A witcher was too precious to spend their life in the mines, so instead they sent you to Nornwatch. To a dying tower at the edge of the Blight, it was here that you would stand and remain. Here that you would live out what years you had left until the madness of the Calling took you, or your own brief life finally expired. At Norwatch you stayed until the refugees of your once proud people came scratching at the door; your sentence was lifted, the Iskarans needed you. Your King needed you. How convenient.
INTRODUCTION
Haelim Wormwood / 39 / Witcher / Legionnaire
2nd generation born Iskaran. Born from a fully Sinarian merchant family who settled in Iskaldrik to make some mining money. Son of his Sinarian mother and some full-blooded Iskaran who turns out to be a witch that had been in hiding his magic for ages.
6 year old Haelim accidentally used magic and it killed another little boy. Mum told the Witchers, who sent her husband to the mines and her son to become a Witcher.
They didn't think he'd survive - people gave him the nickname Wormwood (derogatory) but he liked it and abandoned his family name for it. Because fuck his family.
Went on to commit his own horrors from adolescence into early 20's as a fully-fledged Witcher until he started to see more kids getting taken, kids just like he'd once been. Empathy is re-unlocked and he starts committing crimes (turning blind eye to magic, taking coin and favors for no mines.)
Found out. They sentenced him to Nornwatch and to the Legion. He's been in the Legion AND in Nornwatch for the past 16 years.
He knows that he has little life left to live as both a Witcher and a Legionnaire. However, the Calling gives him purpose and he will not ignore it. He's in this Blight darkspawn killing business for life.
Wyvern rider for the past many, many years. Though Fate brought him to Daewonsa twice, only the second time did the two of them form a bond.
TROUPE 1/REFUGEES: He'd been there for the Nornwatch attack and subsequent journey but, during King's Road, he was in King Orhan's party with Alucard. Vicoya and Riandur were the only Legionnaires ahead with the squad, as you know. King Orhan was taken, Haelim couldn't find Alucard, so his wyvern took him back but he met some lone escapers en-route and took a while to help get them to where the refugees were. He did not witness the barrier coming down and only got to the border after it was down. Those who knew him probably thought he was lost or dead.
Date: Iskaldrik is saved
Location: Caer Glas Keep
Characters: @theegonurcan & @haelimthewatcher
Notes: Just a little bye-bye, come visit or come along!
Daewonsa may not be the best of fighters, but she was an incredibly fast and adept flyer. Perhaps that had always been for the best, because Haelim now felt a soulful gratitude that he could return to visit Caer Glas at will - and not take days to arrive by horse or carriage. He never would have thought that he would have built such a connection and bond to a country or a place that had been so strange and foreign to him only a year-or-so ago.
Haelim visited Caer Glas now, only to collect his few belongings from his room, and some paperwork and supplies. The rebuilding of Nornwatch would take great effort and time. He was not so sure when he would return to these warm, sunny lands... or its people. But he would remain as connected as he could be. These Lysarans had become friends, if not family. "It has been an honor of my life to fight at your side, witch," he said with a small smile, poking fun at their awkward introductions so long ago. "Olympian. Legionnaire. Nurcan... I cannot convince you to join us in Iskaldrik?" He doubted it, but it was worth a shot.
Date: Iskaldrik is saved
Location: Iskaldrik, wherever everyone has rendezvoused
Characters: @lunadarkwoodx & @haelimthewatcher
Notes: Wow they've actually been here since the start p much
"There she is, our unstoppable wolf." Haelim was flush with relief, pride, and joy once the dust settled. His fellow Legionnaires were alive, including the very first once they had recruited out of the ruins of their fallen Iskaldrik. Luna, like himself, was here to witness its rebirth.
He would remain here in their motherland, helping to usher in a brave new world in however way the Legion could render aid. The Iskaran tunnels would need exploring and mapping out, new defenses built on the surface and positions filled within the growing Legion... Riandur had given him a hell of a job to do, and he was thankful for it.
"A hug then. Whether it is good-bye or simply a gesture of my friendship is up to you, Luna," Haelim said, coming up to offer a rare affection. "I assume the Commander gave you a choice of remaining here or returning to Eterna."
