Dreams
A Tales of Vesperia Story
Disclaimer: I do not own Tales of Vesperia, and this story is for free entertainment purposes only.
Summary: It was a glorious day when Brave Vesperia was able to rid the world of the Adephagos at the price of all the blastia. Since then, everyone has split up in order to do their part in creating a world that can defend itself against monsters and support the lives of the common people without the use of blastia. It's been a year since, and Karol is left debating on what his dream is. "...I don't really have a dream anymore..." ... "That's all? Jeez, kid, ya had this old man worried there."
~~~~~~~~~~~T a l e s~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o f~~~~~~~~~~~~~~V e s p e r i a~~~~~~~~~
The night sky was always beautiful in places like this, these fields of grass a fair distance away from any place filled with people. There wasn't a cloud in sight, leaving only the stars shining and glittering in all their glory against the pure black backdrop. He gazed at the sky, once again looking at all the stars, searching for one in particular—Brave Vesperia, the brightest star in the night sky.
"It really isn't there anymore... It really was part of the seal against the Adephagos..." Karol mumbled, lying on the green grass. It had been a year since that fateful battle with Duke over the fate of the world, and longer still when thinking over events like meeting everybody, forming a guild, the death of Don (he would still cringe and hang his head at the memory, still hurting even till this day) fighting Barbos, Alexei, the Entelexeia... everything.
It was hard, what they had gone through. An entire year, spent doing nothing but venturing out with a group of people who were now his close friends (even if Rita still hit him hard over the head every now and then—seriously, she was 17 now, she had to stop abusing people...) going out and fighting grand monsters all over the place. Thinking about it, if they had just stuck to the main route and not done anything extra, they probably would have been able to have done everything sooner. But those extra times helping other people, or training before attempting to enter one area or another, or simply talking to one another, commenting each other's skills and such, were valuable to them, and never would he change what they did. Yes, they were good friends, ready to come to your aid when you need help and with you willing to do so too.
""Take good care of them, and they'll be there whenever ya need 'em"... Right, Don?"
It was more of a reassurance to himself of some sort, that statement, more like that then anything else, really. So, yeah, friends will always be there, able to back you up during hard times, and the feeling you get when you pay them back (Karol smiled when he thought of how he was actually able to protect them for once, and for not running away that time, the first time,) for everything they've done for you, your show of gratitude, is truly amazing, surprisingly. Before all this, he wouldn't have understood, because back then, to him it was simply 'to make a guild, to make that guild big, and to be a respectable boss'. That was his drea—
The boy flinched for a moment. Dreams. The very thing that drives many people on, to help them aspire onward in life and to do well and succeed where others have failed. A thing you chase while awake with every fibre of your being, and to think of when asleep.
"What... is my dream now? Have I... really lost all aspiration to move forward... and to dream again?" The whispered confession seemed to stay a little longer than normal, making Karol feel just a tiny bit awkward. Honestly, it had sort of slipped out, but there was no-one near to hear him anyway so—
"Can't seem to sleep, kid?"
By instinct and instinct alone, Karol gave a sharp yelp before whipping an over-sized sword out of his outrageous bag and swinging it at the person nearby. Their startled response went along the lines of;
"What tha hell d'you think you're doing, Karol?"
He hesitated, if but only for a few seconds—enough time for the man to jump back a tiny bit and reveal a weapon of his own, just for self-defence. The forced response made Karol feel awkward again, as he nervously laughed and put his sword back in his bag. He scratched the back of his head while trying to appear as innocent as possible for a moment, before finally choking out an apology.
"Heh heh... sorry Raven, you caught me unaware there..." It was a bit of an understatement, but he couldn't really think of anything else to say. It seemed to have gotten through to the old man that Karol wasn't going to be attacking him anytime soon, for he had started to put his bow away (where Karol didn't know, and, despite his undeniable curiosity for most things, after hanging around with 'Raven the Great' for so long, he didn't really want to know). Raven walked forward before deciding to simply lie down in a spot not too far from where Karol himself had been lying. Unsure of what was going on and what to say, Karol simply went back to lying down on the grass and staring at the sky. There was a heavy silence between them for a while, but, as usual, Raven couldn't really stand silence long.
