Voices echoed through the darkness as he walked. There was a crunch of snow and slowly light came back to him, filling his view.
He was emerging from a tunnel, a passageway and blinked at the sudden blinded light. Down the stairs he could see a crowd, all facing forward to…
No! He could warn them, save them, get them to safety! His feet felt on fire as he pumped his way down the staircase as the light slowly faded away.
He reached the crowd and put his hand on the first shoulder only to find it was now a tree, black and bridle that half bit at his vulnerable fingers. He started, pulling away and slowly turned around as he heard crackles in the snow, turning around to see two great visages...his family…
But the darkness of the trees was seeping across the ground, wrapping itself around them and cracking the stone. The statues fell apart only be replaced by beasts of shadow, snarling to him.
The voices continued, echoing over and over. Golden eyes came crawling up out of the darkness behind the two creatures, then grey light came from everywhere while the earth seemed to shake. It fell away and suddenly he was elsewhere.
Red, red everywhere. A shuttering weeping creature on the floor. "H-help me…please…" it said. But the shadow on the floor behind it told a different tale, of a snarling monster licking it's lips.
He drew his axes and prepared to kill it. It stopped crying to mutter out "You are a waste of blood…" before lunging at him with a shriek.
Baird woke up with a startled yelp and then a grunt as he slipped onto the floor with a thud. Where was he, where…
He was in Hjalforth's Pub, owned by his family, on the floor panting and sweating as dreary early morning light filtered through the windows. He frantically gazed around, breathing hard as he climbed back onto his old stood. He must have fallen asleep while drinking...again. He angrily looked at the nearby mug before he gave a snarl, picking it up and throwing it hard against the nearby wall. He was never having that brand ever again.
After he calmed down and straightened himself out, he begrudgingly cleaned up the broken mug that he'd shattered against the wall. He then moved outwards, doing little things like a vague wipe of a table here, flicking a crumb off a chair there.
The rest of his day was a monotonous blur of the dull existence he now occupied. Walking, drinking, sitting, waiting, occasionally speaking. It felt like he was standing still and everything was instead happening around him instead of him causing it. His dream wracked his mind and drove him to drink more whenever he thought of it. He knew what it meant. What it was. He wished it would stop, that he could be better and break his newly formed mould.
But he could not. He refused to, to do that would be too revealing and too destructive to his world now. So before he knew what he was doing, he was back at his stool as the last few patrons were leaving and the Pub staff silently eyed him as they cleaned up.
Crowd, trees...interruption.
Baird woke up with a start this time, not shouting. He groaned and re-thunked his head down onto the hard oak wood. When was the last time he'd slept in a bed. When was the last time he'd even slept with someone else beside him to offer some degree of comfort. When was the last time he'd gone to bed without drinking himself face first into a tavern counter. He didn't even remember the last time he'd changed his clothes. Maybe the day before last? Maybe a week. Could have been a month for all he cared and he wouldn't do anything about it.
"Baird? Ye there lad?"
He gave a dull glance to his right where he blinked rapidly at Cromwell Ulfblod sitting there. It was still the evening and he moved to lean onto the counter before he gave out a big yawn. "Mm, hello there Crom, what're ye doin' here?"
"Well, I was 'ere te talk te yer father if he was 'round but I don't think 'e's 'ere is 'e…"
There was boring talk that continued on...and on...the older man was as eccentric as ever. Baird kept rather tight lipped and let him talk, nursing his drink before the calls of sleep within him were too great and he started to drift off. Before he could, Cromwell started into some story. Baird barely had its first tendrils into his ear as he started to drift off again
"Do you remember that...time...ye and yer...father…"
Baird found himself in the forest again. He let himself fall to his knees as he dared not to look up as he knew what he would see. But then, when he heard a few prepubescent squeals of laughter, he did glance upwards. Running in a haze of sunlight was him and...his brother. No monsters, no statues, just two large boulders resting in the green as the two siblings rushed around, chasing each other.
The light in the sky flared and now Baird found himself in the same place, watched as ethereal versions of himself and his father sparred back and forth through and around the stones as detached laughter filled his ears.
Finally, they both just became mist and settled down to the earth. An endless overstretching plain was now all he could see. All that remained were the stones and still, despite the sunlight, the shadows came around and laced across the rocks. The rocks fell away and now it was only him and the two beasts silent.
Silent.
Then a small dog-like whine.
"Ye remember that boyo?"
Baird opened his eyes to see the grinning face of his great uncle right up close.
"...aye. I remember" Baird lamely managed before he gave a faint smile and moved to start standing up.
"Where ye off te Baird?" the older man said as he turned on his stool.
"Home." Baird said with a shrug before he headed for the door, deciding a bed would probably be best tonight instead of a nightmare infested stool.
A thanks to @The_Shadow_King3 for putting Baird's thoughts onto paper.