Date: Iskaldrik is saved
Location: Iskaldrik, you decide
Characters: @riandur & @haelimthewatcher
Notes: uwu
There was much to get used to without Witcher abilities. Fighting changed with anti-magic, and his constitution changed without preeternatural strength. In many ways, Haelim felt a lot physically weaker and in other's, in his heart and in his mind... he felt stronger. There was no childhood poison coursing through his veins, the forced trauma branded into his fate that seemed to linger above his head, likened to a noose. The sacrifice done for their world had still hurt; life-altering circumstances surely always would scathe a man in some way. But it also gave new hope for the future. The beginning of Haelim's new destiny began on this 40th autumn of his life. He had thought he had reached the very peak of change when he had stepped out of the underground without his connection to the Weave. He could have never predicted that, weeks later, they'd face a fight with a God once more; he'd come out wounded --- yet somehow alive with the majority of those he loved.
It was after he had been healed and told of the outcome of the battle that Haelim sought out the Commander. The sight of freshly fallen snow in Iskaldrik made Haelim's chest tighten as his heart filled with nostaglia and longing. Approaching Riandur outside, it was almost as though nothing had changed the past 2 years and they were only just hunting the forests by Nornwatch Keep. ( But, of course... everything had changed. ) "The skalds will sing of this day for generations to come," he murmured, coming up beside Riandur. "My only regret is that I was not there to share in your burden when the moment came. If I hadn't any perspective, I would care to wallow there. But nothing now can overshadow my pride for you, brother, for The Legion... for what we have all accomplished here." Haelim had never once felt patriotic, up until this moment. "An entire nation is freed."
He had seen these walls, Yggdrsaildal, plenty of times as he grew alongside someone that had always been his better. They hadn’t gotten along back then. It felt like neither of them had gotten along with anyone back then. Afshin was an extroverted loner and Eldar had an ego that simply pushed people away.
It seemed that all had changed for at least the former since they were children. All it had taken was them losing their home.
But they would build a new one.
Ayy, didn't know they doubted us
Makes it that more marvelous
Sign 'em up, 'cause ominous vibes and I get synonymous
What's up, danger?
Ayy, don't be a stranger
'Cause I like high chances that I might lose
I like it all on the edge just like you
I like tall buildings so I can leap off of 'em
I go hard wit' it no matter how dark it is (x)
Veseniya had put most thoughts surrounding her ill-gotten fate as far from the front of her mind as she could manage for the past several days. This was difficult as each night she dreamed in more vivid hues of blood and ash than the night before it. That, and the small entourage of her comrades who had insisted on seeing out phases of her march toward an inevitable and swiftly coming death. None of them would allow the Calling to claim her, she knew, and she had already written to Celaya somewhere in Lysara in hopes her friend would arrive with enough time for a lucid farewell. Any of the Legionnaires would afford Veseniya a swift, merciful, and honorable death. But when she had her faculties about her, she hoped it would be Celaya.
The dream druid was somewhere else when Haelim spoke. Occasionally, her face took on the serene and distant expression that had once been common. But more often now she looked to be in a deep sort of consternation, her consciousness somewhere else, but not in a place of peace or dreamlike state. Instead, she often looked to be at war with herself or increasingly suspicious of others. Battle seemed to bring a single-minded sort of clarity to her thought process, but increasingly she struggled at twilight and dawn.
The transition periods between day and night confused her, twisting her mind as she felt increasingly compelled to follow the hordes of monstrous creatures into the dunes rather than to return to camp with the Legionnaires. More and more Veseniya’s clear minded consciousness worried she might return to camp one night too many and slaughter her allies in a moment of violent black out. More and more her crumbling mind dreamt of it like some sort of depraved, grim fantasy.
She looked to Haelim when he spoke, and it grounded her. Tonight would not be the night. There was still time. “You must be wary. Strength… mind…. But time will run thin. When I find that in between, half me, half monster, that is the time,” Veseniya stated, her eyes drifting out toward all that the sands obscured. “When I could act either this way or that, when I am unpredictable…” Veseniya thought she had made peace with the choice as she made it, and it was a choice she could live with. But she increasingly feared her mind would slip away at some critical moment and the influence of the Calling would puppet her body to commit an act she could not forgive herself for in this lifetime or any hereafter.
