Mission's Vision, Farron's Fears, Garyth Speaks Up

From: Scott

Subject: Re: The Last Quiet Night

Mission croaks, "Sand and shadow," and then falls silent again, as the remainders of the vision shake in his limbs.

"Sand and Shadow," he says again to Garyth, and Rennick, and Melani, and Farron, and Cadfael, and Sa'id. He swallows. They didn't understand him, why didn't they understand?

He takes a breath, and the air has a sweetness it has no right to have. As if there weren't an army of undead upwind from them. As if the air weren't full of Sand and Shadow.

Not yet. What was Promise if not hope? Redemption? "I saw. . . a man made of Shadow throwing sticks into a fire. The sticks were people, and one of the sticks was Promise." The images were jumbling now-- he had to speak quickly so that the others would know the vision. There was hope in that. A promise, in that. "But we stole that stick from him-- I don't know-- it just disappeared, and he became very angry. He threw more and more sticks into the fire, and the men burned, and made the fire rise up high. . ." Mission stops for a moment, takes a breath.

"I saw Nukaru's longhouse, and felt a terrible fear. But it was closed to me, and I couldn't get inside." He could still, somehow, feel the rough grain of the wood of the longhouse, could feel the ache in his hands and arms as he beat against it. "There was a fog all around me, and I could see nothing."

"Then I was on a ship in the same fog. There were many people, and we were going toward a light-- we thought the light meant safety. But something happened-- the ship was broken to pieces. The light-- lied, somehow, I couldn't make out how exactly." He remembered the face of a woman in the vision, and how her eyes had widened when they heard the hull of the ship being split open on the rocks that were also, somehow, the halfling's longhouse. He coughed, half expecting to cough up seawater. But, no. Just air.

"There was an army of undead after that. They tied everyone they found into bundles of sticks. To burn for the man in Shadow. Everything on this island was burned. And he laughed."

Mission shudders, and puts Promise up on his shoulder and pats the boy's back. There's comfort in that, a little. Right now, he'd take all he could get.

"We need to get to Nesalin, and warn the garrison there of the attack on Overlook." Although, how anyone could miss such an army as the one massing on the plains was beyond Mission. Surely Nesalin had outposts and scouts around the island?

Surely. Better safe than sorry. He looks at Rennick urgently. "When will it be safe to move on?"

OOC: Ty's description of the vision was VERY good reading. Made my hair stand on end. I have not done it justice.

From: Scott

Subject: Mission's vision-- for the Archives

Mission looks desperately at his son, trying to figure out why the boy is bawling so piteously. The boy has never cried before, and the sound terrifies his father.

"What? What is it, Promise? What do you need me to do?"

The boy's large blue eyes turn to his father, and one small hand touches Mission's finger.

Images flash through Mission's mind. He can feel the confusion and frustration in his son, as the boy tries to make sense to his father with only the data he has gained over three days of life. Then, the images slow, and one by one...

A man sits by a campfire, throwing sticks into the blaze. He is little more than a black outline, but his eyes glow a terrible red, and seem to flash brighter with each bit of wood thrown into the flame. He turns to pick up a very large chunk of wood for his fire, but someone comes and takes it away. The man howls with anger, and begins throwing many bundles of smaller twigs in the fire, making it blaze, and each stick that falls into the flame becomes a man, screaming...

Mission stands in the halfling camp, near the chieftain's longhouse. A cold wind blows down from Huss, chilling him to the bone. Wherever it touches, a great fog bank comes up, and soon he is blind. He needs to get into the longhouse, but he can't find the door, and he batters himself against the side like a moth, breaking himself to pieces....

Then he is among many people, and the ground is water, and somehow they all travel together. Ahead is a light. The light means safety, and he and the many people turn toward it. But the light lies to him, and he and the people around him are dashed to pieces against the longhouse again...

An army of black shapes, impossible to look at directly because they are so cold and so empty, march together across the land. They enter the halfling village and begin picking up the people of the village and bundling them together in great stacks. But when they are bundled together, they are just sticks, waiting for the flame...

And the black man sits before a bonfire that reaches the sky, and all around him the forests and trees are gone, cut down, fed to the flames. The black man laughs forever and ever...

And then Mission is awake, and holding his son in his arms. Promise is no longer crying, but is looking at his father with a sadness that no child of three days should be able to feel.

From: Mark

Subject: Crying babies and Undead armies

Just curious. Are we supposed to check in? Are we waiting for something?

From: Ty