A lack of sleep for some…. (WoD)

The house was silent. Everyone was sleeping, or the closest approximation to it, even the man curled next to her in defensive posture. She watches him, her eyes wide and distant. She feels his chest rise and fall beneath her hand with each indrawn and exhaled breath, his lean face a study in pain, his long-fingered hands clenched tightly against his chest. Guilt assails her. It was all her fault that he’d had his command taken, her fault that the king questioned his judgment, questioned his skill. Her fault that he and Ian, best friends so long no one could say when it had started, had fought today, not with the friendly rivalry of brothers but the ferocity and rage of maddened beasts. Her thoughts scatter though her mind like startled doves. She’d been a burden on him for so many years that it had begun to feel right and this knowledge shames her. She chews on one slim finger as she stares at him, almost as if storing the image of his face away for future reference.  A look of resolve crosses her elvish face. Without a sound she climbs from the bed, her skinny body starkly white in the faint moonlight, and dresses herself. Collecting her things from the nightstand and stuffing her remaining clothes in her duffel, she walks with faltering steps towards the door.

With a brief glance back at the man’s recumbent form Kitty leaves, closing the door with gentle finality.

*********

Ian sighs. Sleep eludes him, even at this late hour, and the events leading up to and away from his fight with Hawk replay themselves over and over in his brain like a broken record. He stretches and stands up, his head barely missing the empty bunk above him, and walks quietly out the barracks door. He’d chosen to sleep in garrison instead of at home; the last thing he wanted to deal with were the questioning eyes of his family, the forced politeness in their greetings and the awkward silences at the dinner table. Ian didn’t want to have to lie to them. He didn’t want to tell them, "Everything’s fine, Mom and Dad. It’s just a wolf thing. It doesn’t translate well. Hawk and I understand it. We’ll be fine. Don’t worry." His footsteps echo down the deserted halls of the barracks.

It would have been wrong to go home and tell such lies. It wasn’t just a wolf thing. He hadn’t lost his temper and frenzied, he’d lost his mind. He’d lost his thought process, his memory. The damage he’d done to Hawk was something he’d seen when the fight was over and the curtain lifted in his brain. He’d been shocked, but somewhere deep within himself he’d gloried in it.

Shame swallows him; he shifts uncomfortably and covers it by putting a cigarette to his lips. His green eyes shimmer in the gentle moonlight as he steps out of the building and into the courtyard, eyes shining like emeralds in deep water. He lights the cigarette held between his lips and inhales deeply, exhales in a soft puff of gray smoke. No, it hadn’t been ‘just a wolf thing’. While he truly hoped that Hawk understood what had happened, Ian doubted it. If he didn’t understand it himself, how could Hawk fathom why his best friend had gutted him like a fish, then stood over his prone, bleeding body and laughed?

His eyes glitter madly as he takes another drag off the cigarette held absently between his grease-stained fingers. No, nothing would ever be fine again. He didn’t know how he would be able to look Hawk in the face again and not curl up with horror and shame. He’d come damn close to killing his best friend and how long would it be before it happened again?

Ian stands silent in a pool of silver moonlight, his eyes still glowing green as he thinks and smokes. As he finishes the cigarette, drops the butt to the ground and grinds it out with his heel, a strange thought occurs to him.

"When did I start smoking?"

********

A restless night was good for the mind, poison for the heart. How true that was strikes Bridget as she tosses and turns on her narrow bunk. She, like Ian, had chosen to sleep in barracks to avoid family, but for much different reasons.

My mother is insane, she thinks sadly as she rolls over for the umpteenth time. She lost her mind when Tommy and Sarah died. When David was taken from us. She remembers the shock she’d felt when she’d seen the fleur de li branded on the slave boy’s neck. How ironic that the boy should show up now, at the exact moment in time that she was ready to take her journey? How fortuitous.

She rolls over again, her long black hair glossy in the moonlight as it fans around her. The whole thing made her feel ill. She’d spent all this time gearing herself for her task, prepping her mind and body for the grueling and dangerous trek and then, all at once, someone shows up and makes her question her purpose. Makes her think of asking for help. And then the they find the boy with the brand and it all comes crashing back down, bringing her to her senses.

Her dark eyes are fathomless as she stares out the window. She’d almost failed. Almost gave in. Slow anger builds as she thinks of the wanderer. How dare he? How dare he come into her life, show her what she’d forgotten and make her lose sight of what really mattered? Her eyes close as her purpose floats to the surface of her thoughts.

David.

She was going to find him. Find him, bring him home, and bring her mother’s sanity back home with her. She remembers her mother before the raid. Smiling, loving, strong. The brittle cold woman she knows now was far in the future, a spectre that had not reared its head yet. Bridget smiles unconsciously as she remembers her family, remembers her life, back when things were golden and the future was full of nothing but hope. She remembers Hawk, still a bit gangly but with all his charisma and humor in full bloom, leaning in and kissing her at the Summer Festival, her arms reaching up and closing around his neck as the fireworks burst in the sky above. She swore to herself at that moment she was going to marry him, and the teasing she suffered at the hands of her siblings was well worth it.

So much hope, then. She feels it tingling upon her tongue even now, feels it turn to ashes in her mouth. The slavers had raided the convoy her family was on as they traveled from Avalon to one of the outlying camps. She was the only one of her siblings to survive, except for David who had been taken by their attackers. She remembers looking out from her hiding place and seeing her brother’s panic-stricken eyes as he was herded onto a wagon.

The memory stirs something in her gut. Something ugly. She curls up in a ball in reflex as the image of her mother’s grief-stricken face when they told her the news drifts across her brain. A terrified teenage girl had fled to her mother for comfort but found instead a distant, cold woman who asked her in a haunted voice, "Where are your brothers and your sister? Why are you here without them?" She’d stared in uncomprehending shock, her heart sinking. Her mother was gone, as far away from her as the rest of her family.

And that was when everything else fell apart. Hawk had gone into the army and Bridget had followed(as had Ian and Kitty), having nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. But her dreams of marrying her childhood love were long dead. Hawk saw it too, reacted accordingly. She’d changed too much and he was unable to reconcile this quiet, somber young woman with the memory of the laughing girl who he’d kissed on a balmy summer night. And his refusal to discontinue his strange relationship with Kitty had driven the two even further apart. She’d served in Hawk’s squad, was the best at her job, but there was little love in it. It was something to do, until she felt ready to go out and rescue her life.

It was time. She was ready. But why, then, did she fell as if she was stepping off a cliff? She rolls over for what feels like the millionth time as the moon shines through the window, outlining her body in silver. She clenches her fingers into fists, steels her resolve as best she can. She would find David, bring him home.

No matter the cost.