"Before my connection to the Weave was taken, and my body rid of poisons, I knew my long age defined every breath I took as precious - they were sorely limited. Perhaps they still are. I had made peace with it before, but I knew, deep down, there was still some fear left in me... fear that my death would not be good. That I would hurt other's, or endanger the ones I love before my soul returned to the Weave." Haelim murmured. He could sense Veseniya had a similar fear, though any person who knew the honor in the druid's soul would be able to tell that she held these worries in her final moments. They were natural, likely even more natural for her than it had been for him. But Haelim, perhaps, understood them more intimately than a person who did not preemptively await death on a daily basis.
"But you have nothing left to fear. We come to you in your final moments as a choice that we have made on our own. We know your heart, Veseniya, and we know that the Blight is not a part of it. Should you act differently from yourself, none would ever recognize that as the Legionnaire we know..." Their relationship had been built on comfortable silences, graceful co-fighting and unspoken understandings. It had been so easy to find peace with Veseniya, and to communicate with her without the societal pressures of small talk and gossip. But if it hadn't been for business or for teaching, Haelim had rarely said so much to her at once. "The woman, druid and Legionnaire that we love as a sister-in-arms."
He sighed quietly. "... Yet I know these moments are difficult nonetheless, perhaps even more so, in a way, with our presence. So, I thank you, sister, for this gift of letting us accompany you."
Date: After all that craziness...
Location: *Dune theme song*
Characters: @veseniya-tqd & @haelimthewatcher
Notes: Goodbye friend :(
If there were any other Legionnaires accompanying Veseniya on her final journey, they were scouting or making camp. This was the first time since Caer Glas that he had had a moment alone with his friend, a friend whose time ticked away faster now than Haelim's ever had. Only a few days prior, the Witcher knew his life would likely be far shorter than any of his comrades. Now? His heart ached for Aradia, and it broke for Veseniya, for they were dead-women walking. Haelim was losing comrades; he would remember them and miss them until his head was full of grey-hairs, should Fate allow him that honor. A human now, no longer a Witcher with a body full of poison. He never thought he would outlive Aradia and Veseniya.
"Rest for a moment," he said, sidling up to the druid on his desert horse. Daewonsa was still in Caer Glas. "The sun is rising... these hordes are thinning. They will all be scurrying back into their caves soon enough." Haelim recalled his good-bye to Veseniya. He had worried that she would silently vanish into the dunes, a druid destined to disappear into nature's embrace. But here Haelim was, given another chance to look into those large eyes and and memorize that sharp, knowing gaze. Soon they would be near the very caves Haelim spoke of, and he feared the moment Veseniya might insist that she enter them alone.
Even though the landscape stretches like a hard day
Even though the old man says I have a fool's plan
Oh, despite the distance, you will see my footprints
I will raise my flagpole, I will turn these tables 'round (x)
There did not seem to be much worth celebrating these days, Veseniya thought silently, and those things that warranted it rarely lasted. She wondered idly what the occasion in Haelim’s dream might have been, but refrained from asking. She understood the man to be forthcoming when he wanted to me, when it happened. “Tainted dream, the doubt is not real,” she stated. Just as her failures, her responsibility for the fate of the Harbringers who refused to see reason and help themselves was not genuine. Veseniya looked entirely unmoved at the revelation that Vicoya had a similar nightmare. Anyone who still lived and had taken the Joining likely did. “An Omen,” she repeated as her head fell to one side as if she was in deep consideration. “An omen, no. If it walks our minds, it is here. Not an omen. A presence.”
Haelim feared to hear as much from Veseniya. There was brief silence. His cold fingers tightened his fist before relaxing, loosening alongside the heavy breath that he'd been holding in. The air was schooled out of him slowly, all with the intention of seeming calm and collected. But the anger and frustration still roiled inside of him. "You are not surprised," he observed, voice tight. There was no malice or fault given in his voice, just worry. "A presense... And if it haunts one of us, it was always likely to haunt more of us. We are all in danger then." He seemed to give it some deep thought, eyes darting and teeth clenching. "Very well." His gaze locked on Veseniya's again. "It makes no difference. Even if you threaten just one of the Legion, you threaten the Legion - regardless of who else in this castle has dreamt this. We will face it."
