Day 11, Week 1 - Into the Halls

[Corporal Light]

Several minutes later…

There… all done…

The gunsmith sat next to the flayed carcass of the wampa, its charred, hole-ridden hide on his lap. His technique, under more normal circumstances, would’ve been relatively slow and calculated, but at that point, he really didn’t care about the quality of the hide. It was already burnt to a crisp anyway.

Still, it was a problem. He didn’t know exactly how good of a pelt Dane wanted, but he could imagine it wasn’t this one. He would have to come up with a way to solve that when the time came up, since SPB had been strangely quiet about the whole thing. Never whispering in his mind, not thinking aloud; it was unnerving.

The inventor began to stand up, stashing the pygmy’s dagger into his belt as he tossed the hide over his back. As he turned away from the corpse, however, a voice rang out from behind him.

“As the Ravaging White corrupted the earth, and tore its land asunder, the Great Rock stood in defiance, and slowly, ever so slowly, halted the White in its tracks.”

Ballad’s eyes flared white as he turned around, seeing the logic spirit standing next to the corpse and looking down at it. It had taken his form again down to the most minute detail, only it was enveloped by smoke. The thick gas rose from his body, dissipating before it got much farther than its head.

“Emblematic, do you opine of it? What symbolism do you presume it limns?” It said, arms crossed and frowning as it moved its head back to look at him.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Ballad replied, glaring back at SPB.

It sighed, looking away from him, “You once did.”

“Once. I don’t care about any of it anymore,” he said, “it’s in the past, where it should be.”

The spirit remained still, looking back down at the carcass. The gunner walked towards him, placing himself at its side. Looking at its face, he saw the shade’s eyes were closed, its face completely black and almost entirely featureless.

“Even after everything that has come to pass…” SPB muttered, opening his eyes, “you can’t let bygones be bygones?” He glanced towards the inventor, the smoke around its “head” parting a bit to reveal furrowed eyebrows.

Ballad looked down towards the ground, avoiding the ghost’s studying gaze, “There’s nothing to let bygones be bygones over…” he whispered, his eyes changing color from white to yellow.

“Don’t fib, Ballad,” the shade said, dissipating into the air, forming a thick cloud before reforming above the corpse. He reached out towards the gunsmith’s chin, gently lifting it up before the green man pulled away and whirled around.

“You can’t shroud everything from everyone forever, Ballad. No one can.”

“I have nothing to hide-”

“With the exception of everything that is of moment.”

The sharpshooter looked back at SPB, his voice rougher than before.

“I’ve been one hundred percent truthful to everyone I’ve met since I got here. I’m here to stop a war, to bring back peace, and everything else I have said I would do in between those two statements. I have told no lies, and have hidden nothing from anyone.”

“No one but yourself, Ballad. If you have truly hidden nothing, then why can’t you admit to yourself why you’re really here?”

His face began to soften as the words reached his ears. He turned away again, silent as can be. A light smirk flashed on the spirit’s face as he talked, watching him tense up with each word spoken.

“You covet peace, Ballad. I find it an indisputable truth. But I have pondered… which do you covet more?”

It paused, waiting for a reply it knew would never come. It continued.

“A truce for the land… or tranquility for yourself?”

“The land...” he croaked as soon as it asked the question.

It sighed, shaking his head, “I cannot fathom why you do these things, Ballad. Why seclude those who have undergone misery? Why unleash your venom on those whom are unaware as to your history? Why ostracize yourself and presume others can honor that when you can’t honor anyone else? More often than not, you appear to ask others to interact with you so you could excuse your vile temperament. It’s as if you just don’t understand other people’s troubles.”

The shade stood in silence, staring at the shaking green man. The inventor let out a deep sigh, reaching his hand up to cover his face. He did understand. He understood all too well the pain he saw in everything around him. The people in this world that fought so desperately for a better life, only to have that swept out from underneath them at the last possible moment. A world full of wars, bandits, dictators, and so much more. And it hurt to understand. Hurt more than any bullet, any arrow, any blade, to understand it. To be reminded so constantly of the fact that he understood it. To be reminded of the fact that everywhere he looked, he saw exactly what happened before, and all he could think about each time he saw it was of a goddamn church blowing up and a war that tore his people apart. By his invention, no less.

