This is a place of starving souls.
And he doesn’t belong here.
He is no one here and can no longer even remember a name in which to answer to. He is nothing, just another blurry soul, dead-hearted and wandering, waiting. Years of unrequited, burning rage had numbed him quicker than the others – the others that were like him. Ones that still had debts to settle, others who refused to sever the tortuous thread of possibility that slowly hung them as they tried to wait their way back out of the oblivion.
Time is unfathomable here, there are no stars to light the night nor sun to warm the skin. Just an immeasurable nothingness, choked in sorrow, as heavy and real in the air as rain. This is a place of starving souls – of hearts that still held on to the hope that something, someone would pull them back. And though he moved amongst the sea of grey, hollow bodies – he knew none of their faces. There were no old friends to be had or old lovers to embrace here, only strangers who would not (could not) speak back. He is no one, just an aching flicker of a lost old king too stubborn and prideful to let go.
But finally, it comes.
At first the words come faintly across his consciousness, like a light sprinkling of sand. “Vankish…” the voice is warm and throbs through the darkness like a heartbeat. “Vankish…” comes the call once more and in his throat he can taste the Desert spices again, hot and rich and real on his tongue. The years of brutal solitude that had weighed him down for so long now, no longer felt heavy as a shimmer of golden light parted the mindless black and fell upon his emptiness.
The name, his name, comes again and the wraith-king calls back, shoveling through the myriad of listless, translucent bodies. A thousand memories come rushing back, demanding and violent and beautiful as he comes to her. The Oak and the Willow, the Dragonwinged King and the Golden Queen – the sepulchers of his long awaited hopes rising as he reaches for her. They had shared the crown even longer than each other’s hearts, their love had chains that bound them and tethered them now even still. Chains that would drag him away from this forever incompleteness and back to where the Nightwalker was meant to roam.
And even though her light burns his eyes (the eyes of an old specter, eyes so used to the dark, dark nothingness) and her warm skin burns the paper-thin, colorlessness that makes up his vague shape – he would never turn away. “What took you so long?” He asks, weakly smiling away the sorrow and shame of his helplessness. He was not meant for this place, nor was he meant for the place of the souls who chose to rest. The coals of anger that had burned out long ago begun to smolder again and the desires of his heart began to ache once more. “My queen,” he breathes, a small endearment, an intimacy so easily taken for granted - so long missed. He felt unburdened by her mere presence and although the hint of death lingered around their every breath he grins, “I'm ready to go home now.”