"You know nothing more thus far? Nothing intentional that we can inform Ria- the Captain of?" If even their Dream druid was no more informed, they would likely go into this semi-blindly. He could not blame Veseniya for that - he knew enough about the dreams to know it was no one's to fully master. There were incredibly powerful and older forces out there - and they all seemed to be coming out of the woodwork.
with: @haelimthewatcher
when: recent days; evening time
where: the bazaar in eterna
notes: as we discussed in da dm's!
It was said all Witchers developed a sixth sense, a supernatural perception for danger. As Moon strolled through the market that evening, her blood began to tingle - someone was following her. Whether it was due to that sixth sense, or the fact her own flesh and blood was near, she immediately could tell her dearest cousin was on her tail.
"Has the Grim Reaper finally come for me?" she asked aloud, not even bothering to turn his direction as she continued waltzing past the bazaar's various stalls. In the evening time, many of them switched to selling street food and drinks, the latter of which she'd already helped herself to. She hadn't drank enough to enjoy a conversation with Haelim, though.
Moon inched forward a few more steps before she suddenly whirled around, dark cloak and darker hair fanning around her as she confronted her cousin. "Hmm, you're not death. Just someone who reeks of it." Her aura was one of disappointment, a feeling made clear as she let out a dramatic sigh. She was in her early thirties, practically the end of the line for a Witcher. Haelim was even older, but somehow still kicking. They were both on death's doorstep, which unfortunately meant they had something in common. "Can I help you, Wormie?"
It was a rare treat to be somewhere that wasn't the South, or Caer Glas. Even if it was just a days-long journey of restocking and mental rejuvenation, he should have been thankful. Truthfully, Haelim was restless. He felt the darkness looming over him, threatening to thicken and surround and choke. It was difficult to rest within war, and with the threat of dark draconic dreams. The day's chores were over, and he had no more lists to go over in his head. Haelim did not want to give his anxieties more purchase, now with the lack of work, and so he decided to hurry back to Daewonsa's waiting spot. But something told him to look back into town - one more time.
Moon was far away, but he could just make out her silhouette by the doorway of Veil of Veins. He froze in his steps as he watched: she seemed to linger by the doorway, speaking to someone inside with her final farewells. Was that a smile as she turned away? Surely a trick of the light. Haelim was still far away, of course, though he had caught himself having wandered closer while he'd stared. Now, he decided to follow. His cousin had almost died the last time they had met. Though Haelim held no illusions that they were friendly now, he still felt a pang of responsibility. Worry, born of true care or a twisted sense of ownership over one's blood relations? He did not seek to introspect over their toxic relationship, he simply walked to her. Action over thought when it came to true concern.
The flicker of tension that came over her told Haelim that she had figured it out, and so he hurried his steps. "You cannot, unless you were serious." But Moon surely had no desire to help in a war, nor with the Legionnaires. Then again, he would have thought she wasn't the type to sell her own blood. "I just found it curious to see you coming out of Veil of Veins. You are not a vampire, Moon. Are the seas not bringing you enough coin?"
The once-Witcher across from her seemed to visibly deflate when she insinuated he was not alone in the visions that colored his sleep. Of course, dreams were common for those enlisted in the Legion, but Veseniya did not need to be a dream druid to recognize that the rash of nightmarish omens were different than mere subconscious alone. Yes, her dream of Agnes was unusual, too, but it stood alone. It appeared, she thought quietly, that a sort of shared madness tethered by Blight and dreams connected all who donned the black plate and insignia of the Legion.
