Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

He woke up yelling, sweat gleaming on his skin. The heavily built man laid on the bed of the inn he had reached just before nightfall. Still shivering from the memory of the dream, of the nightmare. He threw his legs over the bedside, bare feet touching the wooden floor planks. Running his fingers through his short kept dark hair and letting out a sigh, with an unwanted shiver, he swallowed hardly and forced his legs to move. His knees still felt shaky, but he did his best not to think about it.
Grey-green eyes looked outside the window. So... It was still hours until the sun would start its slow rise from behind the mountains and he knew he couldn't sleep anymore.. He never could, after the dream.
Rather than heading back to bed, he splashed some cold water over his face from the pitcher at the dressing table and took few steps, reaching the wooden chair. It had no paddings, but the man in the room hardly needed any. Too many comforts only made a man soft, he thought as he sat down, his muscular hand reaching to take the bottle from the small round table next to the chair. He brought the cork between his teeth and pulled it off, spitting the cork to a dark corner of the room, setting himself leaning on the chair; after all, he probably wouldn't need to shut the bottle anytime soon. After a moment of silence he heard a distant snoring from one of the other rooms around himself. Concentrating on the voice, he brought the bottle to his lips and forcedly drank the clear liquid, letting it burn its way down his throat to his belly.

Concentrate... Don't think.... don't think...

He was running, his bare feet bleeding and lungs burning, the tears in his eyes were those of joy, joy of finally managing to escape, of running away, to be able to run free. To run for help.

Concentrate... Harder... DON'T THINK...

He didn't know where he was nor did he care, he'd figure that out later. Now the only thing that mattered was to keep moving, to run down the hill, to the road he had seen in the distance. He was glad the first snow hadn't come yet. Winters and even autumns could be very cold in the mountains, even deadly for someone who isn’t properly prepared with warm cloths and sturdy shoes, both of which he lacked completely. He hadn't had the time to gather anything, a brawl between two men over dices had given him the opening, and he had took it! "Thinking with your feet, is always a gamble, Kierran. But we, the men in Naver family line, have always been lucky" for a moment, his father’s face flashed in his memory, his real face not the one that almost always came to his mind now when he thought about him, bloodied and lifeless eyes looking back, the back of the head smashed in by a club. Biting his teeth together, he forced the image of his dead father away from his mind. He would get revenge, he had promised that to himself. The first night he lied at the hard forest ground, shackled to his friend, listening to his weeping. After the attack that had left his father and his father’s retinue dead, himself and his friend were the only ones being left alive and captured, their wagons robbed from everything worth taking, they had placed iron collars that were chained to eatch other, around their thin necks and gruffly someone had ordered them to move, he couldn't place a face to that dark voice, he only knew, that when he tried to stay with his father, he had paid for it. No.. He couldn't think about it now, what he needed to do, must do, was to run. Run and not stop!

Am I... Dreaming again.. Is this a dream ? If it was, he couldn't wake from it. Concentrate, you’re in an inn, not there, not anymore, bloody concentrate!

He would die soon.. Though young, the boy knew it. He didn't actually recoil from the thought, maybe death wasn't that bad? If nothing else, he wouldn't need to run anymore, not feel cold anymore, wouldn't need to feel the burning lump that had grown from hunger anymore. And then, he saw it.. A distant figure, but still, it moved down at the road. It was long away still, but it gave him hope.. Wagons..
The wagon was pulled by two mares that had seen better days, they didn't seem to care for the boy who now staggered towards them. The wagon stopped, a large, tough looking man with long unattended, black hair, unshaven face and blueish eyes that could go from rocks, jumped down from the driver’s seat. Dressed in warm trousers, leather boots and a blue coat he eyed the boy for a moment, who stood still, hardly staying on his two feet. "Blasted hells boy" the man said in a deep voice. "Where'd you come from?" Kierran blinked few times and was able to mutter a few words "I.. escaped" and a black, deep darkness took him.

Dear gods, no, not again.. I don't want to see it again it was only a whisper somewhere in the depths of his mind, but he knew he couldn't fight it, he never could wake up once the dream started.

He felt the warmth of his friend’s blood on his hands, that hold the hilt of the dagger made of stone, its blade deep in his friend’s belly. The roars heard all around them became a distant buzz in Kierran's ears as he let go of the hilt and took his falling friend to his arms. Both of the young boys, no more than ten or eleven, dropped down to the stone floor of the pit, the place where the fighting took place. "Why...?" he managed to let out from his mouth, even though he didn't hear his own voice, not even sure that his lips moved. "I.. I'm, sorry Kierran" he wasn't sure was the other boy in his arms trying to gulp down blood or tears "I.. i can't.. can't go on anymore, I don't want to, I'm.. so.. -" his friend never finished the sentence, those still warm, blood coated hands letting go of Kierran's thin arms, and dropping next to the boy, to the cold, stained stone. The light of his eyes diminished and was replaces by an empty stare of death, the same eyes his father has had the last time he had seen him.
He heard someone.. Something.. Yelling over the buzz of roars, he numbly turned his eyes from his now dead friend, to the source of the voice. Nathaniel Thorn, his blue coat now open, was looking down at him from the edge of the pit, clapping his hands and yelling something to him.. what was it? "You’re no cub anymore boy, I knew it the first time I saw you coming to me at the road! I knew there was bloodlust inside you!" his leathery face widened in a malicious grin "You’re a wolf now!"
He stood up and looked back at the man, straight into the eyes.

"Nathaniel Thorn... I.. I will.. Kill you... I will become a beast and I will not sway from anything, I will become a wolf and hunt you down" he didn't know did he speak, or was it only a voice in his head, but so he swore. The only feeling inside him now, the only thing that mattered, was to rip his throat open with his bare teeth if need be. No tears dropped on his cheeks, there was none inside him, not anymore. He would train, he would become the best and... He would kill him...

