Chapter Text
Once upon the misty and cold lands of Greymoor, there lived a boy alone with his mother. A mother as cold as the moors they called home, and as stubborn as the walls that encircled their kingdom, though not nearly quite so reliable.
When the boy was young, there came a time when the boy's mother took ill and the rhythm of their lives changed to match her rattling cough and the silence that followed the sound of swiftly broken crockery thrown with a vengeance against the wooden walls of their little house.
The boy tried his best of course, to provide for his mother. He worked tirelessly to tend to their small patch of land and the animals they kept, and toiled until his body ached in any of the nearby fields that were willing to trade his work for a portion of their harvest.
But every day he would return home to be met only only to be met with scorn from his mother. Were she not screaming at him to leave her to suffer in peace, she was sharply refusing his attempts to ease her suffering. And had she not the strength to refuse his presence, then she would be as silent and stubborn as stone.
But the boy carried on as he always did, and tried not to let her continued coldness dissuade his efforts to care for her. After all, what was the sorrow of being forced to sell on their only nursing cow to the grief of his mother having lost a husband? And what was the aches and exhaustion of a hard day's work when compared to an illness that had his mother bedridden and crying out in pain in the fragile hours of night?
But every now and then, when it all became too much for him, he used what scraps of time he had to take out his small notebook and pencil, and set about refining the storm of feelings inside of him into words that would slip like a melody from his tongue beneath his breath. For the boy was a poet you see, by heart though not by trade. And while not willing to share his works with any more than the occasional songbird or small many legged creature that scuttled about him as he wrote, the boy soon found himself again and again returning to the little bookshop in the village to seek out another book for him to fill to the bursting with feeling.
And so years passed like this, the boy growing older and his mother weaker despite his efforts and the kindness of his neighbours. And as his mother grew weaker and the air grew colder in that little house in the village, the boy, now a young man, soon found himself horribly and desperately lonely, longing for the company of anyone besides his ailing mother before the thought arrived to curse his selfishness and return to his duties to her.
One day, after another litany of cruel words that he'd grown far too used to hearing over the years, the young man decided on an idea he'd often been too hesitant as of late to indulge. And so, grabbing his notebook and pencil, and a knitted jumper for the cold, the young man stepped out into the biting chill of the open air in the foothills by the village to give his mother and himself some space.
Of course, unbeknownst to the man his mother would go on to receive two visitors whilst he was out.
The first, was a woman in a red skirt and bonnet who hummed a strange buzzing tune that rattled in the back of her throat, and carried a rusted rake on her shoulder.
The woman did not knock on the door. Nor was she welcomed in to share words or pleasantries with the young man's mother. Instead, she circled the house thrice, stopping only once to peer in curiously through the open window to the sleeping woman's bedroom, and returned to the front door of their house to pull her rake twice over the step. Taking a moment to appreciate her work, the hundreds of little creatures burrowed deep under her skin thrummed thrumming with their support, before she was off again down the road with her rake and the family she carried with her, and started a new song with the flies that swirled about her head.
The second, was a man dressed in a black cloak with silver clasps that seemed for all the world as innocuous as it was indistinguishable from the shadowed tendrils that swirled about his form. He too did not knock or call out to the singular inhabitant of the house as he had no need to, for he knew the woman inside was expecting him and had been for a quite some time.
Instead, he eased the door open, and slowly ambled down the hallway, admiring the tasteless art and the drying herbs and efforts of an amateur physician on the kitchen counter, before he quietly entered the woman's bedroom.
The two shared very few words as he stood by the foot of her bed, and not a soul alive can know what passed between them then. But when the time was right, he stepped to her side, and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, and with that, her eyes slipped shut and her lips grew cold and stiff with the touch of death.
When the young man returned to find his mother cold and still in her bed, the shock and grief was terribly silent and tucked away in the back of his mind for quite some time before the true nature of his situation set in. And despite himself, he brewed himself a cup of tea, and tried very hard not to cry whilst he thought of what to do next.
The tea leaves held no answer for him, even if he knew how to read them. And Neither did his mother, looking the most at peace as he had ever seen her. and making It made him wonder if he had been so cruel by working so hard to keep her from deaths comforting embrace for all this time.
The nearby villagers were kind enough to assist the young man with the necessary funerary rites. Few words passed between any of them beyond the occasionally muttered expression of sympathy, and the boy's mother was buried beneath a simple headstone in the small graveyard on the other side of the village. Hardly more than a name, a date, and a lie no one would ever seek to question carved into its surface.