“My dream,” she stated finally, “was similar. It presented what it might have thought I wished for.” Her eyes were fixed on Haelim but they were vacant. She shared tangible space with him in the material plane, but she was elsewhere for a moment before she seemed to become grounded once more. “It watched,” she said slowly, knowing she did not need to name the entity in her dream as a dragon for Haelim to know it was so. “It spoke of my legacy, depicted mostly through failure.” Her head tilted to the side for a moment as if she was considering, “And it said it would remember it. How i failed.” No Harbringer would have followed her if she begged, and she was not eager to shoulder the weight of poorly used free will. “Strange dream…”
Haelim was silent, hands fisted on the table. His fingers felt cold, and numb, and so did his tongue. In contrast, his insides felt white-hot and twisted. All of his feelings were pressed tight against his ribs, where they begged to be given voice: why did this have to happen to them... after everything? They had a Blight to fight in their bodies and outside, they had a war to bleed in and a passive Commander to confront. He thought of all the fear and worry in Vicoya's eyes when she had recounted her own dream, and he compared it to the look in Veseniya's eyes now. It filled with a brief but scalding hatred for this mystery. If a Witcher should be haunted, that was only natural. But why could his comrades have no peace? Their turmoil clung onto him like a weight.
"It showed me celebration and praise, than wondered if I had ever - or would ever - deserve such a thing. It showed doubt of my character in the eyes of those who know me best, and who I trust the most." There was something pinched at the corners of his mouth, a brief flicker of movement. Only the most subtle glimpse of vulnerability to be found if Veseniya had been probing his expression for frowns or similar tension. "Vicoya... also had a similar nightmare." He only shared now because Vicoya trusted her comrades, this was an expert in dreams, and this issue was becoming more and more a matter for the Legion as a whole. "So these were more than just dreams, then. An omen of what is to come for us?"
Safe. She hadn't truly felt it in some time, even in her own bedroom, wrapped in the arms of the person she trusted most. His words uncoiled some of the tight knot that had formed in her stomach, and his touch spread warmth through her veins. Her eyes squeezed shut as she rested her head on his shoulder, content to block out the outside world if only for a moment. Over the past few months, it'd become harder and harder to radiate her usual aura of unwavering positivity, a change the others had begun to notice. None of them were immune to the weight of their current world.
"Are we, though? Safe, I mean." She whispered, her voice muffled against the fabric of Haelim's shirt. She pulled away slightly to lock eyes with him, brows furrowed with worry. "I had a strange dream last night. The Blight was consuming me, all over my skin, while a dragon watched. Right... there." Coya lifted a pale finger and pointed to the fireplace on the wall opposite her bed. Her eyes lingered on the spot, her mind revisiting the fearsome creature and its ill-fated words. Even now her thoughts threatened to spiral, wondering if the anxiety setting her nerves on edge was really the Blight about to creep through her veins. She stated the obvious. "I fear something darker than the Kossith is coming - not just for me, but for all of us."
Haelim tensed briefly, a telling sign that Vicoya's past dream was more than he could confidently reassure her over. A telling sign he knew more. The Witcher could not lie. And, with Vicoya, he never wanted to. For a moment, he just stared mutely at the underside of her jaw, his attention wanning to his own dragon dream from last night. Perhaps Vicoya had also wished that thoughts of that dream would go away, but it has only followed her into her unconscious. Knowing what he did, he couldn't say it wasn't for good reason. In a few moments, his eyelids fluttered and a sigh released some of his tension as his attention drifts once more to the present. He would share his own truth as soon as they both settled their pounding hearts.
Haelim raised a hand to come up and caress her hair, the color of it almost brown like an autumn leaf as they sat in the dark. Perhaps touch could be enough to soothe at least some of her fear; he was not sure if his words could. He takes in her discomposed features in the shadows, his own eyes shuttered from any probing gazes. Compartmentalizing his fear is second nature. Fear is the mindkiller, the Witchers say. "Look into my eyes and breath deeply, V, let the fear in. It cannot take you, and I am with you." He waited, gathering her face in his hand. "Now exhale it slowly... Let it flow into the air. You can use it later." He offers a small, brief smile, his arms falling to the side. One of his hands sought out her's on the mattress, though his eyes did not part from her's. "Let's assume what you say is true; I won't doubt the power of dreams. But the truth can settle your nerves as much as it unsettles you. You know that monsters have challenged you before, and that you wouldn't ever be alone to face it, even if it only called to you...You also know that we are no strangers to darker things."
