Eban

23 - Nathan

For a long time, darkness was all he knew.

Then the darkness gave way to flashes of light, to memories, and to dreams.

Sometimes, he thought he was awake. The dream seemed more coherent, more real, than anything before it. And the pain – the pain had to be real. But the moments were fleeting, and soon he fell back into the churning waves of sleep.

It was there he worked through the memories. Over and over and over again he saw her face – laughing, crying, happy, sad, scared – but there was something wrong with it. Too young, a small voice told him. Old memories.

That confused him. Old?

Remember before, the voice said. How did you get here?

The same old question, repeated so many times. A question he knew he had asked himself many times over the years. But now, in the maelstrom of this darkness, it came up again and again.

He knew the answer to this one. He knew it. He just had to remember.

But the memory scared him.

There was laughter, he thought, clinging to that certainty as tightly as he could. The thread was barely substantial enough to lead him to the rest of the tapestry, but it was all he had.

Slowly, carefully, he followed it. He saw her face again, older now and marked by time and stress, but still laughing. There were others, too. Friends, the voice told him.

He nodded. Yes, they were friends. Names followed the faces, and gradually, he remembered them.

After the faces came the horses. They had been riding. Riding's good, he thought. Did I fall?

Yes, the voice said, and no. Remember.

Even the darkness could not keep out the pain any longer. It seeped in, red veins trickling through the blackness.

There had been others. Riders. But these had not been friends.

Fear and frustration crashed into him, and a fury grew stronger in the core of his being. I have to fight back, he thought, lost in the memory. Why won't I fight back?

You couldn't, the voice said. You tried, but your magic wouldn't come. For so long, it wouldn't come.

Yes, that was right. That was what caused the fear and frustration. He was forced to fight like any other soldier, with metal and muscle and luck. She had been by his side, glorious in her desperate ferocity.

There's so many, he thought, feeling the fear grow. Where are the others? We can't fight them alone. The thought echoed through him, and he knew, with the certainty of a dream, that those words had been spoken.

She had replied, her words short and sharp. They're coming, Nathan. We have to hold on. Just a bit longer.

He remembered the pain then. The arrow had hit his thigh, its metal biting deep. There had been other wounds before it, but they were small. He did what he could to ignore this one too.

The second arrow found her.

The dream – memory – went black again, and he found himself in a world of grey wind and rain. No, he cried, though he did not know who to. I can't. Please.

You must, the voice said gently. It has already happened. All you can do now is remember.

The grey disappeared and he was back in the chaos. He watched her go down, again, and something inside him shifted. Finally, finally, the power within him reached out. He embraced it and threw it out, wanting nothing more than to protect, protect, PROTECT.

The light around him shifted colours again, going from grey to a watery white. He knelt by her side, hands pressing to her chest, desperate to stop the scarlet rush that threatened to swamp him.

You're going to be alright, he thought, wept, shouted. You're going to be alright.

The red tide kept coming.

You're going to be alright, he chanted, even as he felt her grow still in his arms.

The dream faded again, and the light took him into its grip, ignoring his efforts to fight it. A woman appeared, dark hair framing a face made grey by exhaustion. A familiar face, with a smile he loved.

"You'regoing to be alright," she said, as a drop of liquid hit his cheek.