And despite how alone he felt, and despite his grief, the young man felt relief. And he hated himself for it.
In the days following the funeral, the young man found himself terribly and hopelessly cold. The house hardly emptied of her influence had even after all these years never truly felt as much a home as a wooden chair one might happen to sit in from time to time . No comfort was to be found in a place like this, only the persistent dread that had permeated for so long in the room in which his mother had resided, and spilled out beyond the seams of such a simple yet imposing doorway. So much of this space reflected what his life had been for as long as he could recall, alone and existing as little more than a ghost intent on serving out the singular purpose of caring for his ailing mother. A purpose it so often seemed, he never managed to accomplish in the eyes of the mother he loved despite it all.
Having spent the last few years sequestered away and barely interacting with anyone besides his only family, save to gather food or work to provide for the two of them, it struck the young man how much of himself had been dedicated to staying out of the way, and as little more than a mere part of the scenery just as any tree or stone on the road.
So he did what he always did, when such feelings became too tangled up in themselves to do any more than pull at his chest, and took with him his notebook at a pencil to hike to a secluded spot far away from his troubles, to make sense of it all through his writing.
Little did he know, that passing through that very day was the Lord of Greymoor, who for whatever reason had slipped his accompanying servants and guard (as he often would), and took to wandering alone the hills of his kingdom as his travelling companions represented him to the village folk in matters of state.
And it was whilst he was enjoying his time alone on the outskirts of the village that he came upon the young man, sat by a pond on a large grey stone under a weeping willow and writing poetry in its shade.
The ensuing conversation was curt between them, as the young man inquired as to the lord's presence and the lord in turn commented on his frustrations that his so valued time alone had been interrupted by someone else sequestered away on his path. The young man apologized, and offered his own return to the village and the promise to endeavour to avoid interrupting the Lord's peace from there.
Something about what he'd said, or perhaps in how he'd said it, seemed to pinch at the interest of the Lord then, who surprised them both by offering a cold hand to the man and a job as a servant within his keep.
And so it was, without seeing any such reason to refuse him, the young man accepted the Lord's generous offer; and soon found himself selling what little was left of his mother's small slice of domesticity to join the many before him who'd found themselves whisked away to live and work in the honoured service of their ruler and protector. Leaving that same week with the Lord's convoy and scarcely a few scattered goodbyes in his wake, quietly thankful to finally escape the suffocating air of his mother's house and the weighty presence of memories that still lingered in every room.
The life he found waiting for him within Greymoor keep was hardly the warm and welcoming atmosphere he had hoped for however. The young man soon found the castle and many of its inhabitants just as cold within the walls as the chilling air beyond. Bouncing between fetching or assisting with making food and drink in the kitchens; or cleaning the many empty rooms of the keep; or setting a few roaring fires alight in the hearths to chase away the cold that never seemed to entirely lose their grip on the castle, the young man found purpose in each new task and skill he learned despite the lack of clarity regarding his job title and the certainty of his position therewithin.
However there seemed at times to the man an unspoken rule between those who lived and worked within Lukas's keep. Namely, that one should do their best to keep their heads down and voices silent, and above all avoid the company and comforts of any such personal connections between themselves and their fellows.
Nevertheless, the young man did his best to find his own comfort within those walls, and despite the continued cold refusals and silent confusion at his attempts to warm them with tea and simple favours, the man soon found himself something almost approaching contentment during his stay there. The other servants quiet and frequently preferring to keep to themselves, but none, not even their Lord or the higher ranked members of Lukas's court, exhibited the same snapping cruelty of his mother of which he'd grown so used to enduring. And perhaps, in all the little ways he learned to find companionship through unspoken and scarcely seen gestures of kindness from some of them, that was enough.
Well, that and his occasional stolen visits to his favourite spot on the foggy shores of the Loch beyond the castle's shadow, where the man would bask in the gentle waves and glittering light off the water, and partake in his art as a blissfully unknown poet.
It was about a year or so into his service that he first made anything approaching a genuine connection with another within the Castle walls, or at least one that wasn't hampered by the hushed atmosphere of terse quiet that so permeated the air within. He'd received not even a whispered rumour of her arrival, as his coworkers were hardly the type to entertain such conversations, but merely the out of the ordinary instruction to deliver a pot of morning tea and a plate of scones to Lukas's guest within the Castle Library.
And perhaps it was her having travelled from beyond the lands of Greymoor or simply a fact of her own geniality and enthusiasm for her work, but after finding himself that first time sharing a short conversation and a smile or two with the woman (the new resident librarian, he would learn), again and again he surprised himself by volunteering to assist her. And the more he did, and the more strangely concerned glances that were sent his way, he found himself enjoying the time he spent with her there, learning about her and the world she'd seen on her travels.