"So, as I had asked earlier, kid—can't seem to sleep?" the old man asked, seeming to be fairly sincere today. It caught Karol off guard, especially seeing how loud (and perverted, of course) he had been earlier the day, so it was a few minutes before Karol could come up with a witty reply.
"...What does it look like?" Yeah Karol. Real witty.
"Oh come on now, no need ta be like that," Raven laughed, shaking his head a little, "Ya make it seem as if I'm some sorta stranger. I'm hurt." The teenager then looked to the old man, before shaking his own head at the pout he was wearing. It was really hard to believe sometimes, that this man, (who had been the head of the ever so honourable Schwann Brigade, while being incredibly trusted and considered to be the right hand man of the Don in the guild Altosk, and was able to juggle these two conflicting lives for around ten years,) could act so... childish.
"So I can't sleep tonight. It happens. It isn't really something new, Raven," Karol said, attempting to get off the subject of sleep and the lack of the ability to do so, because, really, sleep is what you think of first when thinking about dre—
Another flinch, this one more embarrassing because the old man was there, looking at him with those now surprisingly sharp eyes. Karol had hoped that the old man would just ignore it and talk about some other subject or another, but, that night, it seemed Raven was having none of it, and was going to find out as to why Karol had been pretty down recently.
"...I heard you talking to yourself, kid. I don't really know why you were thinking about what Whitehorse said, but I'm a little worried about your last statement." Karol carefully looked to the old man in disbelief, hoping that he was imagining what he had just heard. A stern stare was all that was returned. The boy shivered, thinking back to how Raven had acted when he was Schwann—all serious and respectable, with this charismatic aura that seemed to declare something like 'I will find out what I want to know, and you will tell me'.
Karol groaned. Why did the old man have to start acting and talking seriously (even dropping his normal speech quirks) now of all times, and stare at him like that? Why now?
There was more silence between the two, with Karol twiddling his thumbs and looking about awkwardly, while Raven had sat up, waiting for Karol to start speaking to him any moment now. This silence was particularly unnerving to Karol, who quickly broke down not long after.
"It's just... what with the whole 'let's help everybody become accustomed to a world without blastia while walking forward into a better future' thing, I've just started to realise that... I can't seem to dream anymore when asleep. I haven't had a dream for a long time," Karol admitted quietly, sitting up with his head held low. Raven just sat there, inviting Karol to continue at his own pace.
"I mean, come on! I should be really happy—I was able to help save the world and bring it into a new age of sorts, was able to make Brave Vesperia a respectable guild with people asking to join and to get help from us, was finally able to understand that you can't do everything alone and get some close friends"—Karol shot a meaningful glance towards Raven, if only for a moment—"and yet... I don't really feel anything." More silence. There was a pained expression on Karol's face as he tried to come up with the right words to describe what he felt, while the old man simply listened, waiting for Karol to speak again.
"I just can't help but think that, while I do want to help the world adjust to life without blastia, and while I do want to see Brave Vesperia become an even more renowned and respected guild across Terca Lumireis, I just can't think of them as my dreams. When I realised this, I just kept thinking, 'Then what is my dream? What do I want to do?'until I just couldn't sleep at night, or, if I could get some sleep for little bit, it would be empty, with no dreams..." More silence, as once again Karol's words had seemed to linger in the air longer than intended. He was pausing too often in his words, as if scared to tell someone, whether they be a fearsome enemy of close friend, what had been keeping him up for so long recently. Raven had decided he should put in something to help the kid continue speaking.
"So why can't you sleep without some sort dream to help you move forward, Karol?" A gentle prod, to make sure that Karol didn't get lost in his own thoughts. The boy had certainly heard it, as he seemed to close his eyes for a few seconds in response, before opening them to look upon something.
