Hello again! So, I was bored and decided to write a one-shot...er, three-shot is my plan, actually. One for each of the guys. Yeah, have fun. Enjoy.
Romeo: I dreamt a dream tonight.
Mercutio: And so did I.
Romeo: And what was yours?
Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.
~Romeo & Juliet
Dreams are said to be the door to the unconscious, the one thing that shows our true thoughts, worries, goals. But dreams are so easily changed and structured into nightmares.
Mithos dreamt of that one crucial moment when they let their guard waver, of the moment when the unthinkable happened, of when death reached into their lives and stole from them. But the dream would always morph into something worse. So much worse.
The dream always began the same way: he was sitting outside somewhere beautiful and sunny, perhaps reading a book or cloud-watching. After a while, he would stand up, searching for his sister. Suddenly, the scene would change before his eyes, dissolve into something dark and grotesque. The clouds would darken, threatening rain upon him. And before him, answering his calls for her, was Martel. But a very different Martel from his own.
She was dressed differently, all in black instead of the bright colors she loved to wear. Her hair would hang lank and dirty over her face, her skin pale and wasted. But the scariest, most disturbing part was seeing her eyes. Shallow pools of green had become stark white without pupils. They looked at Mithos blankly, staring at him without recognition or emotion. She would take a few surprisingly graceful steps towards him (he always expected her to stumble like a zombie, no matter how many times he had the dream) and open her mouth. She'd try to lip-synch the words, but there was no sound. Somehow, through the horrible magic of dreams, Mithos was able to make out what she was saying.
"Help me."
Her voice was exactly the same, only much more chilling and dead. It was usually at this point that he became aware that he was dreaming. He would try to yank himself out with sheer willpower and force himself to wake up, but to no avail. He still had to listen as she kept speaking without sound.
"Let me go. Let me out, Mithos, please."
When she said his name, he felt something break inside him. His heart would pound and he'd feel sweat form on the back of his neck. He often tried to speak, but it was as if his vocal chords had been yanked out of him.
"Help me, let me out of this place."
All the while she was speaking, he stood frozen as she moved closer. Now, for just a flicker of a second, as she reached her arms out, he saw the old Martel: happy, bright, cheerful Martel. Smiling Martel.
Living Martel.
But that image would disappear in a flash. She would pull him close, hold him against her body, but only for a moment. Before that day, Mithos had shrugged off her displays of affection: hugs were half-hearted, kisses were rarely returned, hair-ruffling was dodged. He pretended he was too old, a young man who didn't need such things.
And now, as he tore himself away from the dream and back into reality, all he could think of for a brief moment was how much he wished he hadn't.
Mithos slept in the same room as Kratos. He liked to think that it was because that was the way it had always been: the two of them, teacher and student, sharing a room. But they hadn't trained since that day, so they really didn't have either of those titles anymore. The reality was simple: Kratos stayed in the same room for one reason only.
"Shh." Mithos bed would sink a little lower, all the bulk of a human appearing beside him. "Calm down, it'll be alright." Strong, calloused arms wrapped around him and rocked him. "It's okay."
Mithos never cried in the daytime. He bottled it up, kept it hidden. No one could know that he, the Great Hero, the barely-teenaged half-elf who'd done the extraordinary, was shattered inside. Twisted and knotted, broken into a thousand tiny pieces that cut like glass.
And yet, he found himself crying like a baby, unable to contain it at night. He would curl up next to his former teacher and sob on his shoulder while the older man spoke in his soothing voice. Eventually, he would surrender to sleep again.
As time went on, it took more and more time to go back to sleep, and the dream got shorter. Then, one night, Kratos fell asleep and he didn't. He simply cried until he had no more tears. Until the sun came up. Until he was forced to continue, marching on like a soldier.
He used this to his advantage. After all, without sleep, there would be no dreams. Without dreams, there would be no tears.
He kept telling himself that, at least.