[SHW: A Silken Bond] Dark Thoughts

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Galard woke up with a jolt of pain in his bandaged arm. He grunted, twisting and turning in vain hopes of finding a position that at least began to resemble comfort. With a resentful sigh he finally conceded defeat and threw away the bed covers. A pause for breath. One, two, and sideways swung his legs over the rim of the bed, one at a time until he finally managed to land on the floor in a half-crouch. Despite the sling keeping his limb mostly immobile, the shock of it was enough to send another surge of stabbing pain up his forearm. Gritting his teeth, the young soldier paused to wait it out, slowly forcing out an even breath. Somehow, he found even this excruciating experience more bearable than the indignity he was subjected to all of last tenday as the medics fussed over him, and his father had assigned not one but two adjutants to assist his every step. He couldn't move, couldn't eat, couldn't so much as think of walking to the chamber pot without someone stepping in to all but do it for him. It drove Galard mad. The pain, the humiliation, the loss... His head was swimming well after the fever broke, and behind his closed eyelids he saw the damnable forest, dark leaves concealing volleys of crossbow bolts. The ringing of shouts wouldn't quit his ears day or night, and the death rattles that inevitably followed them were infinitely worse. Yet worst of all was the inaction. On some deep, rational level he understood his father's caution, but that was poor comfort to his raging heart. He dreamed of leading the charge, of rounding up each and every one responsible for the attack that killed his people. The soldiers on the ground, the officers who masterminded it, the rulers in their dark citadel, the very deity they pledged themselves to... Another unexpected stab of pulsating pain in his arm broke Galard from his ruminations and he cursed loudly. The door to his room creaked open and he whipped around, ready to yell and throw something, anything. But he stayed his hand when his squinting eyes spotted the conspicuous horns silhouetted against the dim light of the corridor. The one person who seemed to understand his pain. The only one, it felt, in the whole damned world. The door closed behind her with a soft click.

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CW: Meditations on grief, lack of purpose, and the inexorable march of time.

Theresa sat on her bed, a loose grip on her small hand mirror as she stared at it and the faintly smudged reflection that stared back at her with the face of a stranger. Who was this woman with her hair, grey and frayed? With her worry lines etched deep and irreversible into her skin, itself sagging in jowls? With her hollow and listless eyes? She did not recognise her. Had she really changed so much in the span of a year? It hardly seemed possible, yet there were her hands around the mirror. Those liver spots were no trick of the light, the wrinkling around her fingers no smudge of the glass. Theresa stared at those hands, not quite done withering yet but well on their way, and she felt sick. Her other things were packed, the papers were signed, the coin all accounted for... She should be happy. Just the other day she had met with the young woman who wanted to purchase her inheritance, to deliver her from the worries of the last year. She was so pretty, Theresa thought. The effortless ease of youth, even as she took her for all she was worth. For a moment, she had felt alive, she felt her old self roaring to life and she wanted to cheer, to brag, to kiss Veloth like it was the night of their wedding all over again... And then she remembered. Veloth was a year in the grave, and his dream had died with him. The house felt so terribly lonely, and Theresa herself finally realised she was hardly more than a wretched spectre roaming its halls, desperate for something. Anything. And now here it was, her chance. But a chance to do what? Who was she, without him? Her joints ached, not with age but with nervous excitement, vibrating as if they wanted to escape her body all at once. She wanted to scream. To sob. To dance or jump or drink. Anything but another moment of this. There was nothing but silence, and the hot tears that smudged her reflection.

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The hulking figure stalked through the underbrush with speed and agility the belied its bulk. So it was true after all, what they say - fear grants flight. More figures followed close behind, huddling and quiet but for the occasional yelp of surprise as roots and branches would snag them in their haste. The leader kept going even when none were left to follow, out of the forest and into the farmland. He knew they didn't have the stones to flee from him, but somewhere in the depths of his soul, he wouldn't have blamed them either. The horrors they... He, had unleashed. It was almost enough to see him abandon everything and run with them. His pride had been great, and his lust greater still. He would be the strongest of any shaman, and damn his god if he didn't, or couldn't, make that happen. He'd find his own way, his own power, break it, chain it, and master it. He'd found an ally, one as cunning and ruthless and ambitious as he was. Only too late did he realise that had been a deadly underestimation.

The figure reached the outer fields and shed his great club. Cast aside his trinkets, his symbols of office and of power, and he prayed. He fell into supplication the likes of which he'd never known before. True, genuine, immutable terror drove him now, and only divine intervention might get him through it. So he danced, and he hollered, and he prayed in his garbled tongue that Hruggek might grant his blessing to this most worthless of his children.