He was gazing at the sky again, fruitlessly searching for that one star that might have been just a tiny source of hope for him, something just to tell him that yes, he did have a dream. And that dream was—
Raven remained still when Karol suddenly stood up, hand outstretched far and high, trying to grab onto something in the endless sky above them, but grasping nothing. It took another few minutes or so before Karol finally just clenched his fists tightly, standing there as if some sort of statue. It wasn't long after this random display of movement, Raven noticed, that Karol finally finished.
"I can't think of what I'm supposed to do now without some sort of dream to motivate me! I can't help think that because... because..." Raven looked at the youth before him, who had begun trembling in rage and confusion, as he struggled to say the final word.
"...I don't really have a dream anymore... I won't be able to dream again..."
A dead silence had descended upon them. Karol couldn't think of anything to say or do, so just stood there, waiting for Raven's reply. After waiting a fair amount of time, he attempted to return to the camp not too far from them. Even if he couldn't sleep all that well, he could at least be left to himself for a while.
"That's all? Jeez, kid, ya had this old man worried there."
Karol had turned round faster than Raven had anticipated, and was now right in his face, bearing an expression of hurt, confusion and... rage?
"Wha-wha-whaddya mean "That's all?"? You think this is funny or something, old man?! That this was some kind joke, or something?! What the hell's wrong with you?!" Yes, most definitely rage. (Why couldn't he have picked up traits from Estelle? That genius mage was a terrible influence on the kid, I tell ya.)
Waving his hands in front of his face in an attempt to appease the clearly upset teenager in front him, Raven decided he should probably give his reasoning to Karol before the teen remembered that he had so many weapons on him that could probably be used to extract his revenge against the old man.
"Calm down, Karol. You're going to wake up the girls. I'm just, well surprised," he started, quieting Karol before he could scream at him anymore. "You're young; you have your whole life ahead of you. Things such as dreams won't come to you as easily as that. I should know. After all, I still don't know my own dream."
Karol stared at Raven, cheeks still red from a mixture of embarrassment and anger, trying to tell if the sneaky old man was being genuine for once. He kept looking, but couldn't find any tell-tale signs. Raven's eyes seemed sincere, he had a softer smile rather than his brash one, and his ears hadn't wiggled once. So it looked like he wasn't lying. But that didn't leave Karol totally convinced.
"Then, what exactly do I do? I've always had some sort of goal to achieve or something, big or small. What do I do while I'm looking?" he questioned, wondering to see if Raven would come up with some piece of advice of some sort of joke. The old man looked thoughtful, before answering.
"Well... why don't you just be yourself, and hang around with your friends? Use this nice little get away trip to just... relax, and just fall into the habits of old times. After all, if the girls find out that you were gettin' all depressed before we picked up Yuri an' Repede, they'd be worried sick!" he laughed, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. The little... creativity needed to come up with that surprised Karol—was it really that easy?
There was no time to question anything else, as Raven had suddenly started pushing Karol back to the campsite. Karol once again gave a surprised shout, trying to get Raven to let go and to stop shoving him, with complaints like 'let go, old man!', 'why do you get to decide when to go to bed or not?' and 'I'm not tired yet!' The only sign that the old man was listening was his occasional laughter.
"H-hey, at least let me know how you're doing on the whole 'search for a new dream' front! You've got me curious now," Karol muttered, finally giving up on the whole resisting idea and just marching to his tent. Judging by the old man's silence, he wasn't quite ready to tell anyone how he was doing, which disheartened Karol a bit, before shaking his head a bit more. "Guess you don't need to tell me today, Raven. But one day, when I find my own dream again, you'll tell me how you're doing, kay? That's final, y'know! 'Night!"
Karol had ran straight into his tent after that, probably eager to get away from the rather weird conversation. Raven could only laugh quietly, staring at where the young teenager once was.
"My dream, huh. Well, while I'm still dreaming that I'll dream again, I think I'll be content with just being able to be myself and live...
...after all, dreams really aren't my style..."
Fin