Sleepless Nights

[kc_obrien]

At night I hear the screams.

 

It doesn't matter where it is that we noble few sleep, the screams still haunt me. Some nights it is Craesoch's agony at the loss of his arm that disturbs my sleep. Other nights it is the cries of the children we saved from their burning house. More often then not, it is of our enemy, locked into a charnel house of wood and fire. I wasn't there for it, positioned 'safely' up the street where the Iron Circle would not see my Draconic visage and raise the alarm. I sat there, waiting, watching, knowing what the plan was, the plan that I had been silent in the stopping of.

 

They were wicked, weren't they? A voice that was not quite my own asks me. Is destroying the enemies of good not good work?

 

I get up and pace about the edge of the clearing that we're camped in and consider it all. The journey from the Citadel of Bahamut, the dreams of Loe, the lives of friend and enemy alike that have fallen by the wayside as we've journeyed across this land. As we've adventured. As we've lost ourselves. All is calm in the darkness here in the woods. The wood elves are here, and while they are we are safe.

 

It doesn't soothe my soul. Would that it could. Safety is nothing when you do not trust the way your heart beats. And I was beginning to trust it less and less.

 

And what was true for my heart was beginning to go double for those around me. Friends and compatriots. Companions.

 

Craesoch will never forgive me for stopping him from destroying the demon. It cost him his arm. Even now, having the daemonic arm scourged from his body, replaced by this divine one, he longs for the chaotic power of orb and arm. Perhaps it would have been better for him. Or not. Warring with myself over the cost of fellowship that went with his arm (and the danger of a loosed daemon) and the hope that the new arm would make him somehow better was but wind; he was less because of my actions.

 

Aeoman snores calmly in his tightly bound bedroll. Necrite, that same voice reminds me. A disciple of Bane, reformed. Powerful in his own right but foolish and hungry for more. I can't imagine what the foul bracers that cling to his wrists will do to him. But when I close my eyes, I see the monster they turned him into. It saved our lives, for sure. But what about our souls?

 

Taurë Hin is the best of us. I wonder what may have been were I not Dragonborn, if I wasn't driven by the blood and the march of war. I wonder what it would be like to serve the Raven Queen. Foolish, I know. My heart beats for war and honor, beats for the Great Dragon. He seems more conflicted by the conflicts that conspire within us than I. And still he sleeps. Do you question yourself the same way I do? Do I have the courage to voice my own flaws to him?

 

Damakos is so difficult to read. I'm still not quite sure how he came to join us. Such is the strength of the brew proffered by his fellow Tiefling at the Five League House. He seems good enough, everything they told us to be wary of in regards to Rogues at the Citadel. But sometimes it is hard to be wary of the soft spoken, good natured fellow, especially when his talents are so instrumental in that which we must do. How can I hope to be better to my companions with this ache of distrust in my heart?

 

And then, of course, there's the seed of distrust that is born into my very blood that I seem to be able to ignore. Ananrae is a mighty warrior, stronger and more deft than I for her ability to use her speed and stealth to her advantage. I find myself a clumsy thing to compare. Yet she is Drow, born of deceit and hate and the Underdark. Who is to say that blood and Lolth will not breed true in her and find us but meat for the crows? And yet... and yet I cannot even find the same distrust for her that I do fro Damakos. Perhaps it will be the end of me. But, if it is, I won't know it. I will simply be no more, and there is something in that.

 

Aren is an enigma. She meditates and her fey nature refreshes her. I do not begin to understand the Eladrin. But for the legend of Valyrian Empire, I would not have known one from Telmat before meeting one. She seems nice enough, but quiet. And powerful. I wonder whether she knows more than she says, or more than we say. For all I know, she's in here now with me, walking in my fitful, sleepless mind. I feel a coward to find such distrust in one what has given me no reason.

 

And Rhogar. Rhogar Ghesh, my mighty companion. My sworn shield. He grows stronger by the day, though I fear what may happen to his mind and soul now that they are parted, especially with the power of his sword. I do not have it in me to distrust he who helped guide me through the toughest parts of my training, he who has been so instrumental in my journey. But I fear for him all the same.

 

I am back at my bedroll, and I gaze up through a gap in the trees at the Summer moon that stretches above Harken. Unseasonably warm, the peasants say, but for one who toiled in the Citadel, where it felt as though the walls contained the very living, flowing rock, it was nothing. Nothing but a reminder of where I came from and where I still longed to go.

 

I am the instrument of Bahamut. I am the sword that strikes and the shield that protects. I work to fight Telmat and Bane and Lolth and all the evils of this world. I vanquish evil and raise the good to the light. I will leave this world better than I found it.

 

You destroy the wicked, the voice returned, burning in my heart, by all means. By any means.

 

"Not any means," I murmur fiercely, my hand finding the hilt of the sword under my pack. "Evil acts are evil, no matter what end."

 

The Cleric stirs at the sound, and I fall quiet, slipping away with my sword. I can feel the eyes of our hosts on me as I move through the wood, searching until I find a clearing with a stream. I strip out of my travel-stained clothes and kneel in the cool waters, lifting my eyes up to the moon. I plant my sword in the soft earth just below the surface of the water and draw my hands down the blade. It is keen and cuts through my hard, scaled flesh like it was but a wisp of cloth. I hold my arms out to the side and let my blood become one with the stream. "Bahamut!" I call to the heavens, "I sacrifice my blood for your glory, to vanquish evil and do works for to leave this realm a better place than it was when I hatched. Burn doubt and evil from my heart and leave me a better vessel to serve you and our people."

 

When I return to my bedroll, the voice that was mine but not mine was gone. The screams no longer challenge me, but neither will I forget them. Doubt was gone, and guilt transformed into righteous fury. Leave today better than yesterday, and make tomorrow better still.

 

Sleep came. Sweet, restful, glorious sleep.

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The above story was generated as part of a Dungeons and Dragons Campaign I am a part of. I hope you enjoy.