A/N: Un-beta'd like hell, severe overuse of italics. I LIKE them.
(Also, um, if you guys spot anything that should be changed, go right ahead and tell me. I mean, I don't even remember where I was going with this.)
Magic sparked under your skin, tickled your nerves, electrocuted you with it's raw power. For a while, it's disorienting. There's something rather unsettling (rather empowering- oh my oh my look what I can do) about watching corporeal blades materializing at will above your head, fire and lightening shooting through your very being, out and out and destroying everything in your path. When you can slow down time, reign chaos down on your enemies, reshape the world with the power between your fingertips, something tends to go to your head. There's only so much farther to go before you can do anything. But that's just the thing, isn't it, isn't it? You can't do anything. That's not how it works. You are not the gods of Archon.
And that's humbling.
And you tumble violently back down to earth.
And you're left with the satisfaction (or, perhaps dissatisfaction- the two seem one in the same for me now, or maybe there was no difference to begin with, I can't quite remember) of knowing that, at the very least, you can destroy anything that stands in your way. It all just matters which way you can travel, at that point.
That was the feeling of Will, of magic you could bend to your liking just by thinking it. But, my god, this? That was so different. I'd forgotten, and how dare I forget something so refreshing, like the breeze off Bower Lake after a violent storm, after bloodshed and adrenaline. After the cloudy-minded state that everything puts you in. It clears you out, cleans you, and it's an absolutely wonderful feeling. This, this right now, is probably the most clear my mind has been in ages. I can't even begin to describe the relief.
The Marianne.
It had started coming back to me as I passed along the waterfront, Bloodstone greeting me with cheers and whelps of fright and sometime even a question of who I was. Has it really been so long? Maybe so. I stopped counted the years years ago.
The stairs, so many stairs, up and down, up and down. I probably could have just walked the edge of the stone, the little ledge by the way, but I was slowly recalling the surety I felt so long ago, tromping off to meet the ghost of Captain Dread. I hadn't laughed at the old sea dog; I knew that ghosts existed, if the debacle with Alex had been anything to go by. (I remember feeling just the little bit sad about that turn of events- I hadn't wanted her to kill herself, but there was no way I was going to marry her, morality be damned. Irregardless of the fact that I already had a wife- had had a husband- she really wasn't my cup of tea. What a pity, too. She was a sweet girl.) If nothing else, it was an adventure, and the prospect of finding Captain Dread's buried treasure was just too good to pass up. I didn't do what I did for shits and giggles- gold was good, it bought you shit. And you needed it to get anywhere in the world, especially as a Hero. That was what I'd thought.
Wait wait, stay in the present, there's a good boy. Remembering, remembering was good, very good, but I couldn't afford to get lost in my head again. Not now. So close to being so close. And knowing what I had to do was a very good start. Keeping it in mind was an even larger accomplishment.
And so I'd walked, kind of stumbled, along, the ghost of a gargoyle's voice echoing in my mind as the water tower disappeared behind me. I looked down idly at the entry to the path, cleverly hidden by a bend of the rock face, and noted with a sense of amusement (was it amusement? I couldn't tell. But the corners of my mouth upturned and my stomach pooled with a sort of lightness, so I can only assume as much) that the gangly, creeping vines had grown back with a vengeance. They were probably more vicious than before. Even so, they were cut away just as easily, a simple swing of a sword, and slice. (Where had the sword come from? I hadn't remembered intentionally picking it up and bringing it with me- that was worrying. But it was probably such a second nature that remembering would have been unnecessary, at any rate.)
Just down the path, down the path- oh! There's a rock there, and an unassuming chest, having long been open. The hinges barely held. At this, I remember laughing, booming and loud, and I don't realize why. Because this isn't even the remotest bit funny. And there was the ship, the Marianne, and the memories of searching the cavern, killing ghosts as they gathered round for supper, of battling Captain Dread, and of all the bloody beetles on that damned treasure island—and I was so overwhelmed that I just stood there for a moment. I hadn't even been sure that the ship would be here, and for a moment I indulged myself in my ego and thought "my, this ship is loyal, I'm it's master."
And the feeling as I touched the helm was beautifully calming. The wood, smooth and weatherworn by so many years, was like a worry stone passed down by the gypsies. And as soon as I thought, gave any indication that I wanted to go there, to where the two fellow male Heroes had gone away, the wood filled with life beneath my fingers, different than any magic I could ever create myself.