The Loved and the Lost
by Kloudy Reignfall
AN: I wrote this over 2 and a half years ago, after reading Fall of the Kings for the first time and deciding that the ending was terrible. i hope to perhaps write more one day, but for now this is it. I hope you enjoy it.
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"…until the day of your death, and ever afterward."
Theron woke alone, but with the often present feeling that someone was watching him. And that may well have been; he'd been under almost constant supervision since the day they'd left on this voyage. But it wasn't that sort of feeling. It was more a supernatural feeling; magical, if you will.
He didn't think for long on the source of this queer feeling; moments after he woke, a lively-looking woman came in, not bothering to knock or otherwise announce her presence. But that was normal, indeed, almost expected. Jessica never had had any sense of privacy, especially when it came to her twice-younger brother.
She smiled brightly with a morning greeting, then frowned slightly, catching the dazed look in Theron's eyes.
"Did I wake you?" she asked.
Theron blinked quickly to clear his mind and vision. "No. I was just dreaming."
"Oh," Jessica said. "Was it those dreams again?"
By those Theron knew she meant the strange visions he'd been having lately. He had described to her each of them he'd had since the morning that she informed him bluntly that she already knew about them. But how she could know was a mystery to him. He had asked her, but she'd only replied with a vague answer that gave rise to even more mysteries.
The dreams themselves were of the mysterious sort, all blurred and rushed and run together as if painted in watercolor. Most often it seemed to Theron that he was in a forest, a clearing in a grove of ancient oaks, a stream running through. And those dreams, so calm in their earthly tones, were quite like a fantasy, especially when, in the dream, Theron himself became a part of the great forest, a deer leaping among the leaves. Those parts didn't bother him in the least. In fact, they were quite pleasant.
But soon he would be running, bounding through the trees in the fading light, searching in the dark for something he could never find. That or being chased, fleeing from an unknown fate.
Those were the dreams he described to Jessica many times over the journey. These dreams plagued him constantly and more often than not he woke up screaming and his sister had come to calm him reassuringly.
This dream, however, had been different and new. It began the same as the others, the deer Theron drinking peacefully from the glass-blue stream, gazing curiously at the ever-changing reflection. And then, as the sun set and the darkness cast deceptive shadows upon the world, he was chased. With a beast's inate sense of intuition he ran from what he knew to be terrible creatures and humans, blazing fire and the sure, constant evil that lurked behind it all.
But it didn't end at that. The pursuers didn't catch him, but neither did he lose them. Deer Theron ran on, no longer in flight but neither searching fruitlessly. For as he became his accustomed self once more he knew that he'd found what he was searching for.
He passed houses, shops and cobbled streets, some wide and some narrow. Across a bridge and through a town on a sloping almost-hill he ran, hard as he could, passion and sense of duty driving him. And in a blur he came upon a crowd of half-humans, clamoring around a courtyard and an expanse of great stone steps.
Dream Theron slowed to a dignified walk as the crowd parted to let through the deer-man, half-human as they were. Now the world was spinning and he climbed the stone steps slowly, one by one, feeling so sure of his fate now, but with the deer-sense still that something was about to go wrong.
A man stood at the top center of the stairs before a great hall of kings, or so it seemed. But Theron could not see him clearly, nor the hall, the steps, the crowd. The whole vision fast faded as he knelt in front of the man, looked longingly into his eyes, the only part of him that was still clear, and heard him speak words that Theron did not understand. But, it seemed, he felt the words. He felt them deep in his heart, and he understood as the dream man uttered his last words, promises of forever and always, before the whole dream was lost to the waking world.
The whole thing was so confusing and it moved some part of him deep inside, some private, secret part.
Jessica was still waiting for an answer, but Theron wasn't sure he wanted to tell her about this one. It was too special, and he knew that it meant something; the crowds, the steps to the great hall, the man…
"No," he answered his sister. "It was different."
Jessica "hmm"ed, but she said no more of it. "Well, breakfast is cooking, so if you want some you'll have to get up and dress yourself. Oh, and Sophia wanted to talk to you." Theron nodded and his vibrant half-sister left him to do whatever he might, whether it be to get up and act at least a little civilized or go back to bed to fall to his dream world again.
As she left the room, Jessica thought about the weeks before their departure and the great extent of the effects they'd had on everyone. But doubtlessly, the one most affected had been Theron, and he didn't even know. The dreams were probably the best thing for him now, but at the same time they were most definitely the worst. They were surely driving the poor boy out of his mind, and soon, she knew, those dreams might become so much more than just an active mind's nighttime occupation. But still, the question was this: Which was worse - To let Theron wallow in pain at the memory of his dead lover, or to let him forget that he'd ever felt that love in the first place?
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