Character: 
Vadrian Dawnwood
[hider=My Hider]
https://i.imgur.com/AUgx2MK.jpeg
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[center]Music OOC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DItD349PGN0
[/center]
Light. Like sunlight. Bright. His eyes are closed. Yet he can feel the rays as plain as day.
Like he had felt her. Her fingers. Her whispers. The soft touch of a woman. Like the sun.
His woman. That man’s. Yet he felt no bed at his back. He was at rest. Was he...undone?
Had he met his end? Was this death? [i]Am I alive? [/i]Stupid question. [i]You’re already awake.[/i]

He had to be in order to think. [i]Maybe this is merely a dream.[/i] Perhaps. Just another one.
Whatever gripped him, it was firm, though no smooth sheets as his bed had been. [i]Dust.[/i]
That’s what the man’s past was. [i]Ash and dust.[/i] She was gone. Vanished like mist. [i]Away.[/i]
The man was alone, a gentle breeze on skin exposed, with a chill to the bone. [i]No pain...[/i]

Wherever his beloved was, she was okay one way or the other. He promised himself this.
He’d be convinced of that much after the world had ended. When fortresses were broken.
He lied on his back. His eyes were closed. His hands slipped past fabric but felt no ocean.
[i]Grass.[/i] He squeezed, feeling those blades of earth between fingers. Eyes began to open.

The sky is above him. [i]No.[/i] There was no sun on that black canvas. More than one. [i]Stars.[/i]
It wasn’t sunlight that warmed his skin. It was moonlight, cold as ice, that had frozen bones.
But the man began moving, spreading his arms, feeling twigs and leaves, sticks and stones.
Movements were languid, thoughts lazy, vision hazy, as he listened to a song of a pale heart.

[i]Aine...[/i] He tasted her name on his lips. He could not hear his own voice. [i]Where are...am...I...[/i]
[i]Vaidin...[/i] She might say. If she were lying there next to him, stargazing, peering past treetops.
Beyond the dark green crowns, and the sky so far, on a new horizon, rising, like the new dawn.
[i]I need you by my side.[/i] He might tell her. [i]I always will be.[/i] She’d whisper. [i]Now, my Dawn... Rise.[/i]

He did as bidden. It was night, twilight long gone, but the knight must rise. The dawn would.
Hours later, time did not matter. These trees were ageless. As ancient as House Dawnwood.
He got up. Knees were weak at first, as though he’d been asleep for years, but a man stood.
The Blade of Morning and the Earl of Tryhold. He walked, as the Lord of Dawnwatch should.

One foot forward, one boot after the other, carrying him onward through the forest’s thickets.
There were no lanterns guiding him, if barely a sense for direction, hardly a scent of purpose.
Maybe it was her, the voice in his head, the violin of his woman, his wife, bringing him in step.
Gaze ahead, hand bends a branch, ears hear the whisper of a bird, close, if still a bit distant.

Lord Dawnwood, no, a mere man, walked onward, suddenly aware of his outfit with its doublet.
A gold doublet, an orange shirt beneath it, grey trousers and boots. The colors of Dawnwood.
[i]An orange wolf on a gold tree on a grey castle on a field of orange.[/i] Their sigil was in his head.
The signet pinned to his breast, a brooch emblazoned on his chest. [i]I am Vadrian Dawnwood.[/i]

[i]Shhh... [/i]The Lady of the Wood whispered. [i]Forward. Onward.[/i] Toward the bird getting closer.
Lady Dawnwood, would she be waiting for him? Her husband’s heart thrummed in his chest.
Amid his ribs, he could hear the drum of blood thumping between his ears. A clearing ahead.
A burbling brook, maybe, a murmuring creek.[i]The stream of dreams...[/i] He had a sudden thirst.

At the perimeter, on one side of the tree line, Vadrian stepped closer, and spotted a figure.
Another person, for certain, crouched down at the edge of the water. [i]No.[/i] Though it isn’t her.
He stepped closer, as did another figure, a third, while this man was standing like the first.
Two men. One woman. Shaped like a wedge. A triangle. [i]Like my own house...forever burned.[/i]

[color=f26522]“...Is this...”[/color] He hesitated, hearing his own voice, not weak, but quiet, though just as good.
[color=f26522]“This forest...”[/color] Vadrian’s thoughts could not find purchase. He looked from man to woman.
He did not recognize the former, the other man, and the back of the latter was turned to him.
[color=f26522]“What is this place?”[/color] Will either recognize his own face or name? [color=f26522]“I am...Vadrian Dawnwood.”[/color]

@Blesses Blight @Czelsc