- Damien Vryce dreamed -
The night was warm, with only soft breeze slightly moving the leaves of the trees. The scent of roses was intense, and a lone nightingale sung its song in a nearby tree. Damien stood there, in the middle of the most beautiful garden he had ever seen, but something was wrong. The place could have been Heaven for all he knew, except that he wasn't dead... And even if he had died, he wasn't so sure he would be going to Heaven at all. There were certain things...
"Vryce."
Damien spun around, to face the beautiful, elegant, deadly man once known as the Neocount of Merentha, the Prophet... The Hunter. Starlight glistened on his silk smooth, golden hair, and his pale silver eyes reflected the night sky like mirrors. Perfect mirrors, if you looked into them you'd see only your own reflection, nothing of what was going on behind those strange, horribly empty but yet startlingly beautiful eyes.
"You like my gardens?" the Hunter formed the words precisely, his voice perfectly polite but nothing more. Nothing in his manner betrayed any human emotion. Not like Damien would have expected such, but still...
"I didn't know there was anything like..." the priest began, but swallowed the end of the sentence. "I mean the Forest... I didn't think..." He tried again, with little success.
"You didn't think you'd find such beauty in the Forest?" the Hunter concluded. "If I can create a completely working ecosystem, don't you think I would be able to create a bit of beauty in the middle of it all? You underestimate me, priest." Damien thought he saw something almost like a smile pass across the Neocount's lips, but it was gone so quickly that in the end he wasn't all that sure. "But you're right. We are not in the Forest."
"Where are we then?" Damien asked. 'And why?' he wanted to add, but he knew better than to press Gerald Tarrant for information he didn't want to give. By now, he knew better indeed.
"We are in Merentha, near the original castle." The Hunter's expression was unreadable, but Damien had traveled with him for long enough to notice the slightest tension in the air. The priest was compelled to ask the next question, no matter how Tarrant would react. It was almost as if the Hunter wanted him to ask it.
"Why?" he finally voiced the question.
The Hunter turned away, as if to hide whatever reaction he didn't want Damied to witness. For a moment Damien hesitated; had he said the wrong thing? Had he so misinterpreted the other man? Had he so carelessly ruined his chance to see into the Hunter's soul? The beautiful man had been about to say something important, he knew that with frightening certainity. Just when he thought of apologizing, the Hunter spoke.
"I came to face the dawn here." His voice was void of emotion, even fear. There was only the certainity of a dying man, the certainity that the end has finally come.
For a while Damien could only stare. "What the hell are you playing at, now?" he asked when he found his voice again. Surely this was just another trick to distract him, another attempt at false death... But something in the silence told him it wasn't, not this time.
"Isn't that what you wanted?" Tarrant said, so quietly that his voice was barely a whisper. "You wanted me dead. Part of you wanted to save my soul, but that was of minor importance compared to relieving the world of my influence." Damien was now sure that the Hunter shivered. "And damn you for you human influence, but I know you're right. I cannot avoid death forever. So I will face it my way, here in my own ground, in my terms."
"Gerald, don't be a fool..." Damien began, but he was cut off.
"This is what you wanted from the beginning, Reverend Vryce. Deal with it."
Damien's mind was racing. He had to stop it! He had to stop Tarrant from killing himself now, he needed his power, he needed him... But how? How could he hope to turn that brilliantly intelligent mind when the Hunter had apparently convinced himself that this was the time for him to die? What was he, Damien, supposed to do?
Carefully, he placed his hand on Tarrant's shoulder. The gesture - so normal but still, with the Hunter, so awkward - held all the meaning Damien wanted. "Gerald, don't do it," he said quietly.
"Why?" Tarrant demanded, turning to face Damien. "We stand no chance in this fight, not against the Iezu. Should I live to see him destroy humankind? Should I stay and wait until he has corrupted everything, your Church... Let's face the facts, Vryce. I won't ally with him, I can't beat him, and I definitely won't let him have the pleasure of destroying me. So what choice does that leave me?"
Damien shook his head, suddenly angry. "I see he already has destroyed the Hunter," he spat. "The Hunter I knew would have fought 'till the end, would simply have refused to let go, refused to admit his own failure unil it was all but certain, and even then he would have figured some way to turn the defeat into victory! Where's that man now, Tarrant?"
But he was cut off by the slightest gasp from the Hunter. He turned to look over his shoulder, where the first rays of sunlight were lightening the horizon. He looked back at the Hunter, whose face was flushed by the killing light. Damien made a move to touch him, but didn't. Instead he watched helplesly the Hunter's smooth skin blister.
"Don't..." he whispered. "Don't do this, Gerald... Go, find shelter, there's still time, you've seen worse..." But even as he said the words he knew how futile they were. The Hunter wouldn't turn back now, his Goddamned pride wouldn't allow him to.
Then the sun was finally visible above the horizon line, and Tarrant fell, without as much as a moan of pain. As if he was already beyond all pain... Onle Damien knew it wasn't so. He could feel the Hunter's pain through the channel that connected their minds, and he was nearly blinded by it. He fell to his knees beside Tarrant, in a futile effort to try to shield him from the sunlight...
...And woke up in his cabin aboard God's Mercy, covered in cold sweat. It had all been a dream, one of the nightmares that Tarrant sent him, to inspire fear. And he had indeed succeeded with this one. His heart still pounding like hell Damien wiped sweat – and tears? – from his eyes and gazed into the darkness. Not wanting to acknowledge the feeling of terrible personal loss that had overcome him as he watched Tarrant fall.
---
Outside the priest's cabin, a tall, lean figure stood still, as if listening. Gerald Tarrant was rather content with the night's achievements. He had not only crafted a nightmare that had provided him with fear so intense that it tasted sweeter than he could have imagined, but also got assured of something. When this was over, the priest wouldn't try to kill him. He couldn't.
With the slightest smile, the Hunter finally left Damien to sleep the rest of the night in peace, and returned to the deck.