“Ballad, I will not presume to understand your agony, but pay attention…” SPB said, “if you keep connecting dots that don’t exist, drawing baseless conclusions out of nothing, than you’ll never succeed.”

“And what do you think I should do?!” The gunsmith said, his glowing, yellow eyes piercing right through the smog-formed shade, “I’ve done everything I can think of! I’ve tried to forget, and that didn’t work. I’ve tried to ignore everything else around me, and that barely did anything! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO!?”

“To be forthright…” the shade said, looking off into the distance, “I possess no answers.”

Ballad shook his head, shrugging his shoulders a bit as he started to walk off again, “Of course. What do you expect from a being of knowledge...”

“I suppose you could start by, in the words of a wise person, ‘not being such a meanie?’”

He halted, eyes as wide as dinner plates. He immediately closed them, squeezing the brim of his nose as he talked.

“Stop…”

“Is there a harm in telling, Ballad? There wasn’t when you told her.”

“STOP!” he shouted, falling onto his knees and dropping the pelt onto the ground next to him. He brought his gloved hands to his face, muffling his sobs.

“Just fucking stop…” he barely managed to say.

He remained there, everything quiet but the wind around him and his tortured cries. He should’ve been angry, in fact, he WANTED to be angry. But after everything, he just… couldn’t. He was just tired. He just wanted it all to be done and over with, and to leave everything else behind. What was worse, though, was that he knew the thing was right. He hadn’t felt as happy as he was when he finally found someone, ANYONE, who had taken the time to try to get something out of him that wasn’t a threat or an insult. He thought maybe, just maybe, after the bandit thing was finished, everything was going to be fine. He would finally forget it all ever happened and… maybe start over from square one?

Then she had betrayed him. Held a knife to his throat as she sold him out. Led him on in the worst way possible and rocked him to the core. She had gotten what she deserved in the end, of course, but still… he couldn’t dismiss her for what she had done before. For the hour or so he had been with her after telling her, he felt… happy. Like weights had been lifted off his chest. And he had no one to blame for why that didn’t happen sooner than himself, and he had no one to blame for anything else but himself.

He finally removed his hands from his face, both wet from crying. What he wouldn’t give for another opportunity like that, and have it all go right. No tricks, no betrayals, no unexpected turn of events. Nothing but having everything going the way it was supposed to. He needed it, he CRAVED it; how else could one be happy if one hadn’t done something good in their lives?

He lifted his head up, looking behind him to see that SPB had moved up to him, placing its “hand” on his shoulder.

“Ballad, I know you’re too busy doing… this, to really pay attention, but...” it said, slowly lowering itself down towards the ground until its face was at the same level as the gunsmith’s. His stature conveyed a sense of parenting as it talked.

“You have a mission to accomplish. You’re doing it because you covet peace. Now whether or not the peace you are looking for is a tranquility or a truce… well, only the future holds the answer. But, logically, acting like this is a bad idea, especially since you will most likely have to rely on other people’s trust for any semblance of success.”

The gunner took in a deep breath, shivering for the first time since he had entered the cold land. He closed his eyes, whispering, “What do I have to do…”

“From a logistical standpoint… just have faith. Maybe not in a higher god, but in the others around you. Trust them to believe you, and they will believe everything you say.”

“Faith…” he muttered, slowly pushing himself up to his feet.

“Danish…” he said, his uncovered eye scanning the ground. It eventually settled on a pair of small, stubby looking prints in the snow that headed away from the corpse.

The gunsmith looked back towards the shade. It’s teeth was glowed white as it smiled at him.

“I believe you should discern his location, before he reports on your below average results. I think you know what to do from there.”

Without a single moment’s hesitation, he charged off.

Quest: Into The Halls
Word Count: 1,633

Almost done, kinda sorta!