All Of Me

[vanimadin]

This fic was written in response to a songfic challenge Firefox posted over at Stealing Hearts way-back-when. She posted the lyrics to three songs and challenged people to write fics from them. I chose "My Immortal" by Evanescence and this is what I ended up with when I was finished.



Title: All Of Me
Fandom: Heralds of Valdemar
Author: senashenta
Rating: K+
Genre: Fantasy, Tragedy, Angst
Characters: Herald Errin Waygandt and Companion Alecsi
Disclaimer: Valdemar and concepts belong to Mercedes Lackey; lyrics are to "My Immortal" by Evanescence; original characters and this fic belong to their author.
Summary: A shattered lifebond leaves a Herald just as broken, his sanity lost along with his love. Only his Companion remains, lingering, grieving, hurting, unable to help and yet unable to move on...

ALL OF ME
By Senashenta

-
I'm so tired of being here…
Suppressed by all of my childish fears.
-

Sometimes I watch him.

Quietly.

From the shadows.

I don't even know if he sees me—if he knows that I'm there. Sometimes—sometimes—I think that he's aware of my presence. Because, sometimes, I can Feel something akin to remembrance stir in the emptiness of his thoughts. But there are other times—times that happen more often than not—when I'm sure that he doesn't know me—doesn't recognize me—doesn't want to recognize me at all.

Those are the times when I wish... just for a moment... but for a moment that seems to last for all of eternity...

...that the Gods...

...would just let him go...

If he was to leave then I could follow, and we could be together once more. But staying here, alone despite how close he is—sometimes, so close that I could touch him—is just killing me inside. It's a kind of pain that you can't understand—you can't know—unless it's happening t you. It is akin to the worst nightmares I had when I was young... and at the same time, nothing like that.

And being here—being here alone—it makes me so—makes me so—

—makes me so tired—

-
And if you have to leave,
I wish that you would just leave.
-

Why?

I ask the Havens, every day the same question, and every day I can stare up into the silent sky for hours without receiving a response. Yet I continue to ask—because I just don't understand. I wonder what we did to deserve such a Fate. I wonder what could make the Gods hate us so. What could make them hate him... so much that they would take his love, take his soul, take his life, but then leave him to wander the earth, broken and shattered, empty and lost.

:...Errin?:

Again, as always, he is staring at the headstone. It rests beneath a pine tree, near the south end of the Grave Yard—the name "Yana" is carved, elegantly, in the cold grey slate. The stone next to it says "Phenyo".

I knew them both—just as I knew Errin—

Before—

-
Because your presence still lingers here,
And it won't leave me alone…
-

He lingers in the back of my Mind, just a fleeting shadow of his former self. Where there was joy, and hope, and wonder—where there was love—there is nothing but all-encompassing darkness. There are no thoughts, and no memories. There is nothing to identify him as "Errin". There is nothing to identify him as the man he used to be.

There is nothing to identify him as my Chosen.

He is staring at the headstone. Her headstone. A testament to her life, and her death. Unblinking, unspeaking—all he ever does anymore is stare, through flat, blank eyes, at the polished rock that signifies everything she ever was. The emerald depths that I so loved—the wonderful green that I used to get lost in—is gone, replaced by a foggy mirror of what it used to be.

:... she... wouldn't... want...:

-
These wounds won't seem to heal,
This pain is just too real,
There's just too much that time cannot erase…
-

I talk to him, sometimes, when the agony is too much to be kept locked inside me anymore, but he never talks back. I've learned to expect his silence—and to accept when he doesn't even register that I'm speaking.

When he doesn't even hear at me...

When he doesn't even look me...

When he doesn't even know me...

I talk to him—simply because he is still here. Still with me, and yet not. And until the day that he leaves, finally, to be with her for all of eternity, I will stay with him—I will love him. I will comfort him, even though he won't do the same for me. I will wish, though it hurts me to think it, for all of his pain to be taken away.

I wish, not for my own happiness—

But for his—

And I—

And I—

And I remember—

-
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears,
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears,
And I held your hand though all of these years,
-

The last time I felt this incomplete, I was on Search.

That was also the first time that I felt incomplete—the first time that I realized that I, on my own, was only a small part of something. And that something was destined to be greater than I could ever hope to be on my own. He and I, we were only pieces—fragments of each other, and I knew it—I knew it from the first moment I set eyes on him.

:... she... wouldn't want... you... to...:

My heart breaks every time I Speak and no one answers. My soul shatters on the silence that has filled my life since she left him. No sword—no arrow—no dagger—no knife wielded by the most loathsome foe could ever hurt as much as this.

And why must I remain?

Why must he remain?

Why... if only to feel emptiness, pain and despair?

-
But you still have all of me…
-

I was ten.

I was ten years old when I found him, the part of myself that I hadn't known I was missing. He was fifteen, and nothing but a scruff of a boy, short and almost sickly thin, with unruly sandy-blonde hair and no more grace than a drunken mule. To me, though, he was the most beautiful person I had ever seen.

His eyes were shining green, the color of new grass. They sparkled when he laughed.

I watched him then, too. I watched him silently. I watched him from the shadows.

But I watched him with joy—with hope—and with newly blossoming love, as he played in the front yard of his family's home. His younger brother and sister, twins, and both with brown hair and blue eyes, as well as the family dog, were playing with them.

He was so carefree, then.

He was so happy...

:... she... wouldn't want you... to... to do this...:

He was so...

:Errin... please...:

-
You used to captivate me,
By your resonating light.
But now I'm bound by the life you left behind…
-

It was his sister who noticed me first.

I was standing beneath the swaying boughs of a willow tree, two or three houses away from theirs. In the speckled and shifting shadows, unassuming, not wanting to interrupt his play. But the girl—Lylian—saw me, and I watched her eyes grow wide with childish glee as she squealed something incoherent and pointed animatedly in my direction.

