Caridin
Caridin stood in the middle of the empty arena, growing more tired of this charade by the minute. What the hell had Arcturus meant? He'd been here since he'd bloody gotten up, and still couldn't find a damn thing of note. Was it all some ruse, just to teach him something? He was beginning to think so, it wouldn't make much sense otherwise.
"Fecking hells..." He sighed under his breath in defeat. With a thud, he lowered himself to the a seating position, and eventually onto his back so he could stare up at the ceiling "All this time I wasted searchin', I coulda been training instead. What the hell does he even want me to find?"
Training... in all honesty, that had occupied most of his waking hours since his match against No Equal. The old man had proven an unsuspected font of wisdom, during their talk after the fight. Figuring out the right balance between trusting yer gut and trusting yer head, and all that good stuff. It was a balance Caridin had still admittedly yet to find, but if doing so was the one way he could overcome his current roadblock, he was going to keep pushing for however long it took to do so. Hell, he was apparently already well on the way to doing it, given the old man had actually praised that final move. There weren't many times Caridin had felt bashful since he'd started down this route, but well... that had been one of them.
Mostly since the old timer admitted that the play had damn near gotten him. That right there had confirmed that a Favor Burst could've well won him that battle, had he thought to use it in the moment. But even besides that, it had been a very long time since he'd received that type of raw praise, the type you get when someone genuinely, 100% felt what you did was brilliant, and doesn't come immediately counter-balanced with constructive criticism on how your technique was a bit sloppy, or how you needed to tighten your stance, or whatever. Not since... no. Nevermind. He'd only give himself more heartache if he let those memories out to the surface. He already got more than enough of it from the damn dreams. They'd only gotten stronger since the match.
"Hmph, maybe that's why I'm so fecking intent on trainin' meself to death?" he scoffed internally. Training was the... one thing that had always taken his mind off of it, for however briefly. Had been that way since this mess started, really. He could remember it now, back in the old days when sometimes Erikur would have to bar him from exerting himself any further until he got some rest. How he used to argue back that sleep was for the weak, and that he wasn't gonna stop until he finally got that shit down pat. Then of course, Saga would chip in and say something along the lines of:
"'Just go to bed already, ye little shite,'" He recited from memory, "'You can't wallop those feckers if you keel over from exhaustion first.'"
He had known she was right, of course. But though rest brought renewal, true, it also brought the very things he was trying to avoid. Just like now. Maybe it was time to finally stop running. Stop wishing he could go back. Stop the pain that came every time he woke up and realized that was then, this was now, and his experience just seconds before hand had been nothing more than a cruel figment of his own troubled imagination.
But the part of him that wanted so badly to just lose itself in the memories had always overpowered the part that warned against it, the part that knew, and would not be seduced by the past. The part that had raged, and wrought destruction, and would continue to do so until naught remains. When he slept was the only time his light lost it's edge enough to be subdued...
"Feck, now I've gone and made meself sad and shite anyways... bah, what now? Am I just supposed to fecking sit here, wait for somethin' ta happen?"
He didn't have any other ideas, so....he folded his arms behind his head and got comfortable.
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Topic: [IC] TTG2: Public Void - Chapter 1: Hope (Read 10792 times)