This Silence kills...[Closed]

(Versus Tobias as per request don't noob stomp me TOO hard bro. Note the thread takes place in a Citadel Chamber I'm just trying to add some flesh to the story itself.)

Several years after the cataclysm took place...

He wandered the forgotten village. His memories were skewed at that point...since the burning of the great tree as a result of Lornius being a super-volcano his people and his home were in shambles. The cataclysm was the day of judgment for the world. The gods had abandoned them all. Elthas only remembered his name at that point. There was too much suffering and destruction he'd witnessed.

The government in Radasanth...no longer existed. Other elements were in play at that point.

That no longer mattered to him.

He'd found the abandoned village several weeks prior. His eyes were exhausted he'd simply been trying to just survive. At some point...ashfall did stop occurring. But too much had been lost by then...for him...for everyone.

Elthas stood outside the house he'd chosen for himself. Who lived there prior mattered very little.

He'd stopped talking by that point too...which was just another casualty of the cataclysm. He'd been a bard at one point.

He looked down at his hands.

He'd been working really hard to try to salvage something of his former self.

There were images in his minds...memories....fragments...

At that point it was too difficult to discern what was real and what was not. The village was an old village no more than a few houses that somehow did not get demolished. One gathering hall style building...probably where villagers would hold their meetings to argue over shit that did not matter.

Elthas was tired.

He had no idea how long he'd been running. Years? Centuries? It did not matter...time flowed different for his people.

He stood up at the point...it was afternoon. He'd lost track of the day and month. It did not matter.

Looking around carefully, something caught his attention at that point and he looked off towards the other fellow...

^(Tobes enter here)

"Sky's finally blue again," a gray haired codger muttered with a wistful smile as he hobbled along the worn path. Sunlight filtered through the trees and birdsong muffled their footsteps as Tobias and the village Elder conversed. "It's good of you to come and offer aid to us. I only wish we could pay you more."

The mercenary watched the dirt ahead of him, a sadness haunting his features. "Don't think anything of it," Tobias assured the man. "I'm happy to do anything I can to help."

The Elder's slate gray eyes peered into the depths of the younger man. He frowned. "Burdens of the spirit are much heavier than ones intended for flesh," he counseled softly.

His eyes slipped shut, and Tobias managed a bright smile. "Look at all of this," he gestured toward the village around them. Framework for new homes appeared daily to replace the ashen corpses of their predecessors. Where the soil had gone barren, new life sprang forth. The creek that ran through the east side flowed pristine and without contamination. "Five years," Tobias nodded slowly. "Five years and a unified effort. Truly, mankind has potential to be good."

"And yet," the Elder surmised, "you're aware of a darker side."

"The people of this village left for their health and safety," Tobias explained. "Everything in their family for generations, cast aside at a pin drop to preserve their own lives. The nature of our species, Elder, is to survive." He stooped low and scraped up a handful of dirt and soot. It sifted through his fingers. "Our reality is that we are finite. Our lives end. We fear it because there is no way to understand what comes after."

Tobias displayed the appendage for the other man. Black and brown stains clung to his fingers. "For that reason, we do not fear to get our hands dirty."

"I return every day to watch over the town I swore to protect," the Elder sighed, "and I fell into despair when I realized I could do nothing against the Cataclysm. But I had hope, Tobias," he reached up and wiped the residue from the mercenary's hand. "And I had help."

The older man gestured ahead on the path to where a lone figure stood watching. "That is why I brought you here," he revealed at last. "Kindness melts the ice around our hearts. This man, too, is lost."

Tobias looked up the path and saw Elthas, his elongated ears a betrayal of his race. Raiaeran elves generally wore regal garb or gave off a mystical presence, and the man lacked the darker hued flesh of an Alerian. Tobias once knew plenty of both.

"It is as you said," the Elder closed his eyes slowly. "It is the nature of mankind to survive. But how can you do that if you've lost your way, or given up on your soul?" He placed a hand on the mercenary's shoulder.

"Find your way, Tobias," he commanded. "And help those around you to do the same."

Tobias reached out and tapped the Elder on his shoulder appreciatively, then turned to the Elf. "A fine day, isn't it?" he raised his voice to span the distance between them even as he closed it.

The elder walked past Elthas as he moved away from Tobias...and faded off into the aether. He was just a casualty of rhe cataclysm...one of too many to count. Elthas watched the aether material dissolve. He then turned his attention the one that spoke....it was difficult to discern what was real and what was not anymore.

Memories faded in and out of his already twisted mind...he'd never seen the fellow before him in his long life.

Althanas was a vast world...and that could have meant anything.

The question lingered in the air between the two of them for a moment longer than it needed to. It was at that point the severity of the elf's situation became all too clear. Once a bard...he could no longer speak his voice was lost. Perhaps for the remainder of his days. Elthas wanted to say something back to the stranger, but only frustration was in his eyes. He'd been running for a long time.

Perhaps to that very day, to that very adventure.

Only a series of muffled sounds came from Elthas' throat. The intent to speak was there...but he'd lost the capacity for voice. The bardic arts were also lost to him. Elthas watched the man for a long moment. Frustration mounting. He was not sure how to proceed. Once he could bring whole warring factions to their knees with his voice alone.

That time was long since gone.

He looked down at the barren empty dirt. Then back at Tobias. All he could do was nod in agreement. At that point...the tears were already flowing from Elthas' eyes. For whatever reason...he knew Tobias was real and not the ghosts of his broken past.

If the man meant to speak, his efforts betrayed him. Tobias watched as the Elf lacked all the grace and nobility of his species and even came to tears. There was a pang of empathy in his chest, but the Mercenary had learned from experience never to show weakness.

It was that thought which made him question himself. "He said to find my way," Tobias muttered, "I wonder if this was what he meant." He eyed Elthas carefully before he spoke again, this time audibly.

"You seem conflicted," he began. "Is there something I can help you with? I'm a mercenary, you see; and helping people is my profession." The Mercenary stepped forward once and offered his hand, palm up to the pained man.

The village grew still and silent around them, a macabre memorial for its fallen. In that lack of response and the sullen emotions that followed, Tobias became nearly as taciturn as the Elf. Both men were grim company.

The leaves had turned five days prior, and already the trees were nearly barren. Autumn wind hinted to the Mercenary of a cold, ferocious Winter. He steeled his resolve against the chill that threatened to grip his heart and managed to smile.

"Come on, let's get out of the cold," he suggested, "once the sun sets, you'll catch your death of it without shelter."

Elthas took Tobias' hand, at that point mainly to reassure himself that the man was in fact, real.

He was trying to gesture to Tobias that he could not speak. He was motioning to his own throat trying to explain in some kind of way. He'd been running for a long time. To a future he did not want. He nodded towards Tobias. It had been difficult to feel things at all...to discern time of year, time of day...seasons.

But since Tobias pointed it out, he was actually feeling a bit of the colder air.

He motioned towards the house he'd claimed as his own. There would be shelter there. Elthas had kept a journal with him since the cataclysm started. He wrote it in every day up until that point he started to run. He entered his house, and hoped Tobias would follow. Therein, was the journal in question. Elthas reached for it, the Belthasar seal...a forest elf clan...was etched upon the front cover of the journal. Clans, and other such matters no longer mattered he was just Elthas at that point. He handed Tobias the journal. It contained a precise account of what had happened to him and his people since the first day of the cataclysm.

As far as Elthas was aware, there was no other documentation of the cataclysm that physically existed. The words in the journal were perfectly scribed in the common-tongue.