46th of Ashan, 719
He was on a ship, heading across the ocean. This was a fact that the sleeping man knew to be real. He ate pickled herrings and moldy bread. He suffered from sea sickness, much to the amusement of the crew, for this was his first time crossing the sea. He sparred, as well as his land lubber legs would allow. He practiced the magic he had so recently learned, which was easier, since his physical balance was less of a factor when it came to a mental discipline. He did his chores and he scrubbed decks and spent lonely breaks in the crows nest. He looked out onto a vast and shimmering nothingness. When he went down below, he slept in a hammock that rocked him to sleep every night.
He was on a ship, heading home. This was a fact. This was reality.
But that was not this place.
This place was familiar to him in other ways. It was a cottage, outside of Westguard. It smelled of burning wood in the fire and herbs freshly cut. It echoed briefly with a child's laughter. A mother's calls. He could feel the wood of the chair under his hands, his back, his haunches. His senses drank these things in, and so he believed them. He did not question where he was, because his being knew it, and felt it.
That was not the entire truth. He wanted to be there. All of him, every part save that black and snarling tangle he'd beat into submission every trial throughout a long and bloody life, yearned for this place. So the sleeping man did not question. This was real, he thought, and smiled at his son.
"Reading that book again?"
"It's getting to a good part," the boy said without looking up. His mother's eyes, his father's terse expression. Reading by working his finger across the parchment. "The final battle at Hil... Hiladrith."
The man smiled. How many times had it been, now? Four? Five? Still he saw his son's face tighten when he got to that chapter. That part of the story. Where the armies of Etzos came to free Hiladrith from the Undead King. The Foul Necromancer. He was old and jaded enough to know the glory and the heroism wasn't like it was in real life. He'd never seen a battle, but seen plenty of death. The poets and bards never really captured the reality of it.
Something moved behind him. Old instincts stiffened his limbs, curled his hands to fists. Then he smelled perfume and onions. Martyn's mother. The stew was probably ready.
"Have to wait until after we eat, boy. Up you-"
"Kasoria?"
That wasn't her voice. Kasoria was up and out and turning and-
-he wasn't in the cottage. Wasn't in Westguard. Wasn't on a ship on the Orm'del Sea or on the cobbles of Etzos. He was... somewhere else. He blinked and looked around. There was sky above him, bright and blue and cloudless. Flat, bare land covered in scrub and grass. The Stormwastes. He remembered them, from Rharne. That lonely ride from the cave, with a mule bedecked with heads clopping behind him as he went to collect the bounty.
This happened. This was real. But it was a memory. It was the past.
Kasoria blinked and looked down at his hands. He felt the sun on them. The warmth.
"It was during Cylus," he muttered, brow furrowing. "There was no sun."
The ground crunched and crackled ahead of him. He looked up, and saw he wasn't alone. His hands lowered and rested on the pommels of his swords. They were never far away from him, and habit drew them there. He frowned even deeper at the man he saw there. A boy, really. Smooth face. Watchful eyes. He didn't know him, and hard as he tried, he couldn't dredge up the memory of him.
"You..."
He was a man on a ship, and in a cottage, and on the wastes. He was Kasoria of Etzos, and these things were all true. But this man was a stranger to him, and all the memories he had to muster.
"What are you doing... here?"