The name she gave him was Tessa Winters, a tall woman with long hair and glasses that did little to hide the twinkle in her eye that sparked whenever she had a token of knowledge she was eager to share. She never revealed to him the exact nature of her dealings with Lord Lukas, nor the extent of her purpose in seeking out the contents of his library, but all the same for what little time they spent together Martin found himself daring to consider her something of a friend. If one could ever be found in a place like Greymoor Castle.
But monsters were far from restricted to the woods that encircled them, nor outer bounds of their lands. And even setting aside the woman with her rake and the man in his cloak of shadows from which the man had yet to know had graced the young man's life from afar, for as long as anyone in Greymoor could remember, there had always been whispers of the Mysts.
The Mysts, as it was said, was less of a monster than an unstoppable force of indistinguishable origin and calculated intent. Many within Greymoor had tales of those they've known who'd encountered the ghostly remnants of its victims, or narrowly escaped the creeping clouds themselves as they crawled along the earth to claim another. Not a soul in Greymoor would grow old without at least once having seen the great cloud that would sweep the hills in a swath of endless white and steal away any of those who were unlucky enough to find themselves alone and lost at just the wrong time. And for those that were taken, waiting an eternal existence trapped between a state of life and death, doomed to wander lost and alone and withering away until they were little more than a ghostly impression of the person they once were.
All in Greymoor knew well not to travel alone too often or too far from home, especially in the hours after dark. But even so, against his better judgement and planning, the young man still found himself alone on such a night, having lost himself in his writings by the loch, and swiftly panicked at the setting sun and the time he knew it would take for him to return to Lukas's Keep. Before gathering what little he'd taken with him and swiftly setting off through the trees to the towering stone keep.
It was as he was walking however, that he saw a light emerging from between the trees. He thought at first it might have been some form of whisp or trick of the light, but as it neared and he watched it move in a so clearly and clumsily human way, he discovered it belonged to a lantern held out in a shaking hand by a woman he recognized.
Her name was Naomi Herne, and she hadn't been working at the castle with them all that long before that night. When she'd arrived and the young man had insisted on treating her to a cup of tea, she'd given him a broken smile laden with grief and all too familiar to him, and he did his best to welcome her from afar without intruding on her situation. Whatever it may have been.
They hadn't spoken much, as with any of the other staff who called the Lord's castle home, but they had shared something like pleasant silent company from time to time. And compared to the cold and brisque rejections of many of the others within the castle, he could almost consider her something of a friend.
She called out to ask if anyone was there, and the young poet abruptly realised himself and greeted her. She still startled at his approach, and swiftly apologized for her own surprise. They shared a hastily muffled laugh together as the man—on instinct perhaps—frantically stumbled through his own apology for frightening her, before inquiring as to what on earth had her risking a walk on her own at such a time of night.
Naomi didn’t hold any compunction for airing out her grievances on the matter. Lord Lukas, she explained, had insisted on one of them journeying into the small patch of forest by the loch to fetch him some wild berries for him to enjoy that evening, in spite of the fact that he knew well of and had refused the offering of the fruits that remained from the supply they'd carted in just that morning.
And perhaps it was because she was newer, or perhaps it was simply the fact that nobody else wanted to be the one to fulfil such ridiculous request given they themselves were already well established in their roles, but she'd been volunteered to go despite her objections, and given how much she didn't want to lose her position here or burn any more bridges in her life, she'd agreed and swiftly found herself regretting it.
The young man, despite his own fears of what trouble might find them there, volunteered to accompany her in her search, both because it was the polite thing to do and because he was just as terrified of being alone out there at that time as she was. And so the two walked together a ways, searching high and low until they finally found a bush that seemed to be of the right fruit, and after filling her basket with as many of the ripest they could find, the two set off together back to the castle.
The night grew colder around them, and with only a single lantern between them to light their path and cut through the freezing darkness, the young man heard himself nervously attempting to break the silence with conversation.
He learned then that Naomi was much in a similar position as himself, having chosen to take up work within the castle after the death of her lover and an uncomfortable meeting at the funeral with a distant relative of her fiancé.
Things had made sense when her lover was in her life, and she had a life of joy and warmth to look forward to folding out in front of her after a lifetime of feeling adrift. She hadn't known what to do with herself after his death, and in many ways she still didn't. Didn't really have anyone besides him and his friends, and despite their offerings of company she just couldn't stand the way their sympathetic gaze followed her and begged for a scrap of that same joy of connection she knew she would fail to provide.
