversation that flashed in her eyes, she day dreamt, and then once more she heard her student and former student call out to her.

 

A girl and a Mali man look at her from both ends tilting their bodies foward as they try to look at her face, then say. ”Mistress Vivien?”

 

”I am fine…” she said, her heels clicking and touching as she turned to leave with the two behind her.  Her arms crossed as she continue a train of thought.

 

”How Pointless… Both mages and Devils share the same stupidity. They are to afraid to prove they can change. They set themselves upon the cutting board, and act suprised when they’re chopped. In my life I killed six mages, all my students. But I will admit… I never killed a devil. Bron, your life, was wasted, and you add on to the numbers. I hope you die, for your families sake. Because it will be your fault they die if you live, you selfish devil. I wonder, are you now still playing that Lyte, if so what song?”