"... has the end come for me at last? Have the years been so long, the burden of my curse so heavy, that the ghosts of those I once knew come to me?" He had arrived expecting a trespasser, a robber of the heroes' graves that even in Farron's decline deserve their honor and sanctitiy. Yet Brom stills, a specter of blue hues with longsword yet drawn, trapped in place by the ghost of a kinsman long thought taken from him. There is a grief to his words that speaks to a pain greater than any wrought by sharp sword or swift arrow, a wound that has never healed. "Would you slip through my fingers were I to touch you? Would you part as smoke, a specter from the days of Drangleic and of Majula far behind me?" The mire's waters do not impede his careful steps so much as hesitation as Brom approaches. Ten feet. Five feet. Two. "Creighton?" His hand stretches out as if to touch his cheek.
It's a routine so old as to be truly boring: the Watchdogs appear, they prattle off their oh-so-righteous monologues, they attack with the overconfidence of a small dog behind a large fence, they get utterly beaten to shit.
Creighton's been doing this for years, and before that he'd been doing it for more years — and more before that, and before that, and before that… One does not survive to see kingdoms rise and fall, to see comrades go mad and expire, to watch the very earth shift and the skies turn amber with ash, by being a coward in the face of fear. One does not simply move him…
But as Brom steps forward, Creighton finds himself stepping back.
The recognition hits later than it truly ought to — only once the man's mentioned Drangleic, mentioned Majula. The years have stolen much from Creighton, and steady (albeit rather forgiving) hollowing has stolen even more. Yet still, even with his poor memory, his half-stolen lifetimes, his stubborn refusal to ever learn his lesson… his bloodhound's senses catching the scent of true kin is not one of the things time has taken.
And that makes this quite upsetting, really.
Ever the conversationalist, Creighton lets a most dreadfully heavy silence fall between them — in that space between his steel-guarded cheek and the other's tentative hand. Instincts from a thousand battles tell Creighton to snap at the phantom's attempted touch. Instincts from a thousand years of lost brethren tell him to step forward.
For a moment, in that space between his warring urges, and between the coloured veils of the two men's loyalties, phantom reds and blues mingle into a corona of violet.
Ever the wordsmith, the only thing Creighton can really bring himself to say, as he lifts his equally-hesitant, chain-guarded fingertips to press against the back of the other's hand, pushing it slightly away (yet touching him all the same), is a dark, frustrated, "I don't fuckin' believe it."
Because he doesn't. No, this is no idiom, it is simply the truth — his heart's honesty, as blunt as he's always told it. And he tells it again as he takes one more step back (yet still keeps his fingers upon the other's hand): "I don't fuckin' believe it."
Ever the level head, Creighton clenches his teeth behind the protective steel of his mask, irritated by his own confusion — his own lack of understanding. Because his temper is another thing that has never really changed. He sucks a breath in through his teeth. "Wha' the fuck sorta trick is this…"
Said like a flat, furious statement. Still, his fingertips stay right where they are, pressed to Brom's outstretched hand with the level firmness of one checking for a pulse, his axe held slack in the other.
This… will take a moment to process.