It was a familiar sentiment to him, and he told her such. She apologized for throwing it all his way and being such a burden, and he assured her that any one of them could probably stand to be a burden one of these days. And if anything, he was glad she didn't have to walk this late alone.
She gave him a small smile then, and was about to say something more when she saw something ahead that made her breath catch in her throat.
The young man followed his gaze, and stiffened.
Before them, rolling through the trees little faster than a casual stroll, was a gigantic cloud of fog engulfing the hillside. Towering and thick and seemingly endless as it swallowed the land around them. Slow, menacing, and above all patient in its approach.
He was abruptly brought back to himself abruptly when he felt Naomi tugging at his arm, and followed suit in a run, though both knew there was little use.
It wasn't long before they both lost their way and found themselves engulfed on all sides by the wave of slow-moving fog. The cold digging into the very bones and breath coming out in frantic puffs of steam before them. Naomi clinging to his side and yet he could barely feel her, the lantern flickering stubbornly between them, barely making a dent in the blanket of fog.
As he felt the icy tendrils of the influence of the fog wrapping around his mind and he felt his numb fingers on her shoulder grow slack, he knew deep in his heart what the Mysts must have wanted. Singing in his mind the call of the quiet and empty moors and the promise of gentle familiarity that had followed him all his life.
He thought of his mother then, of how he had struggled not only grief but in purposelessness.
He thought of the way Lukas had told him he didn't need him to join him at his keep, and that his offer of work was pure opportunistic pragmatism.
He thought of what Naomi had told him before they'd seen the rolling wall of the Mysts encircling them with a quiet dreadful promise. Of how she still had so much left of herself to find, so many people who wanted to try for her, so bright a future if only she found the courage to keep trying. Of how certain he was that she could regain the warmth she'd lost with her lover.
He thought of how he, himself, had nothing truly left to lose. And that there was only one lantern between them.
He turned to her then, and gently pushed the lantern's handle into her hands. He tried for a smile, and watched as her desperate, hopeless eyes met his and widened when he told her to run and leave him behind to find help whilst he kept the Mysts from taking her too. And that if he didn't make it, (which he surely wouldn't they both knew but dared not say) then he hoped she could find the happiness she sought for the both of them.
He watched as a tear slipped down her flushed cheek, searching his face for a lie and her own conscience for a meaningful enough objection. And when she found none, she brought the lantern close to her chest, mouthed a silent "Thank you", and gave but one final look towards the young man before she ran off into the fog.
The young man did not begrudge her selfishness as he watched her go. Merely closed his eyes and took a step deeper into the freezing embrace of the Mysts.
When Naomi returned to the Lord's Castle in a panic, she was quick to raise many of her compatriots from their posts with a desperate plea for their help. She spared little time to tell them of what had happened, and of how the young man in his kindness had sacrificed himself for her sake. She pleaded with them, as the chill left her skin and tears spilled unbiddenly as she pleaded with them for help in doing what they could to repay his kindness.
It surprised them all, she thought, when several of their number did not hesitate to comfort her, fetching blankets and warm tea and setting her by the fireside to bid her calm. Nor when several more donned their thick woollen coats and lit lanterns of their own to aid in the search despite their own fears.
But no foot had breached the threshold of the door before their Lord and employer stepped into the room and forbade them from leaving his keep. Ordering them stay and not risk themselves catching a cold or getting lost in the dark alongside him, nor do little more than pray that by morning their colleague would find their way back to them on his own.
No one believed he would, but those few who found themselves objecting were swiftly cowed by the threat of punishment for disobeying a direct order from their Lord.
And so by the end of the night, many swapped their reassurances to Naomi and each other for condolences. And when the news of what had happened inevitably reached Tessa Winters in the library, she struggled not to weep at the tea Naomi had brought her, and tried not to think of all those she had left behind in her homeland.
The Mysts were like that you see. And all who'd heard of them knew that those who wandered too far alone would never return to them, and never had.
And so it was by great surprise, that three days after that dreadful night on the moors, the young man returned.
He was found in the early hours of morning, knocking faintly on the door to the servants entrance and stumbling just as the sun was setting. Freezing cold to the touch; despondent and pale, with hair turned as pale as snow and breath misting even within the warmer air of the kitchens.
The others were astounded of course, with the head of them sending off Naomi and the others to fetch warm clothes and furs to warm him whilst they let him sit by the fire of the kitchens. Tessa taking point on instructing them on how best to care for him, whilst dutifully studying his features for any sign of additional injury or malady. Patient and not daring lift her hand from his freezing skin as she asked him what had happened, and bid him drink from shaking hands the cup of tea they'd brought for him as he failed to answer.
