Before the darkness
Author's note: Decided to brush up and post a couple of Obernewtyn fanfics I found gathering dust on my computer in celebration of the The Red Queen coming out this year – yay!
Scenario: The Overguardian passes on some cryptic knowledge and insight into Dameon's destiny in his last hours before dying.
o0o
He moves with grace, time in his hands.
He is before and after all things.
He is within...
He flies the trail between life and death.
He is guardian,
Protector,
Asura.
o0o
Dameon followed the light draft of air on his fingertips, carefully touching the wet earth, clay peeling apart at the edges, crumbling at parts and spongy at others. He followed the echo of the dark cavern, the soft plink of water in some underground pool, the sound of harsh, shallow breathing... Pleasant coolness touched his face, as he entered what he sensed was a deeper part of the earth. It reminded him of the coldness of water, but a water from some long forgotten well. He breathed in sweet, damp air and exhaled, the taste bitter on his tongue.
"Dameon...?" The young voice called out to him from within the darkness, hesitant, unsure.
"Yes, I am here." Tentatively, he felt for the raised wooden platform, fingertips brushing along faintly splintered wood until they touched human softness and warmth.
"I am glad you have decided to stay with us a little while longer," the voice quavered and Dameon, felt a surge of heaviness flow through him as he thought about this strange, sad, little body before him, with the wisdom of a sage and the voice of a child.
"Of course. How could you think I would not?"
"Because your heart belongs to the mountains... but I am happy that you came to talk with me." Dameon looked towards where he perceived the Overguardian's face to be and smiled, feeling the young boy's thoughts and regard washing over him as he did. An ache formed in his chest. The boy continued talking. "It is not every day that I am able to open my mind up to another."
Dameon, sensing the child's need for comfort in his darkness, met his hand halfway. Warm, fragile bone-like fingers. "But I think, now that I am close to death... I seem to see things more clearly."
"I cannot bear to witness your pain," said Dameon softly, "for you have been such a good friend to me these past months. It also hurts me...here." He placed a gentle hand on the boy's chest.
"Dameon... I have something to impart on you... knowledge of a type that will be both a blessing and a curse... Do you know of what I speak?"
Dameon felt his heart beat pick up speed, thrumming against his rib-cage. He had not been told, but in his heart he knew. The ritual he had undergone, like all the asuras named before him, had not been easy. He had been stripped and buried in the earth for three days, with no food and little water. While the occupant was usually blind-folded, he had been bound, deprived of his sense of touch. It had been torturous. But such an event demanded respect. Such an event was sacred. And the Sadorians believed it so. For you could not speak of your ordeal with anyone... it was your own personal darkness and it revealed to you many things.
He shivered, but kept silent.
"You are an asura my friend." Dameon came back to the present with the cryptic words of the Overguardian. "You too are a guardian and secret-keeper. Your purpose is to protect, to shield, to anchor those around you at all times. If you fail at this, the powerful darkness inside you can and will consume you."
Dameon was silent. He had experienced and seen many things in his truth-testing session.
"Your heart seems sad... Perhaps you do wish to be home...?"
"No" Dameon said quietly. "I have promised to stay with you until the end."
"And yet your heart says otherwise."
"Tell me - what is truly stopping you from going back? What has kept you here...?"
Dameon sighed. "Because I am selfish... Because I cannot bear to be hurt anymore than I have to be..." And if I am here, I am at a safe distance from her- her lips, her arms, her bright and tantalising spirit.
"Because of this – person you love?"
Dameon flinched, wishing the boy was not so perceptive, but it seemed fitting to confide his darkest secrets to a dying boy.
"Do they love you...?"
"Yes – but not as I would have them love me..." Not with fire, not with passion or wild, free, unfettered abandon.
The child nodded his head wisely. "You cannot force love where love does not exist..." Dameon bowed his head, his heart constricting just a little at the subtle warning. And then the Overguardian's tone changed and took on a darker edge. "The path of an asura leads to suffering… You may find your path coincides with your beloved before the end, but not in a way you would expect."
"You are marked as one who will endure for the sake of humanity, one who will die for the better cause... one who sacrifices for the greater good..."
Dameon shivered. "If only I could accept this burden with grace but I cannot, for I wish to live." He fought back the emotion in his voice.
"Yes. To live... to live would be an adventure. But we can only do what our destiny asks of us." The boy struggled laboriously for a while to drag in the next ragged breath and Dameon immediately felt ashamed.
"Then what would you ask of me...?"
"Nothing for the time being except to sit and be my companion until the end of all things." The boy's voice was sweet but filled with pain. "I do not wish to dwell on dark things before I pass... Speak to me of Obernewtyn."
And Dameon touched the boy's hand and spoke of the coming of Spring in the only way he knew, of the feeling of the sun, the silver laughter of friends, Elspeth... the sweet hay and smell of animals in the farms... the cool familiarity of the grey stone walls that imposed a certain sense of foreboding and purpose, and Elspeth again – her hair and her unique scent – of oncoming rain and summer… the sound of her footsteps…
And so he talked with the child into the night, talked of Obernewtyn and light and beauty... and somewhere between the early hours of morning, the Overguardian slipped away to join the mindstream and Dameon was left alone…
He sat still, his heart aching, marvelling at the absence of life, at the way in which death was so absolute.
Sleep well my friend. May you suffer no more…
And he felt for the now cold, child-like hands and kissed them, brushing the tears from his cheeks, wondering just how long it would be before he faced his own fate and if it would be anything as grim as the Overguardian had prophesised. Only time would tell.
If our paths coincide, Elspeth, then so be it. But it will not stop my love for you.