"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."
-Tom Stoppard
It felt like a lifetime engulfed in smoke.
Churning, swirling, suffocating. The acid tang hung heavy in the air and burned his nose, but when he opened his eyes all there was, was the bright blue of a cloud-free winter day. Chilly, perhaps, but he had long ago grown a thick and heavy coat to ward off the cold mountain air. His memories of the blistering desert and the giant city of super heated stone seemed far away, but he knew, somehow, that he would never be free of the memory of the smoke.
The loss of two companions, and the heartbreaking decision to send his remaining ones home for fear of loosing them too, all of those memories coalesced into a single, wispy, purely olfactory memory that haunted his steps day and night. The lonesome journey to find the origin of his haunting dreams served only to create a new set of revolving nightmares. Perhaps one night it would just be a plain of sand, the City of Thieves a far away star he was running from. He could run and run, but the star was ever on the horizon, watching him, laughing at him. Or perhaps the pale nightmare predator would have him, licking those wretched canines of his as he watched the unicorn squirm beneath his claws. But even that feel short from the nightmare where he was completely alone, devoid of light, his eyesight torn from him forever as he wandered in an endless sea of black emptiness.
He shuddered then, the recall of that nightmare far too vivid for a waking dream. He'd spent two days blind, turned that way by a stinging liquid that Seethe had kicked at him, and he hadn't shaken the terror of those two days yet. He would never again take for granted the sun, nor would he take for granted his life or the meaning those dear to him held. He'd nearly died then, when Seethe had finally cornered him and had sank his teeth into his hide, but the desire to live... that same desire that had made him rise up so many years ago when he had first proclaimed his belief in his One God... rose again in a flood of adrenaline fueled strength. And then he had seen her.
Some romantics might call the desire to see a certain beloved's smile a guiding light, but Toujours viewed it more as an irresistible charge, a magnetism of the soul that shook him clear down to his foundations and kept him sane when he almost succumbed to the darkness of the City of Thieves. Not even his current nightmares could cloud the desire to see Ashura again, and nor could his rationale cloud the issue.
Sure the logical, and self-deprecating, part of him tried to talk him out of this return trip. Why should she care what happened to him after all? He'd left her on her own for how many years? Why should she care?
But he had an answer for that. She shouldn't care... and he wasn't doing this for her anyway. This wasn't a love-story, and he wasn't a journeying hero. The shadow that stalked his steps was evidence enough of that! This was a path he was meant to walk, and it was a bridge that he had to cross or risk stagnating in a pool of what-ifs. His steps never faltered though, as they found the familiar trails through the Islagiatt territory, and thoughts of Seethe settled somewhere south of devil-may-care when he located the path towards Azumoth's Grove and Ashura's home. He figured he was prepared for the worst, that even if she chased him away he would be satisfied... her face was the first light his eyes had seen when he thought he was dead and blind forever, and he was resolved to see it again in the flesh... even if only turned away from him in disgust.
