Chapter Text
"You're not supposed to do that."
There was no gradual ease into nightfall -- one moment the sky was a sickening pastel-blue, the clouds swirling around like ingredients in a soup, and then the next moment the town had plunged into absolute darkness. A few torchlights flickered here and there on the streets, but otherwise all architecture was steeped in terrible, drowning shadows.
He wasn't sure what to say.
"What do you mean?"
"Roy," the voice said again. "Lad. Look down. Look at me."
Roy.
He frowned at the name. By simple logic it belonged to him, since the voice addressed him as such, but he knew it wasn't. Maybe it was more convenient for the other speaker. He wasn't sure when he had pulled out his greatsword, hands tight around the green hilt --
Greenhilt?
"You wouldn't kill me, wouldn't you?"
"I should," his mouth said automatically. Shadows whispered and rustled along the walls. A chill bit through his armour -- why am I wearing armour? -- all the way down to his bones, and he gritted his teeth against the cold. His hands were shaking on his sword.
"You wouldn't do that." The voice almost sounded hurt. Who was he searching for? He rounded the streets and found nothing. He couldn't see anything.
"You're not him," he said, and he wasn't sure why hatred thrummed in his voice. Why do I want him to die? "You're nothing but a damn puppet, and I'll make sure you stay a corpse this time."
"You'd risk his life, then?"
"You're not him."
"Good point," the voice conceded, and it felt like it was drawing closer. The voice was concrete, audible, but only one pair of footsteps moved across the cobblestones. The night was starless. "But what if I am? What if there's a part of him still in me, and right now he's pleading for you not to -- "
"Stop lying."
"Roy," the voice imitated, and it sounded just like him, the cold hollowness replaced by the gruff, if genuine warmth he remembered from his friend, and he thought his heart would twist into two. "Roy, you look like you need a patchin' up. Roy, you look like you've been hurt. Roy, Roy, Roy -- " the voice lapsed back into its crueler tones -- "he thinks about you a lot, you know. He thought about you while he died."
"Shut. Up."
"He'd thought you'd save him at the last second. Just burst into the chamber all heroically -- don't worry, Durkon, we'll get you through this! -- and maybe you'd carry him away from danger like you always do. He trusts you so much. It's sickening."
"Shut up!"
"But of course," and the voice seemed to glow with satisfaction, "he died on your watch. What a letdown."
He swung out madly.
Emerald flames erupted from the blade -- for a moment they scorched the air green, the silhouettes and outlines of buildings thrown into ghastly light, and mere metres from him was -- was --
"Durkon ..."
But it wasn't him, it wasn't him at all, not when his best friend in the entire world stared back at him with red, red eyes. There was no triumphant smirk, no disapproving frown -- the dwarf looked serene, almost, head slightly cocked to its side. It stared at him without blinking.
"A letdown," the thing repeated, never moving a muscle. His sword swung through it, green flames trailing after his blade, but it touched nothing. "A disappointment, don't you think?"
"Shut the FUCK UP!"
"If you were listening for him earlier," the thing continued quietly, "then you could have saved him."
He swung at it again, hitting nothing but empty air.