He didin't yell this time, simply opened his eyes... He had.. fallen asleep. His mind numb, he got up and slowly turned his eyes to a crude looking falchion next to the bed. Eyeing it for a moment, he walked over and lifted it easily.
"You can't run from me Thorn.." he whispered to the room, cold grey-green eyes fixed on the iron sword "I'm always behind you.." Then taking his eyes to the door. He should probably get going, Vaasa was not far from here anymore.. The last place he had heard traces of the man.. Of the man he hunted and would kill... Nathaniel Thorn..

The silver cup was held firmly by the muscular hand of a man, sitting silently on an padded chair of an inn, a bottle of wine on the vanity's table. He raised the cup to his thin lips and took a sip, enjoying the smooth taste of the expensive wine. The man who sat on the chair, was the same man who had sat at a different inn's chair six years ago. As the inns were different, so was the man. His long black scruffy, somewhat untamed hair falling down on his shoulders. Even though the man had not reached the age of thirty yet, he had a few grey lines on his hair and a trouble brought furrows on his forehead. Grey-green eyes met themselves on the mirror of the vanity, a single candle on the other side of the room giving the image of the man an eerie, ghastly touch. He sat there, his upper body unclothed, and turned his eyes from the ghastly image, towards the soft breathing of a woman who slept on the bed. Her slender features were mostly cloaked by the blanket, her blonde hair visible in the candlelight which made Kierran's heart pound, and a soft smile rising to his lips, a smile that had not visited that face for a long time. She had made him feel something, something that he had not felt after... He looked to the floor, where pieces of cloths and armor lies in an mess, and next to them a huge hook like sword, that even when unused emanated a warmth of the deserts from where it was brought from.

Next to The Reaver, a name that the hook-like sword held, was a more slender version of the same type of the sword. Kierran placed the silver cup on the vanity table, and with a grace and silence that was surprising for a man such as him, he walked over the slender sword, a sword that in its beauty challenged the woman that slept on the bed. His fingers grasped the hilt of the sword, and he did something he had not done in years.

The sword came out of its scabbard easily, the years of unuse not having affected the scabbard – nor the sword itself. The coldness emanating from the slightly bending sword, a coldness that reminded him of the reason why, and after whom he had named the sword. "Aileen" He whispered the name of the sword, the picture of a dark haired woman he had loved coming to his mind. The coldness of the sword, being the opposite of the warmth of the blond woman that slept on the bed.

He walked a few steps, feeling the blades weight and balance on his hand, the hilt feeling good on the trained arm of the man, who had spent most of his life training the use of the sword type. His thoughts wandered far away, as the sword cut air, to darker times.

He had killed, murdered and pillaged, being an animal, a beast that took lives without regret, destroyed families giving no regard to the sorrow he had left behind on his footsteps. He had changed from that man, changed but not completely forgotten his past, a past that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Of that past, the assassin remembered the only reason for his bloody life, the cause for the skill he now possessed, the training he had endured by the man who was the reason he had trained. Nathaniel Thorn, the slaver who had trained Kierran to be the man he now was, or had been.

Was he still the same man? Or was he simply cheating himself, giving himself in to the blonde woman on the bed, she had not wavered by his past as he had told her what he had done, she had embraced Kierran as he was and told him that she loved him.

A thought of her lying to him came to his mind, lying as so many others had. Perhaps she was sent by the same man that had made him what he was now, perhaps this was just another test?

Kierran moved silently next to the bed, watching the beautiful woman as she slept, and with trembling hands brought the sword tip over the woman, his face hardening. The truth would be more hurtful than the lie, if she had lied that is. The truth of the love she claimed to hold for him, and the truth of his own love for the woman. Perhaps it would be easiest simply to end it, to end the love he felt with a single strike of the sword.

The sword quivered, as the man’s hands trembled holding Aileen over the blonde northern woman, not being able to make the decision, which only implified that his judgment had been clouded. The fact that he could not take a life, be it whomever’s, made him grimace in pain as he suddenly pulled back against the cold stone wall, the sword lowering down, his left hand going over his pounding aching heart. He felt strained and old, his hands losing their strength as he bite his teeth together in anger, so that he would not yell out, tasting blood on his mouth.

He gulped and slowly his head turned towards the window that was next to him. He watched outside to the inn's ground down below, even though it was night, there were lights and people prowling in the inn's grounds, protected by strong stone walls. He remembered the time the inn had been a temple for Bhaal, the god he had followed and his face hardened. He watched out to the night, and he could feel him, feel Nathaniel in the surrounding darkness, he knew the man was still alive, his instinct told him so, or perhaps it was something deeper, the two men linked years ago by a deep bond that would never be cut as long as they lived.

Only by taking the life of Nathaniel, or by Nathaniel taking his life, would the bond be broken. With these thoughts in his mind, he looked upon the sleeping woman, and he felt scared. For the first time in ages, the feeling of fear gripped the man’s heart, and he knew that by not killing the woman now, he had doomed his faith. The fear that came from losing the woman, would destroy his attempt to take Nathaniel’s life, he could not feel fear on that encounter, and that encounter was not far away.

The link they hold, told him so. He blew the candle out, fading to the sudden darkness, letting it surround him and gently hide his face and scarred body from the sight of the world, but the darkness could never take away his thoughts.
So the man headed towards the bottle on the table, Aileen dropping to the ground, as the man picked up the green glass bottle, going to cloud his mind and the still the fear he felt inside his chest, that the dark of the night could never sooth.