3 | White Walls

Sitting still was a blessing after traversing that blasted road back to camp. To Brynna's credit, the pair had finer surfaces to sit on than bare stones or cracked leather pads, but the soft grass Gidren awoke in earlier in the day had a softness that yet lingered in his mind. He didn't dream of insulting her craftsmanship by opting to sit on the ground while having his meal.

Since returning to camp, the day was silent. Talk was minimal, even as Gidren and Brynna worked together to prepare the day's main meal. She was waiting for him to gather his thoughts, and he was waiting just as diligently for the thoughts to arrange themselves; something told him they would both we left waiting for a long time. Until then, he would enjoy the stew that came together in their quiet cooperation.

The bowl was warm in his hands, growing hotter by the minute, as it came to match the temperature of his food. Gidren pulled his sleeves down to cover his hands as it grew less bearable, and stared at the bowl's contents for a while. It was much too hot to begin eating yet, so he had some time to contemplate before the comfort of stew was accessible to him. No doubt Brynna saw his slouched form, lost in the dancing reflections on the surface of his steaming bowl of stew, but she said nothing to interrupt his thoughts.

Gidren found himself in a curious place. He followed those reflected lights and shadows, searching for patterns, as though he was some form of soup-seer. He wasn't making any breakthroughs on his own, so he was open to new approaches. There were moments where he thought sense was being made, then lost, then made again — then lost entirely. Perhaps it was the exhaustion of the prior night's exertion, but he saw forms shifting among the shadows, and he could almost make them out, until—

"Shit..." Lost in his visions, he failed to realize that his fabric-assisted grip on the bowl was less than secure. He didn't drop his meal, for which he was thankful, but suffering a slight slip broke him free of his trance, in addition to soaking his sleeve in hot broth.

Gidren looked up to see Brynna eyeing him quizzically, seemingly making the split-moment's decision that his predicament was minor enough that she need not offer assistance. He appreciated her attentive nature; it made sense to him that someone surviving out in the Northlands without help for as long as she had would be both alert and decisive. Brynna had a far more level head than he did, that's for sure. He carefully wrung out his soaked sleeve, his meal carefully set aside so he would not drop it for real.

"You've been staring into that bowl for a long while now." Brynna called to him from her work station, her voice carrying from across the camp. "It ought to be cool enough to dig into by now." It certainly was. Gidren could tell already, when the splash didn't have much sting to it, but he didn't realize he had spent so much time wrestling with his shadowy visions. Wordless, he remained, as he finally indulged in his first bites of the meal. There was nothing spectacular about it, but it was the best he had in the days he could remember properly. Those days were, admittedly, quite few.

Remembering was the task that troubled him the most as Brynna posed her earlier questions. He hadn't known her for very long, yet, but he wanted desperately to explain himself to her. They had met in a somewhat unconventional way; Brynna found him sprawled out in front of a stony passage, drifting in and out of consciousness, in a scene not unlike the one from the morning.

She helped him back on his feet, promising that she would lend him aid and companionship until he was able to remember what happened to him, and where he was meant to be. In the weeks since the event, it seemed that not a single memory returned to him, but they had become good friends in the meantime. He didn't want to take advantage of her promise, so he kept digging for the memories in his mind.

Gidren remembered running — a lot of it. It was all he had, and it bled into every branching recollection. Everything surrounding the memory, that essence of running, was a blur. He couldn't piece together if he was running from, or towards something. There was a deep fear, and a great deal of pain, but the feelings came with no identifiers, no subjects. He only knew that he was running — and some part of him still knew why, and it kept him running even as he found relative safety in this new friendship.

Suddenly, something solid clattered between Gidren's teeth, as he bit into something far harder than expected. It came with a metallic tang, sending a wave of shudders through his body as he sputtered in an attempt to evict the offending object from his mouth. He saw something fly out and land in the grass nearby, but his investigation was halted by a jolt ringing through his mind.

There was a memory in that sensation, of the metallic taste on his tongue. The grass around him morphed into cobblestones, and the trees into grand buildings, towers, and great walls. Surrounded on all sides by pure white, he could reach out and touch the structures around him. Cold stone greeted him, and blood did the same, as he pulled his hand away. The vision crumbled almost as quickly as it began.

Returning to reality, Gidren found himself out of his seat, knees on the ground, and Brynna holding him upright with one hand on his back and the other on his shoulder. Guess this time she decided I needed some help, he thought, as he returned fully to himself.

"What was that?" She stared him down, concern creasing her features. "I thought you were choking on something, but you were just completely gone for a minute."

"I saw something..." Gidren mumbled, still dazed. "White walls... stone..."

"White walls, huh?" Brynna gently set him down to sit in the grass as she let his words settle into her brain. She narrowed her eyes at him, her lips parted in silent thought as her eyes darted to the horizon. "There aren't many places I can think of that have white stone walls, Gids. But there is one."

"The city." The words left Gidren on a delicate breath, as though he was experiencing the awe of a new discovery. Dredging up the memory of an entire capitol city after it was drowned in an inky black void certainly carried that same weight, and it forced his tense shoulders to drop as he followed Brynna's gaze to the distance.

Aurel sat upon the western horizon, now backlit by the setting sun. Washed in shades of red and orange, the distant city now loomed as something far greater than a speck on the horizon. No longer was the city a mere feature of the landscape — it held the potential to answer the questions drumming within Gidren's clouded mind.

He could not summon memories from the city, save for the vision which shook him from his seat, but there was an undeniable familiarity that tugged at his heart as he gazed westward. He strained himself to remember something, anything, but disturbing the thick layer of silt that coated his memories only served to muddy his vision further.

Distant as it was, the city's buildings and features blended together into one small shape, but the grand heights of its cathedral and castle rose heavensward, casting an unmistakeable silhouette. Their present location did not afford them a grand view of any of the city's features, but their travels along the paths of the Northlands, and even the location where they had met, brought them much closer in the past.

"You know, it wouldn't surprise me too much if you were a city boy." Brynna managed a smirk, taking advantage of the calm that washed over the camp as they stared towards the sunset. "I've never met a Northlander with hands as delicate as yours."

"Brynna—" Gidren groaned, shooting his friend a glare, which drew a laugh from her belly. Such a full-bodied laugh was contagious, and any anger Gidren felt over her comment melted away as he chuckled with her. "Gods, yeah... guess we should have known sooner."

There was a long pause, as the laughter fell away.

"I bet you want to go out there, though. Don't you?" Her question was laced with apprehension, and Gidren felt it fall over the discussion like a heavy blanket. He searched her face for any clues that would help him better understand her concerns, but couldn't find them in the moment.

"It might be the best way to jog some memories." Gidren looked away again, off toward the distant city. "I could see how a city might not be your scene though, Brynna. You've already helped me a lot, so I could make this trip on my own."

Brynna stared blankly at him at first, her expression shifting to take on a touch of hurt as he spoke.

"You wound me. Of course I'm going with you."

Gidren chuckled again, mostly at her stubbornness. Much like she couldn't force a memory to resurface from his brain, he couldn't force her to open up until she was prepared to lay the situation on a table and dissect it from start to finish. In spite of that, he looked to his friend with a wave of sadness washing over him. She didn't want to go to Aurel, but she offered her company regardless. He could only hope that his forgotten past wasn't as bloody as his flashbacks suggest.

He didn't want to drag her into something that her instincts screamed for her to stay out of.