DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
The Silent
HTML https://thesilent.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Stories, Ideas, and Art
*****************************************************
#Post#: 536--------------------------------------------------
Short Story Contest- Tericcar- Hope is in the Defiance of Laught
er
By: Tericcar Date: December 22, 2016, 7:54 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Tericcar woke up with cold sweat drenching his brow. It had been
happening for a while, apparently, as his long dark hair was
matted to his forehead and sticking to the back of his neck. He
knew it was the nightmares and not the temperature. A cold
breeze was still blowing in from Northrend as he slept in a
small room on the third floor of the inn. It had been a welcomed
luxury to have after braving the deep snows and war torn lands
farther north, closer to Icecrown.
They, Cedric and he, had been in Northrend for months dealing
with the Lich King’s forces from the shadows. They assisted the
armies of both the Alliance and the Horde in the hopes of
bringing down Arthas’ forces enough to stop the monster.
Tericcar looked back down to see Cedric sleeping soundly, still
bare-chested as when they had went to bed. Cuddling back into
his boyfriend sounded wonderful, but the horror show that had
woken him flashed in his mind again. The Wrathgate.
He had been sitting on a cliff, not to far from the Alliance
encampment when the battle turned poorly as the Forsaken used
the plague on both Horde and Alliance soldiers alike. He’d
watched so many people die and rot in such a short amount of
time. He’d seen their flesh burn as the red dragon washed away
the stink of the evil deed with cleansing fire, but most of all
he remembered the chilling voice of the Lich King as he spoke to
the forces.
Tericcar had been through countless battles in Outland, horrible
and life endangering, but he was still only seventeen years old.
Seeing the leader of a vast undead force caused even him to
freeze motionless in fear. That feeling had plagued him for days
after the Wrathgate and woke him up in the middle of the night
when he should be deep in slumber against his boyfriend’s chest.
Instead he was up at the early morning before the sun had risen
scared of a former paladin hundreds of miles away on top of a
citadel.
It’s not like he hadn’t been scared before, but back in Outland
he’d focused on his goal and let no distractions or place for
fear. He shut his mouth, put his head down and did what needed
to be done. But now, he was here, his usual methods weren’t
working, and he was losing sleep over it. He pushed himself up
and moved a hand through his hair. Outland was big. It had high
stakes and Ilidan needed to be stopped, along with countless
people needing help in the shattered world. Arthas, however, was
an Azeroth problem, not on some different planet that was
already wrecked. This would affect everyone he knew and had
countless consequences that would echo throughout time. If the
visual horrors weren’t bad enough, the weight of the very world
hanging on every fighting man’s shoulders here would be enough
to cause a man to go mad, and that was just what was happening
to Tericcar.
He quietly got out of bed, hoping not to wake Cedric with his
sensitive hearing. He pulled a ratty shirt on and stepped
through the balcony into the night air. He breathed in and let
his eyes settle on the moon, set right in front of him in the
clear sky.
“Beautiful isn’t it. I can see why the Kal’dorei worship it.”
Tericcar didn’t even jump. He expected her visits to happen at
impromptu times. “Hey, mom.”
He turned to find a high elven woman with the same dark hair,
her eyes glowing a soft blue in the darkness. He took in her
appearance and breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t seem
injured, her bow was still strapped to her back and she didn’t
look tired at all. She finally turned her head to look at him,
her face softening a tad. “Hello, Tericcar.”
“To what do I owe the visit?” He never really knew how to act
around his mother, only knowing her from when he was an infant
until he was three or so. Elves always seemed so formal with the
way they carried themselves and the way that they spoke. Plus,
his mother never came without a reason. The only reason he knew
her this well by now was because their paths seemed to cross
ever since he began his vigilante journey. She seemed drawn by
the same conflict and need to help people as he, but she did it
with coldness and precision that even he couldn’t duplicate.
“A mother needs a reason?”
Tericcar gulped, stopping a smart comeback he had on his tongue.
His mother’s eyes looked him over. “You have something to say?”
“I don’t believe it’d be appropriate.”
She seemed to chew on his answer for a minute before sighing and
turning back to look out at the horizon. “You are having trouble
sleeping. Dreams, I’m guessing, of the horrors you are beginning
to see.”
“Yes.” He didn’t know where she was going with this, but it
seemed pointless to lie.
“A mother knows her son, no matter how much time she has spent
with him. You are breaking Tericcar. This war with Arthas will
kill you, and I don’t mean by your lack of skill with your bow.”
He frowned, “I’m not sure I understand.”
“I think you do. The madness and the regret and the anxiety of
this kind of conflict, the world threatening type of conflict,
of which I sense there will be many in our lifetime, can break
anyone. It kept your father up many nights, and sometimes keeps
me up to this day.”
He stopped himself from responding at first, really wanting to
digest what she was saying. “You never talk about him. My dad.”
“You know enough. Anything else you will have to find out
yourself. I can’t bring myself to talk about him very much.”
“So what are you getting at with all this? You want me to stop?
You know I can’t do that.”
She shook her head, her midnight curls shaking side to side. The
moonlight hit them, making them shine. “Not asking you to stop,
just lending support to you as a mother should. You need to
change, Tericcar.”
“Change?” He couldn’t believe he was having an emotional
heart-to-heart with his absentee mother about this.
“You’re a smart boy. You’re good at what you do, but ever since
you were fifteen and saved that woman in Elwynn, you’ve become
to rigid and formalized, only caring about the mission.”
