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Alvorecer	By : Skullbearer Category: A through F > Dragonlance Views: 1612 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own the book(s) that this fanfiction is written for, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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So, here we go. Dragons of Spring Dawning. This is where we start really deviating from canon, but then, it couldn't really be any other way could it? This chapter will be shorter than most.
Thank you to everyone who's struck with this fic this far.
Alvorecer
Chapter one
There's something cold and blank behind her smile
She's standing on an overpass
In her miracle mile
-Coma White, Marilyn Manson
He should have been screaming.
Screaming and screaming and screaming but part of his mind realized that if he did, the sound wouldn't reach his throat. But it wasn't his mind. Not any more.
He should be screaming. He should be howling and weeping and tearing in answer to the unbearable pain shredding his soul. But he couldn't. He couldn't feel, he couldn't hear, he could barely see. He didn't want to. He didn't want to feel this. He didn't want to feel anything. He wanted to die.
He wanted to die.
He'd left Dalamar to die.
Raistlin's scream went unheard.
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He couldn't feel anything.
Dalamar knew that feeling. It had been the same thing he had felt upon being exiled, the same numbness that made a ghost of the pain, but faded much too soon. That covered his soul in ice and killed all feeling. If he was fortunate, it would not fade until the water closed over his head and he would be beyond feeling.
He was struggling to keep from thinking anything. Perhaps if he kept his mind blank and devoid of thought, he'd die before it started to hurt. He could feel it; the burning edges of a pain so vast and unbearable that he couldn't take it in. He could feel it and his mind shied away; away from the burning brand of an emotion that would never heal, even if he died a heartbeat after it was felt.
No. Keep it at bay. Push it away until it is too late to feel anything at all. He was good at that. Too good, Raistlin sometimes said.
Raistlin...
The first sob tore its way free from Dalamar's throat, and his head struck the handrail. Arms knotting around his head as though to shield off the blows crashing down on him.
Stop.
He couldn't. It hurt, it hurt. It hurt and he wanted it to stop. He wanted Raistlin to come up behind him, pull him into his arms as he had so many times before and hold him. And he wouldn't. He couldn't. Because Raistlin wasn't here. Because Raistlin was gone. Because Raistlin had left him to die.
It had been better in the Nightmare. He hadn't had time to feel this. He wished Kitiara was here to strike him down again. The dead couldn't feel pain like this.
Another sob, his shoulders shaking, his teeth digging into his hand. Try to hold back the pain. Try to hold back the tide.
Fail.
Tears.
Oh Gods.
Oh Nuitari.
Oh Raistlin.
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Dalamar stood at the prow of the doomed ship, a death spectre in tattered black robes, staring dully into the swirling red water as though contemplating throwing himself in.
The only reason he didn't was because it wouldn't make any difference soon. Anything to quiet the howling loss and pain. The Nightmare had been terrible enough, but this was no dream, which made it immeasurably worse.
Tanis had shouted at him- something he couldn't remember. He couldn't recall what he'd answered, but his throat felt raw so he suspected he must have screamed it. The others had left him alone after then, they stood in a small huddle by the rail, whispering and shooting him nervous glances, as though they were afraid of what he would do now that Raistlin had abandoned them.
Abandoned him. The words raked through his mind like claws. Crippling claws.
Why? Nothing made sense. His mind was so tangled that he couldn't even think, couldn't force away the pain. The image of Raistlin's face, the moment before the green light engulfed him, a contorted mixture of human horror and alien glee. It was burnt into his mind as though it had been branded there.
He should be wondering why, finding relief in cold, clear thought, racking his mind to reason what had happened, to understand why. But there was no point. Let the ship break apart, let the bloody waters close over his head and drown his questions with his life. Let him go to that watery grave ignorant, and seek answers from Zeboim and Nuitari.
Suicide was forbidden for elves, their reverence for life making the taking of their own the foulest blasphemy. But Dalamar was a Dark elf, and oblivion would be welcome.
His wishes seemed to be about to be granted as the deck beneath him cracked, the boards of the hull splintering under the dragging, conflicting pull of the waves. The prow angled down, the water pulling it down. The hull beneath the prow was rapidly filling with water and the Perechon started to tilt forwards, the waves crashing further and further up over the deck. Dalamar caught himself as the ground rocked beneath him, throwing him forwards, his palms smacking painfully into the rail. He pushed himself away, feeling the bite of the splinters as he pulled himself hand over hand up the sloping deck and away from the death he had, heartbeats before, welcomed with open arms.
The crack of leathery wings made his head snap up, eyes widening at the sight of the dragon. Kitiara. He'd forgotten about her. But surely even she couldn't be insane enough to risk attacking the stricken ship. Surely the Dragon Highlord didn't want Berem so badly as to risk this... But she did. Dalamar's feet slipped out from under him as the woman sent her dragon plummeting towards the helmsmen's position.
Then it seemed as though everything was happening slowly. As Tanis jumped to knock Berem flat on the deck, a huge wave broke over them, sending both of men reeling. The deck canted away and Dalamar collapsed on his hand and knees. When he looked up, Berem was gone, swept away by the sea, and Kitiara's dragon was roaring in rage. It swept down again, going for Tanis, at the same moment the hull under the poop deck splintered in turn and the ship pitched violently to the side. Tanis too vanished under the flying waves.
Dalamar's hands skidded over the deck as he tried to keep from being thrown in after Tanis. He clung to life, unable to give up even now when he would gladly die and it all seemed hopeless anyway.
A wave broke over him like a battering ram, knocking him over and into the wreckage of the mizzenmast. There was a roar, and a crack as the ship started to break apart, slowly tilting into the swirling maelstrom. He scrabbled at the mast, trying to find something to hold onto as a second wave dragged his away. But the wood splintered under his hands, and the ropes snapped when he tried to hang onto them. The wave pulled at him, and Dalamar lost all sense of reference, deck and sea and sky blurring into blood. The broken mast vanished as he was thrown off the deck and into the swirling, whirling water.
Dalamar was so soaked already that he didn't realize at once he was in the water. He couldn't see anything, surrounded by the red-tinged darkness. He lashed out wildly, tangling in the trailing ropes that surrounded the dying ship like the wreckage of a spider's web. Instinctively, he drew in a breath-
He'd always imagined drowning to be horribly painful. He could taste the bloody water, and feel the grit of it on his tongue and down his throat. His mind cleared; one moment of pure clarity in the chaos of the Maelstrom and his own grief. He could see the wreckage of the Perechon, the prow being dragged down by the whirlpool even while the rest of the shatters ship floundered. He could see, with a strange, detached curiosity, the flailing bodies of the crew, some floating down with him, others hanging on to the wreckage in an attempt to keep afloat.
Then he coughed, his lungs clenching like a fist against the water, but now it wasn't water but fire, fire in his mouth and throat. He coughed again and the bubbles floated away. A third time, and the ice he had begged to swallow him came at last.
Skull Bearer
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