Simmeon laid in his bedroll, unable to find sleep in the wake of the evening’s discovery. They had searched for hours. They searched for trails, and where there were no trails they searched for blood, where there was no blood they searched for scraps of garment, where there were no scraps they’d searched for a peace that they’d never again find. Simmeon could not shake the feelings that they, the hunters, found themselves hunted. Though it is such that a paranoid streak was not new to Simmeon; a Render learned to keep one eye always over his own shoulder.

  “On the morrow we ride at first light to the Yera, their goal was to find a place fit for fording so perhaps along the coast we’ll find something...” Reiner had said to them, his cold voice almost betraying the worry that ate at him. The conjuror knew that his fellow Captain was hiding something. But what? The men had nodded in agreement easily enough, yet too were fearful of what they may find. This was especially true for the mystic, for he knew in his heart and soul that the men they sought were dead, and what killed those men may well kill them too. Simmeon knew that Lance was on no mere scouting mission, his skills are far beyond a scout… though what he was after, Simmeon knew not. But he knew it must be something grand, after all, no Lord had attempted a Rending so brutish and gargantuan as The Ancient, and He was not like to send a promising young lord like Lance off to die in the woods for naught.

  When Simmeon finally did close his eyes, it was not he who found sleep but sleep who had found him. Indeed, sleep came upon him but not like a robber in the night, silently and selectively, but like a pillager ready to strip from him whatever it was he still had, even if only to take his life. Dreams came to him in bits and pieces, but deep down in his subconscious Simmeon knew these were no mere dreams. When the Veil is torn asunder so carelessly and wholly as has been done by them and their ilk, the waking world and the dreaming world become melded and blurred as spirits bled through: where once there was a wall separating the two clearly, there is now but a curtain.

  Simmeon found himself running through the woods, terror held him as he had seen something unseeable, heard something unhearable, and now he cannot describe what was unspeakable. A tragedy had befell him like nothing before. Eyes that did not exist peered out at him from the dark. His foot caught on a root and took him, he stumbled; he fell into fate, all for the worst that he should do such a thing. Only then did he realize he carried something… someone. He watched in horror as the small body flew up and rolled ahead of him as he fell down the hill. He scrambled to his feet and knelt above the body, “No! Not you too!” He screamed. Simmeon knew that the voice wasn’t his, yet the feelings he felt were just as real. He eyed his last chance, just ahead of him, the old stone archway born of a forgotten time beckoning him forward… forward a dark voice called in his mind. Restore what was lost. A light shone ahead, illuminating the night in a sickly green, coming forward from that place which he swore to never return. He hauled up the corpse and limped forward. After all, when such a sin - that he could not name but certainly felt - should befall him and his, what more did he have to lose? He found himself embraced by the cold, life for life the one for whom he cared for above all else rose up from below as he fell into that dark abyss. A more beautiful sin none could conjure, and so he fell into the dark embrace of-

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  Simmeon woke easily despite the panic that gripped his mind. He swept the sweat from his brow as he welcomed reality back while he pushed himself off his bedroll… even if his reality was no more comforting than the dream. Though he was no stranger to this particular phenomenon, and the panic another once felt left him quickly. The Veil was thin, after all, and what he dreamt could be anything save a dream. A prophecy, a memory of another - someone close or far, particularly where spirits are involved - it could even very well be an alternative reality. Simmeon once had spent time trying to scry some significance, but such endeavours proved fruitless. The dreams - should they have meaning - are for another far greater than him to discern.

  He woke well before dawn, as he had become accustomed to. He was not well rested, but time was not something they had in excess as of late. Simmeon rose quiet as a ghost and was vaguely aware of the others stirring around him. He clothed himself in his officer’s field kit with a practised swiftness, feeling only a little more eased when he tucked his flintlocks snuggly into their homes at his side and strapped his sabre at his belt. Finally, he reached into his satchel and grabbed it, a cloth which used to carry a sweet perfume, and he tucked it into his breast pocket. Soon, darling he promised one who could not hear him. He and his comrades saddled their mounts wordlessly for all knew no words had to be spoken for all were aware… if they didn’t find something worth deserting for, they’d hang when they returned.

  To be killed and made thrall to the one to whom he was the most devoted, called traitor and cast down, there would be no greater shame to the mystic. He had left behind everything for the Ancient, even his love. Yet, just as when he rode from his home, and just as the night they had rode from camp, a thirst for knowledge called him forward. Something tugged at Simmeon that night, the night when volunteer officers were being collected to go to the Major, something pushed him forward quite like the dream he had. It was a lust, a thirst, a longing: to hold that which he could not have, curiosities satiation. He figured then as he figured now that the Ancient is far too ambitious to send a talented young officer like Lance on a mere scouting mission… he could not help but to feel a nervous excitement at what they might find.

  With the shattered sabre Simmeon’s suspicions seemed vindicated, but what if he had flown too close to the sun? He sat tall as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, his worries not leaving with it, but he sat tall despite the whispering doubts. Simmeon was one of the greatest Renders to grace the face of this abandoned reality, he would not fall prey to whatever they chased and thus he could not afford to not fall prey to something as worthless as doubt. After all, what other choice did he have? “We ride hard until the Yera.” Reiner said then, Simmeon barely registered his words and so fell in line without comment. He had never seen the Yera, though he heard it was as beautiful as it was ferocious.

  He hadn’t heard wrong.