The nightmares reigned; slow, cumbersome, overbearing weights pressing behind his eyelids, through his skull, rotating, circulating, beating, beating, beating in vivid throngs and savage slashes. They were inescapable, blinding streaks of wrath and contempt, disgust and loathing, then treachery, always treachery, the slice of a knife, the keen, harking wail of his flock falling down, collapsing in on themselves, led into battle then slaughtered. No matter what he did, no matter how loudly he screamed, how hard he pressed into those brutal, sadistic schemes his mind concocted during the witching hours, naught could be done. He was only a witness, a watcher, a bystander, as they fell apart – just as he’d been for so long, entrenched and embedded into the earth, into the soil, flickering at the seams, unraveling, uncoiling, until he was nothing like he used to be. The brightness was gone and replaced with anguish, and when he finally stopped hissing in his slumber, when his eyes opened and he only saw the darkness of the cave, the silent, sentinel appearance of Orsino, the careful approach of Enyo, his heart cracked a little more.
 
Everything seemed ominous and wretched, a slate of foreboding dragging across his surface, poised along each and every muscle, reaching, grasping, clenching for answers, truths, declarations, when he had nothing else to offer. He stared out into the void and the void only stared back, endless and uncertain, perilous and inescapable, and he didn’t open his mouth to declare his wishes, his ambitions, or his dreams. He didn’t glance anywhere but the Stygian aperture, blue eyes yearning (for what, he almost asked himself, when everything seemed so decrepit, so withered, so decayed down to his very bones), catching the crackling of a booming voice, the shattering of sparks, the surrounding stars seemingly burning out.
 
His eyes narrowed and speculation ran rampant; the pounding ache in his cranium pervaded amidst Machiavellian schemes and desperate measures, rising from his curled position and glaring back into the heavens for another sign, for another signal. Only echoes resounded and remained, and he stood there amidst the pillars of confusion, upheaval, and apprehension, wondering if the world was truly going to crumble around him and he’d finally be swallowed whole. Enyo clicked her beak in disregard, shaking her head, while Orsino’s brow only rose the tiniest fragment, inclining his fox eyes towards the Haruspex’s cave, far wiser than anyone else in the midst of the three. Perhaps Wessex would know, would comprehend, would have been given information from the Time God himself, granted wisdom and sagacity from the curt, brief, and rash tones. No more, he almost begged as they crossed from cavern to pathways, chasing after one more unblemished hope. Please, no more.
 
“Wessex?” The General bent his head towards the entrance, nares widening, presuming she was there in the shadows, but not daring to go in, swallowing down the potential to ruin something else. “Do you know what’s going on?” His head, once so noble, so silly, so hellbent on mischief instead of sorrow, glanced towards the sky again, then back to the pressing darkness.