There was no disguising myself. No denying the fact that I was there.

And as I started toward him, with my ears and tail raised and my steps light and happy, time seemed to freeze around us. The only sounds were the chime of my hooves and the ringing of my bridle bells. The only scent was that of the future.

:You…:

I whispered the words, cherishing the moment.

:You... Errin. You.:

He had been kneeling on the grass, and my eyes tracked his movement as he stood, slowly, never taking his eyes away from me. For him, too, the world had faded away. There was a long, wistful moment, with just he and I—and the wind.

:I... am called Alecsi.:

His voice was sweeter than apples; "Alecsi..."

:You, Errin—you are my Chosen.:

How I loved him.

-
Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams,
Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me…
-

I don't sleep anymore.

When I do, I dream—of her. I dream of her, and of Phenyo—

—of fire—

—of retribution—

—and—

—of Errin—

Of the way he used to be, so bright and happy, so full of life. But in my dreams, there is always a darker shadow, overcast in the sky and looming, threatening to eat him alive. Threatening to take me with him—and I would go. Gladly, I would go. If it would save him, if it would rescue him, I would go.

To be with him, again.

-
These wounds won't seem to heal,
This pain is just too real,
There's just too much that time cannot erase…
-

He was in his third year in Whites—this third year as a full Herald—when she came into his life.

Herald-Mage Yana. She was beautiful, and wonderful, and everything that he could ever want in a lover—they were also lifebonded, and I will admit that I was jealous of her. It was hard not to be: for eight years, I had been the only true love in his life, and suddenly, there, with no warning, he had fallen in love with another.

It wasn't his choice, of course, and in due time I got over it. For Yana was wonderful, and even I could not find it within myself to hate her—besides which, she was Chosen by Phenyo, and he was as wonderful as she. The two of us grew close, Phenyo and I, over the years before he and Yana were lost to us—before they were lost to him.

:... please... Errin... I'm so... I'm so...:

Gods, it hurts. It hurts so much my heart might burst.

:... I'm so alone, Errin... Chosen, please... I'm so alone...:

I'm so alone...

-
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears,
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears,
And I held your hand through all of these years,
-

The fire was no accident—it was deliberately set, and fueled by something neither Errin nor I could immediately identify. It raged in the night, decimating first a set of stables, and then a tavern. Flames licked high into the sky and smoke billowed on the wind, blackening the already dark night with thick, cloying, choking clouds.

It was that night—it was that fire—which claimed the lives of Yana and Phenyo.

They fought, Errin and Yana, and several other Heralds, to put out the blaze, but their efforts were in vain. The hunger of the fire was insatiable, even after it had claimed the lives of four horses and two stable hands—a third was burned beyond recognition, but still alive, and as I was feeling particularly useless in the fight against the inferno, I hesitantly offered to spirit him to the Collegium, and the Healer's Sanctuary there.

I didn't want to leave Errin, but—

"Go, Alecsi! Take him! I'll be fine!"

:Are you sure, Chosen? Someone else could—:

"No one's faster than a Companion! Just go!"

:Alright.:

He helped to bundle the child up and strap him onto my back—

—and I went—

I was a fool.

-
But you still have all of me…
-

The Death Bell tolled, a solemn ringing through the dead of night.

I was halfway back to the Collegium when it began to cry out, throbbing through my mind as if it were housed there, instead of the Temple in the Grove. My gait faltered, and I tripped, jostling the poor boy on my back. He groaned, pain etched in every facet of his voice, and despite the low, rhythmic tolling of the Bell, I forced myself to keep going—

For his sake.

But—

There was—

There was—

There was—

YANA—!

Errin's scream cut through me like a knife, tearing into me and leaving me raw and sore, bleeding from invisible wounds.

I knew then.

I knew that my world had come crashing down around it. It crumbled to dust before my very eyes.

I remember the Bell—

More than anything else—

I remember the Bell—

Ringing—

Ringing—

Ringing—

And with each toll, another piece of Errin's mind—of my mind—was chipped away.

-
I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone,
But though you're still with me,
I've been alone all along…
-

How I have tortured myself over that night.

I should have stayed. I should have stayed and helped. I should have stayed and—

What?

Everyone tells me: there was nothing I could do.

Maybe, but I can never know for sure, and now... Errin...

I tried to comfort him, but there was no way for me to fill the gaping hole in himself—the hole that had been left when she died. It was wide, a crevasse that I couldn't cross, and a cavern that I simply was not enough to fill. His love—his life—his joy and sorrow, his everything slipped into the darkness, along with his sanity.

And yet he remained, tethered to this world by... what?

By me, perhaps.

:... I'm so sorry... Errin... I'm so sorry...:

I don't want him to stay. I don't want to have to stay, myself.

:... I don't want this... I don't want you to hurt like this...:

Again, like so many times in the past, I close my eyes and pray—

Please—

Please, let him pass—

Please, give him peace—

Please—

-
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears,
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears,
And I held your hand through all of these years,
-

He stares, eyes flat and dark, not seeing, not understanding, just looking—focused on the name, etched firmly in the smooth, cold stone of Yana's tombstone. He never looks at Phenyo's. He never looks at me. He never looks beyond that single name, tied to his heart and soul. He never sees beyond the darkness—beyond the nothingness of his own personal Hell.

He is imprisoned, trapped in his own body.

Unable to escape.

Unable to let go.

Unable to move on.

:... forgive me, Chosen.:

He stares...

:... please, forgive me...:

I am the one keeping him here.

:... Errin...:

I—

:... I'm sorry...:

I can't hold him. I can't comfort him. I can't help him.

:... I... I'm so sorry...:

He stares.

-
But you still have all of me.
-

***