His eyes seemed to stare through them all for quite some time, almost as if he could not see the people around him. But as he shuddered and seemed to regain a little more of himself with each word they sent his way and every new comfort they pressed into his skin, a bright hope few had recognized within themselves in years began to flutter anew among them all.
It did not take long for the news of his miraculous return to reach Lord Lukas who, despite the many collective objections of his staff, demanded the young man's presence in his study at once.
Tessa perhaps, was the only one who seemed to notice how the young man's eyes seemed to sharpen just a little at the name of their lord, and how he pressed his lips tight when he wordlessly slipped out from under the many layers of warmth they'd draped over him and followed Lukas's messenger from the room.
The two said nothing upon their meeting. A cold look from Lukas and the icy atmosphere alone enough to persuade his messenger to leave them in privacy.
The longer he glared at Lukas and the longer the terse silence passed between them, the clearer the man's eyes seemed to grow. A cold anger, quiet but no less burning in its intensity directed at the man before him, and returned with stone like neutrality.
"I heard your voice," he said finally, "In the Mysts."
It was not an accusation, nor conjecture. Merely stated as the immutable fact they both knew it was.
Lukas said nothing, but frowned at his words.
"You sent Naomi out alone on purpose didn't you?" the young man said, taking a daring step forward towards the lord's desk, "You knew the Mysts were out that night."
No sooner had he said it did a sea of fog sweep through the room and drained the life and colour from its walls. And when the Lord departed his study to return to his duties, he was alone. The young man he had requested to speak to was nowhere to be seen, and any questions as to his whereabouts or his condition were swiftly dismissed with little more than a firm refusal to answer to their concerns.
This time, hardly a day and a half passed before the young man again returned to them. Discovered barely beyond the gates and banging with silent fury on the doors to Lord Lukas's keep.
The moment someone had seen him they rushed to tell the others in Lukas's employ, and prepared to welcome him home with a private celebration and whatever protections they could muster from the cold.
But no sooner had his presence at the gates been noticed than did the Lord tersely order that all peoples of the castle keep themselves far from the young man's path and sight. His guards the only two allowed greet him and to march him silently to the Lord's great hall.
And within that great hall, surrounded by none but his escorts, his lord, and the yawning emptiness of a hall that had not been filled with guests in a centuries, century, Lord Peter Lukas gave his final decree to the man he once held in his employ.
Namely that given his proclivity for surviving a monster of myth and his attempt at treason, he would at once be banished, no longer to step even a foot within the towering walls of Greymoor, unless it be with the severed head of the Monster known only as the Watching Beast, that resided within the deep woods that bordered their homeland and the lands of Lord Bouchard in Panopticon.
The young man was not permitted to object nor speak in his defence. Nor, as they all knew, the option to refuse his cooperation.
Nonetheless as he found himself marched to the back of a cart normally reserved only for those gathering supplies from any of the local villages, he was met with the one resident of the Castle that had perhaps the least incentive to fear the Lord of Greymoor.
Tessa Winters saw him off with little more than a bag of rations, a thick traveller's cloak, and a short sword hastily negotiated from Lukas's extensive armoury. With hardly a murmur she hugged him and bid him luck and safety, and tied a charm of tightly woven thread and a simple silver ring by the handle with the mournful admission that there was little more she could do for him as of now.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and thanked her, asking her to pass on his goodbyes and well wishes for all those who could not see him off, before he was roughly bid to take a set in the cart and told to keep silent as they departed, and the thick gates closed firm behind them.
And so it was that Martin Blackwood watched for perhaps the final time, as the place he'd called home for so long again faded away by the rhythm and rumble of wheels on cobblestone roads. Under no such illusion that their so called benevolent yet reclusive Lord of Greymoor had sent him away to what he no doubt had hoped was his death.
But Martin was a man with nothing to lose and a chance at the thankless protection of his fellow man to gain in more ways than one. So as the towering form of Greymoor's Castle slipped into the grey skies he'd known all his life, his found his resolve tighten with his grip on the sword.
He would find and kill the Watching Beast, no matter the cost to himself, and he would return to expose the Lord that had willingly handed over his own people to the evils that stalked the moors, and of that there could be no question. Because even if he had no greater doubts than of the possibility of his success, or capability to defy Lukas a third time and live, there was no other path he could stand to forgive himself for choosing.
End of Chapter 1