"No, it will be all of us. Either this is the Blight encroaching further and further towards us, or it will be the end of what we all know. The return of an Old God. We know them all by name, but where they died...so many things remain unknown to us. We know Lusacan is in Avalon, but where are the rest? Danaro spoke of Generals like him, yet here we fucking are. Lost." The ring now remained dormant on his finger, no longer tainting him as it had, but still present. Unable to be removed, it was simply...a reminder. The Silver Elvhen shook his head, "I need more fucking answers, Haelim. Otherwise this is for nothing."
In the manufactured peace of the tent, Haelim went briefly silent. All around the fabric shifted, whipped by the wind, its hollow moaning drowning out the muffled call of comrades and clanging metal and Haelim visibly considered the ring on Riandur's finger. It was a shame that not everything could be fought with blade and shield, the way the Witcher was taught. Some times truly required magical understanding and others, politics. Until there was a God to fight in person, none of these problems were Haelim's expertise - but he resolved himself to do what he must to help. If he was overwhelmed, he could only imagine how Riandur felt.
"If we were to make a list of questions that needed answers, the unrolled parchment could turn into a carpet." He gnawed on his lower lip before nodding, then meeting Riandur's eyes once again. "But we wouldn't be able to do any of this without a healthy captain and soldiers - both in body and mind. Do you believe the journey to Amun Sol is the most pressing? Beyond dreaming dragons, Gods and rings?" Their duty was to the Blight, but real life was more complicated than a vow.
The morning gruel on offer sat untouched within the bowl sat in front of Veseniya. The strange dreams she had been subject to lately garnered her attention far more than her hunger did. First, she dreamt of the Genasi who called herself Agnes who had yet to find her in the waking world. While that dream had felt like an omen, the presence within it had not felt like it loomed so large or was capable of such distraction as the presence in the second. By now, she had completed some small bit of research but enough to allow her to hypothesize what had haunted the corners of her sleeping subconscious: the Dragon of Silence. But this was all conjecture with no material proof.
When Haelim sat across from her, she jolted slightly as his words brought her back to attention. “Dreams of what?” she asked, her tone different than usual and hinting that Haelim was not wrong in his suspicion that this was a shared phenomenon.
Haelim caught on. His shoulders sagged with visible relief, but his eyes contrasted with worry as they narrowed on her. "A dragon... a scathing and cruel creature. He conjured a vision of joy and then gave voice to the worst thoughts in my mind." His arms rested on the table as he leaned forward, attention rapt and full. Would Veseniya share her own dream? If anyone might find an answer to these troubling dreams it would be their resident druid - a Legionnaire who wandered the realm of unconsciousness the way Haelim had once wandered Iskaldrik.
Rian looked at Haelim as the other spoke, letting his palms rest on the table in front of him as he considered what was said. "I won't leave, not without an answer. They can't lock us out. The goal is actually getting there, and any Legionnaire who can reach Amon-Sul is allowed within. That's how it's always been." He paused after a moment, "Have you been having any dreams? With a silver dragon?"
That's how it's always been. It had always been that The Legion was united as well. But the Witcher seemed to perk up, raising himself in stature and tension in a way that marked preparedness. He was clearly pleased to hear that Riandur would be stubborn and demanding. Their Commander had wasted enough of their time not providing any answers to his own army.
Haelim's brows furrowed, but he didn't look surprised. "Vicoya, Veseniya and I are not the only ones then..." There was a slight hesitation, his gaze turning away briefly. "The dragon was scathing and pitiless, but non-violent..." He gazed at Riandur expectantly. "I was left without expectation or demands, but clearly there is some meaning behind its visitation if we have all seen it."
Date: Latest plot developments, after them creepy dreams
Location: Southreach
Characters: @veseniya-tqd & @haelimthewatcher
Notes: ._. meets with o_o
For most people, it was probably difficult to tell Veseniya's resting face from her expression of being truly displeased or concerned about something. As Haelim's expressions were comparatively micro, and he had become quite accustomed to his fellow Legionnaires' company, he suspected something was amiss with her as he stood and stared at Veseniya from the other end of the camp. With his bowl of meager breakfast food and his flagon of mead, he beelined for the seat across from her and partially hoped that his suspicions were correct, this early in the morning.
"I am having odd dreams," Haelim said after he sat, then watched her expectantly. Had he been alone in this?
