Dark
Kairon does not like the endless dark of the mountain.
He does not regret it, not truly. It had been a wonder to see Grimgolir, so grand and mighty, and it had been a privilege to practice his Dwarvish — he so rarely gets to, these days. It had the wonder of seeing a new place and meeting new people as he does on this journey of his, but tinged with a distant, aching familiarity.
But all the same, time seems to run together and bleed at the edges, down here in the dark. He lacks the routine of sunrise and sunset. He forgets to eat, until Opal reminds him. Meditation is pale succor but it keeps him focused, amidst conversation, writing, contemplation.
In the wake of the battle — the screams, the noxious twist of magic crawling in the walls — he remembers the stories of evil beneath Grimgolir, the monsters that had taken from Brommus his own family. It is a cruel epiphany: it is a warrior-nation for good reason and more, forged in opposition to that has wounded it, preyed upon it, defied its understanding because senseless pain and suffering cannot be understood.
He knows that this unites people because he has done it himself.
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He wonders at the smoking husk of one, its shell and innards and wine-dark blood. These are not the monsters he knows, at least, not babbling and scraping for his blood (not dancing and loping through flames, not glutting on screams. Ichor pours from the wounds on his arms and there are firm hands beneath his chin, whispering to him, the jagged-black spiral — )
His stomach turns. He stills and closes his eyes, and hopes that Opal does not notice.
The greater danger seems held in the magi they’d rescued, at the last. The elves with their box, traveling alone yet able to command half of their patrol at a whim. He does not know how to react at first, to speak with those of the Cerberus Assembly in person, the highest echelon of the Empire. He asks and gives no name; they part without fanfare.
He is glad for that, at the least, the shortness of it — their like, he knows, would not care that the quest which takes them to Xhorhas was handed down by a soul more noble than they. Of the lot of them, he and Opal are not the ones with cause to obfuscate their mission.
He lingers still, at the way the woman had looked at him. Recognition, or something close to it; for that he finds no cause. When they reenter the dark and winding tunnels, he is left with only wounds and mystery and the dark.
At least he is not alone.
