#i love aloth i relate so much to this anxious boy

[dragonologist-phd]

The Weight Of All Our Memories

This weeks fic fill for @pillarspromptsweekly “Roll For It”, featuring 3 themes- Thaos, Aloth, and betrayal. This week’s fic features my Watcher Desta, and a conversation with Aloth concerning certain revelations and confessions. Also on AO3.

Defiance Bay was burning.

The smoke was a dark stain in the sky, visible even miles away from the city. By now the buildings and walls blurred into nothing but a dot on the horizon, and yet the smoke billowed and curled, dark and sinister and showing no signs of fading. Aloth could only imagine what must be happening back there- looting, destruction, a mad scramble from the authorities to restore order to the chaos.

The Leaden Key had created that chaos, and the guilt of that fact pressed harder on Aloth every time he caught sight of the smoke cloud in the distance.

I tol’ ye not to trust ‘em, ye ninnywit.

Aloth winced and pushed Iselmyr’s voice away. She had been simmering just underneath the surface for days now, fueled by Aloth’s own frustration at himself. For once he couldn’t say she was wrong in her criticisms; unlike him, Iselmyr had never wanted anything to do with the Leaden Key. Aloth had always disregarded her protests, so sure that she was only trying to keep him from finding a way to reverse his Awakening. He’d refused to let her dissuade him from his path. At the time, he thought he knew what he was getting into.

Now here he was, watching Defiance Bay burn and wishing he had listened a little closer to the voice in his head.

“Look out!”

Aloth started at the voice and quickly ducked, narrowly avoiding the pinecone that flew past his ear. He blinked in surprise, trying to pull himself out of his thoughts enough to figure out what had just happened. “...Why did you just throw a pinecone at me?”

Desta grinned sheepishly as she approached. Despite her silver metallic armor, it was difficult in the evening light to make out her figure among the trees. Her dark green skin blended in with the scenery, and her golden godlike eyes caught the light in strange ways. Seeing her emerge from the forest was strangely otherworldly, even as she plopped herself noisily down next to Aloth and gave him shrug. “I wanted an excuse to shout something at you. You seem distracted, and not in your usual ‘leave-me-alone-so-I-can-read’ kind of way.”

Aloth let out a small breath and closed the grimoire in his lap. He’d hoped nobody would notice his momentary absence- as Desta pointed out, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to distance himself from the campfire that the others were gathered around. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m just trying to focus on this new spell.”

Without meaning to, he glanced again towards the smoke rising from Defiance Bay. Desta noticed. “No, you’re torturing yourself by obsessing over the riots. It’s what you’ve been doing ever since we left the city. That doesn’t do anybody any good, you know.”

“I-” Aloth started to protest, then stopped himself. “I know. I know it’s too late now to fix things. That doesn’t stop me from wondering what I could have done differently.”

Aloth could feel Desta watching him, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. It had only been a couple of dats since his guilt-ridden confession about his connection to the Leaden Key. Telling her about his past with the organization had been terrifying; that was why he had avoided it for so long. He’d seen her righteous anger firsthand, and had no desire to have that anger turned upon himself.

But when he told her the truth in the shadows of the burning city, there had been no anger. Desta had only given him that same soft, unreadable look she was giving him now, and he had been instantly forgiven.

It made no sense. At the time, he’d lacked the bravery to question it, but now he had to know. “Why aren’t you furious?”

Desta’s brow furrowed. “What?”

Aloth shook his head at the outrageousness of the situation. “I lied to you! I betrayed you! I was a member of the Leaden Key, I worked for Thaos! How am I still here?”

A good-natured smile played on Desta’s lips. “You didn’t betray me, Aloth. Yes, it would have been nice if you’d shared certain information sooner…” Her voice took on a disapproving tone,, but even now there was no true malice behind it. “But you can’t actually expect me to blame you for all of this.”

“But-”

“Aloth.” Desta firmly cut off his protest. “Did you know Thaos was planning an assassination?”

Aloth’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Well, no. But-”

“Did you know the Leaden Key was doing all that crazy shit with the machines and the animancers?”

“No.”

“Did you know that Thaos was messing with souls and killing people and trying to throw a city into anarchy?”

Aloth held up a pleading hand. “You’ve made your point. I didn’t know this would happen. But I still played a part. I thought what Thaos was doing was good, and I never questioned it. Not once. Even when I knew something was wrong, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. And you…” Aloth trailed off, trying desperately to arrange his thoughts correctly. “The entire time I’ve known you, all you’ve done is go out of your way to help people. The Leaden Key does the opposite of that. They’ve tried to kill you, many times. You should hate everything about it.”