“You know about that?” He flushed a little, his mom having known
about his first vigilante act.
She smiled a little; it lit up her face in ways Tericcar had
never seen in his stoic mother. “Yes, I do keep tabs on you.”
Tericcar cleared his throat awkwardly. “And so what if I’ve
become rigid and formalized? It gets the job done, that’s all
that matters.”
“True, but if you aren’t around much longer because you have a
mental breakdown then you aren’t saving as many people as you
could.”
Tericcar sighed and looked up to the moon. “We both know that
there is only one ending to my life. I knew it the second I
bribed that mage to get to Outland. I die, and I die violently.”
She nodded. “Probably. But until then, you’ve got your mission,
and I want you to be successful.”
They stood in silence for a bit. It wasn’t an awkward silence,
but comfortable if not a little morbid. After a moment Tericcar
scratched his thigh. “So what do you suggest? How do I not let
all this get to me? How do I stay sane, cause let me tell you,
this war isn’t even close to being over and I can feel myself
slipping a little more each day.”
“Laugh.”
Tericcar’s head snapped to his mother, who still threw a serene
silhouette against the skyline. “Laugh?”
She stood a little straighter as she began to explain. “The
world is full of sadness, pain, and horror, but to laugh at
those things brings the full forces of joy, healing, and
serenity to combat them.” She bowed her head. “It was something
your father used to say. He would crack many jokes, though some
of them weren’t at all funny, in the face of horrendous odds or
bleak situations. I believe the humans call it gallows humor.”
She leaned against the bannister, still refusing to look at him.
“He means that if you want to stay sane, you must find the humor
and happiness in everything. You are your father’s son, and I
have seen the humor in your eyes, and know that you have held
back from your jokes since you began this journey. It is time to
let that side of you free, or the weight of everything will
become to heavy to laugh off and you will succumb to it.”
Tericcar sat there, pondering her words. It made sense to him.
He loved what he did, the action and the doing heroic things for
a good cause, but he really loved seeing a captive he rescued
reunite with their family, or see a happy ending come about for
the men he worked beside. It made him feel like everything was
worth it in the end. He leaned against the bannister, moving
closer towards his mother, seeking comfort by proximity. “And
it’ll take the weight of everything away?”
“No. But it’ll make the weight easier to carry, and make sure
that some others have less weight to carry. Some will mistake
you as a fool, or someone who does not take it seriously. But
you are lightening the mood of a depressing situation for
people. Giving them something else to focus on rather than the
impending danger. It will still weight on you, but they will be
eased slightly, and that knowledge will make everything worth
it.”
Tericcar nodded. It made sense to him. His mother straightened,
and it was only then when he noticed the sky lighting up with
the first of the morning sun. She turned to him, her face softer
than he had noticed in the dark. “Think on it for the next few
days. You should get back in there. Your boyfriend will wake
soon and will become fearful if you are not there.”
He felt a flush creep up his neck. The last thing he needed to
add to everything was defending his relationship of a year to
his mother. She waved him off, “You are almost a full adult now,
and I do not have much high ground to stand on when it comes to
being an actual parent to you.”
Tericcar stepped forward, pulling his mother into a hug. She
stiffened at first, but eventually and tentatively wrapped her
arms around his midsection. “Thank you. You might not have
raised me, but you’re still my mom, and you come by every now
and then when I need my head screwed on straight, though I have
to say, you telling me to laugh and crack jokes in the face of
danger when I’ve never even heard you laugh is a bit much.”
She stepped back, a small smirk tugging at her lips. “Maybe you
haven’t said anything funny at all then. Think of it as a
challenge.”
He chuckled, “I will. When will I see you again?”
She hopped over the barricade before he could get his answer.
But as she disappeared down the inn’s roof, a small snow began
to fall from the Northrend sky. It was soft, with no real win
pushing it any which way. Tericcar lent his face up to feel the
frozen flakes hit his skin and sighed. He turned around to walk
back in, see if he could catch a few minutes of cuddling with
Cedric when he saw the small gift, wrapped and with a small bow
on it.
He stared at it for a minute, not understanding what it was
doing there before it clicked. It was the start of Winter Veil
today. He gingerly picked it up and unwrapped it. It turned out
to be a small leather bound journal. He opened it and in soft
cursive was his mother’s name written in the owner’s section.
Right next to that was an old portrait of his mother, still as
youthful as ever with a dark haired clean-shaven man and a small
child. It took him a full minute to recognize that he was
staring at his family photo; the only one that had been taken of
them most likely. He flipped to the next page to see that his
mother had constructed a family tree of her elven side. It went
back thousands of years, but it also included him at the bottom.
He followed it for several pages, seeing his mom’s writing in
the margins, small notes she had made to herself.
The most prominent one included his father’s name. “Oswald’s
other child??” He blinked; his mother thought his dad had
another kid? He’d need to read over this carefully. Not only did
it include his family history, but his mother’s thoughts and
feelings about things. This was something that he could get to
know her with, without seeing her very often. This was his
inheritance. And as he turned to the last written in page, the
others were blank for his inkwell to fill, was a quote. As
Tericcar read it he felt a sense of peace come over him, his
mouth cracked into a smirk as his purpose became clear to him
once again.
“The world is full of sadness, pain, and horror, but to laugh at
those things brings the full forces of joy, healing, and
serenity to combat them. Always keep fighting. Always forward.
Forward always.”
*****************************************************