He sat cross-legged on the floor before his set of armor, his face scrunched and conflicted as if trying to beckon answers from an inanimate object. A flurry of thoughts and their end-paths drew unbidden to him, coming and going as he rode highs and lows that didn't belong to him yet were solely reserved for him. He didn't have any answers that resonated warmly in him, trying to hold onto those lingering moments that came after awakening but before true consciousness. The scent of daylight, the feel of warmth. His now-withdrawn bastion against the bleakness that had taken residence inside of his head and his heart.
He knew that shoveling coal into the furnace would produce nothing but smoke. The hole inside of him was specifically-shaped and no amount of good deeds would patch it, no delusional concept of greater good would redeem him.
His identity was defined by those around him and their relationship with them. He only felt empowered as a protector because she defined him. He only felt he was able to provide a service because the Sultanate had bestowed it upon him. He felt he could watch out for the patrons of the Quicksand because his armor allowed him to. He had lost the former, he believed. There was no need for him to continue to be anyone's champion; His services were no longer necessary as there were others, closer, more capable of doing what he'd forced his life to allow him to do. His identity was redundant.
He tried to hold onto that slip of sunlight, that gleam of hope and possibility but the shadow of regret and reality threatened to devour it. He had deluded himself into thinking he was doing well and those fears took hold whenever he tried to consider what would come in the future. It whispered to him at night when he walked alone through deserted city streets. It showed him what he longed most for when restless sleep fell upon him. He saw her ghost everywhere he went but could never bring himself to leave it out of stubborn, broken belief that things might return to how they were.
He'd made himself avail to the people, and they had found him, and he had listened as he always had to their troubles and he did for them what he could. The desire to protect was still burning inside of him but it felt diminished, impure. He had tried to resume his self-declared duties and found himself wanting.
It wasn't enough. It wouldn't, and could not be. Without his armor he was no one, invisible. He'd burn the candle at both ends to try and force the specter of sleep on him, hoping to exhaust himself to such an extent that even the bitter thoughts that dwelled within him would find no purchase. All he had to show for it was exhaustion and circles under his eyes unbecoming of someone who declared himself a pillar for the people.
He couldn't unshackle himself from it, though. Without keeping tabs on those around him, his mind wandered. The murmurs of the Quicksand gave him something to focus on, a purpose no matter how unimportant. When those murmurs died down and there was no longer anything to observe, he'd cast off his equipment and take to the streets. The sound of his footsteps on immaculately crafted stones pounded in his head and he focused his thoughts on the burning in his legs and the fire in his lungs.
He would sharpen his body and keep his mind occupied, and he told himself this in the mornings as the dawn would break and he would retreat back to his small room, hoping that he wouldn't dream of things he'd held in his arms before that belonged to someone else now. He'd push all of it from his mind, and passing back through the Quicksand the smell of Noscean toast would demolish him.
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