The silence hung tensely in the air around the two companions. Aloth waited for a response, an explanation. Perhaps Desta had a reason for keeping him around she hadn’t yet divulged. Perhaps she was about to come to her senses at last, recognize the weight of what he had participated in, and send him away for good.

Finally, Desta heaved a deep sigh. She reached down and plucked the pinecone she’d thrown off the ground, turning it over in her hands as she spoke. “I don’t hate you, Aloth. I get it. I understand why you stayed loyal for so long. When you found the Leaden Key, you were aimless and alone. You didn’t have a family or home you could turn to, and then all of a sudden you had a purpose. You had something to believe in, to give your life some direction.”

Desta’s words came with the rushed tone of vulnerable honesty, and they hit at the memories within Aloth.  He stared at her, trying to discern if she was using her Watcher abilities, but she didn’t seem to notice him. Her gaze was fixed on the pinecone she held, and she spoke faster and faster as she turned it in her hands. “Maybe for the first time in your life you didn’t feel lost or rejected or isolated. And maybe you would do anything to hold on to this new life because that feeling of belonging can be the most intoxicating thing in the world and you really, really don’t want to let go of that.”

She stopped to take a breath, and seemed to notice Aloth’s stare for the first time. He politely dropped his gaze, and she laughed self-consciously.  “Come on, Aloth. I’m a walking tree. I know what a big deal it can be just to be accepted.” She motioned to the armor she wore, emblazoned with the sigil of the Kind Wayfarers. “You think I don’t know a little about dedicating yourself to an order?”

“But you’re a Kind Wayfarer,” Aloth pointed out. “Your order stands for peace and protection. You literally have Kind in the name. Can you really compare that to the Leaden Key?”

“Maybe not exactly,” Desta conceded. “But although I hate to admit it…when I joined I wasn’t some perfect hero looking to uphold peace and protection. I was young and lonely and starry-eyed. The Wayfarers are wonderful, and I’m glad I met them, but… if I had met a Leaden Key agent instead of a paladin that day… I don’t know. I might be in your place right now.”

Aloth mulled over her words. Despite what she said, it was nearly impossible to imagine Desta as a solemn Leaden Key agent, steeped in secrecy and pledging her services to a man with a hidden agenda. “I don’t know. I still think you might be a little wiser than me in that regard. You would have stood up to Thaos and his followers before it got this far.”

Desta chuckled, leaning over to nudge Aloth in a friendly way that caught him completely off guard. “Not wiser. Come on, have you met me? Wiser. Ha.” She smirked at him and shook her head. “No. Just luckier.”

Now it was Desta who was staring in the direction of Defiance Bay. Her eyes seemed to suddenly grow tired. “Luckier this time, at least. You have a lot of faith in me, but I’m not sure it’s deserved. That feeling I talked about… I know it. Not just from me, but my past life. And not about the Wayfarers. These strange memories keep coming back, and a lot of them don’t make sense, it’s all just bits and pieces. But believe me, I recognize that feeling. That sense of purpose. I think past me felt that around Thaos.”

Desta’s voice grew quiet, and she gnawed at her lip in distressed concentration. “I think past me did a lot of things for the sake of that purpose. For the sake of Thaos. I don’t know what I did, but it feels…bad.”

Aloth took a moment to let this new information sink in. He still found it hard to imagine Desta as she described herself, but there were no rules on how souls could change through their cycles. After all, something in Aloth had once been Iselmyr. “Perhaps we do have some things in common.”

A triumphant smile crossed Desta’s face. “See? I know what I’m talking about. So trust me when I say that reliving the past and wondering what could have gone differently will drive you mad. Whatever you did or whoever you followed...it happened, and it’s over. Nothing can change that, not even a Watcher. You can only decide what happens next.” She paused and studied Aloth for a moment. “I want you to stick around, but you shouldn’t do it just because of that. I don’t want you to follow me.”

“You… don’t?”

“No!” Desta leapt to her feet, her golden eyes shining with passion. “Don’t you get it? I want you with me, not behind me! You have to make a choice about what you’re doing next, and it has to be your choice. I’m not going after Thaos out of obligation or to carry out orders. He doesn’t have that kind of power over me anymore. I’m going to hunt Thaos down and do what I can to fix the harm he’s done because I think it’s the right thing to do. And I hope whatever you decide, that’s your reason, too.” She held out a hand to Aloth, waiting for his response.

It took him a moment to sort out the disorganized thoughts running around his head. To be honest, Aloth still wasn’t sure if he could trust himself; he’d once thought the Leaden Key was doing good work, after all. The memory of his old mistakes drew his gaze once more back to the silhouette of Defiance Bay, but as night approached it had rendered the distant smoke invisible.

In the end, Aloth finally decided, he really only had two choices. He could either continue to choke on his mistakes, or do what he could to move on and rise above them. He gripped Desta’s hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet.