#adreal

Don't mind me, just posting art for a DnD character I don't even play anymore.

He doesn’t walk so much as prowl the dark and cobbled stone streets of home. Doors are barred shut and windows bolted, even the wind doesn’t dare creep past his steps without asking. There is a tide of darkness behind him, swallowing friends and home alike, and absorbing whatever fires or lights dare to flicker at this ungodly hour.

The blackness billows up like storm clouds, heavy and groaning through rumbles and growls of their own weight as it grasps at his wrists and waist, adorning his skin in blackens rain water. It creeps slowly up though his skin, linking scar after scar in a sizzle and pop. He feels the cobbles falling away and the distant cries - turned white noise as everything is /consumed/.

And as his maw opens, the light falls out, globs pooling and falling away from him, eaten away at by the smog that held everything captive, the storm that rose from his cockles and upward.

The sky was in turmoil, rolling over itself like a pained animal, whose thunderous groans were split apart with shrieks of lightning, opening wounds that wept above. Everything was falling apart and the worst part.

Was that he was smiling.

—————–

It was the glimpse of that smile that jumped him awake, the sun barely kissing the sky good morning as he sat, sweat soaked and panting in his loft room. The various safeguard charms and wind chimes clinking and some clattering to the ground. It was always the same as he brought hands to his face, making sure he could feel that smile, he checked himself over quickly, clambering out of bed and to the tall mirror in the corner.

His body was fighting back the shades of blacks at his ankles and wrist, dispersing within a few seconds of his eyes finding them. He rubbed his eyes- he checked again and they were gone. It was gone. He checked himself over once more, to find his scars intact, his body intact, and everything at least moving. Calming himself, he steadied his breathing, standing with hands tugging at the back of his hair, he let his head drop back as he walked around the room, counting his steps. Grounding himself to where he was and what was happening now.

It was only after a solid amount of time that he moved to pick up the chimes and charms. Lifting them back to their posts to guard him once more, he tousled his own hair. Sitting at the Windows ledge, he peered inside to look over his room. The visions- or nightmares, he wasn’t sure which - had caused his bed to become a mess and a few things to had been slipped out of place. He would get to reorganising later, for now he was hungry.

————–

It was the clinking and tinkle of the chimes that had grabbed the others attention from below as he made his way upstairs.

Adrealphus had sensed a massive, shifting imbalance of the eather during the night, and had reasonings and inklings as to what it might have been. But whenever this had happened, he had known through trial and error that it was best to leave the Prince alone to find himself before disturbing him. In hand with a wooden tray with various morsels of breakfast foods and two drinks, he made his way into the Princes chamber, a hum aided with him opening the door as he stepped inside.

“ Some of your favourites, My Lord. Eggs and steamed broccoli with a side of salmon and tuna steaks - are you alright?” The was always a softness to Adreal’s tone in the morning. Vaun had assumed he hadn’t found anything to be gruff about at this time in the morning, and for that he was thankful.

“ Thank you, thank you… Yes yes I’ll be alright… It was the same sight again.” He huffed a sigh at the end of his line, words only faintly edged with thunder as he glanced outside, leaning against the window frame as Adreal set the food down on the small oak table beside him. “ It’s deafening, the noise I think I hear and the images I see are just…”

He shifted his seat, resting head in his hands as he forced repeat images from his mind, and focused on his breakfast.

“ I’d use the word /unpleasant/, sire but I don’t think that would do, now come, eat. We have a glorious hunt awaiting us today.”

After setting the food down, Adreal had gone to absent mindedly clean up the place whilst also finding clean clothes for the now eating Vaun. It had become a second nature to completely overlook the fact that the prince was naked, and it had become normal for the both of them to simply not care.

“ Please enlighten me when you do… Are you /sure/ there isn’t something we can do to make them stop? It’s been years-”

“We’ve already tried everything that is safe and a few things that nearly killed you… Whatever is happening in your head is… Sadly out of my depth sire”

“Then what good are you?” Vaun snapped, catching himself to late as the words edged with fear struck forth. The sudden stillness in the room was unsettling, and as Vaun put the fork back down, he sheepishly looked away.

“ I’m … I’m so sorry Adrealphus I didn’t mean-”

He was hushed with a raise of the warlocks hand, as he moved from the bedside towards the prince - with clean undergarments in hand. Sitting beside him, he tossed them beside the seated prince and looked up. Long curled black hair well kept and revelling as loose strands fell across dark tanned freckled cheeks. A smile framing his lips.

“ I know, I know. Do not worry about it Vaun, if that was all it took to wound me do you think I’d put up with your arse? ”

Whenever he spoke frankly it brought a broad smile to Vauns face. It was then he joined in with his own breakfast and cheered the Prince up.