A Return and an Awakening

[Lent]

Pain. Pain and flowers. It was an unsettling combination. Did no one realize that? Why did no one ever realize that? Flowers could mask scents but not sensation. It took something more potent for that. Wine. Wine would do the trick. It could even smell flowery, though, the prone convalescent had little use for flowery wine. Little use for flowery wine and right now, very little use for flowers. The scent of the sick and infirmed was only obscenely altered by the wearing of a mask of flowers. He wished the whole place would burn... and with him in it. Then the pain might end.

Fire. His last memory. No wonder he felt such pain. Had it worked? Had it been all worth it? No, if he had succeeded in his final gambit, there would be either far more pain or none at all. If he had succeeded, he would most likely be dead. This was different. Hell may have been hotter but right now, in this bed, with a body that was depleted and debilitated from brutal injuries and months of stagnation.. hell would have been preferable.

Flowers. Who in the world would bring him flowers anyway?

----
Just had to do the right thing for once, didn't he? Right is relative. Proper thing. Procedures. Saw too much, too much strangeness. A dead man walking about. Not his head either, but the whole thing. Too weird. Too wrong. Needed to make sense of it. Had to go back to roost. Raised too many flags. Got the wrong sort of attention. Should have been easy. Got dagger. Get dagger blessed. Stab Karolinger repeatedly. One. Two. Three. Then the Governor got involved.

Governor counts too damn high. Interrogations. About Feul. About Emory. Reports. Then finally, answers. Still, a costly delay. Not worth the trouble. Easy math. One. Two. Three. Should have stuck with it. Lots of priests in Myrken. Few that could be trusted. Demons. Demons everywhere. Pretending to be human. Heads with legs. Became easy to learn how to trust a priest. Any on that wouldn't agree to put holy water in your eyes. Bless them. Anyone who wouldn't do that had something to hide. Something demonic, maybe.

So many untrustworthy priests in Myrken. Had to know the blessing was real. Had to know it wasn't a demon doing it. Kept looking for a priest who would agree to it, one who understood, one who was HUMAN. Took time. Too long. Too long. Should have been easy math. Damn the Governor.

---
Atrophied limbs could only slow him down for so long, but every second of effort was agonizing. Bones had mended, burns were tended to, but everything was weak. So weak. He was a killer, a fighter, a Southern bravo, but now, he could barely sit up. His throat was dry, his vision blurred. The world spun. Memories were hard to reach. He remembered coming out of the woods. Catch. Just the thought of the madman caused a sharp pain in his skull.

Five breaths to recover. Catch, the woods, and then.. Oh, he had to have failed or else he wouldn't be here now. He wouldn't be alive. She was out there somewhere. He had been less than his best and how do you face down the storm at less than perfect? He barked out a laugh at the thought of it, the noise becoming a wheezing cough as fire and pain leapt up from his lungs. This was the first noise he had uttered in months and it was fitting. A bitter, pained irony. Just like him. In trying to preserve all that he had worked for, had he caused its very unraveling? He needed to know more.

How long had he even been here? He shouted for help, for answers, for anyone or anything, but all that left his throat was another rasping cough. Giuseppe flinched to his side in agony. Who had brought him FLOWERS?

----
Snowstill. Figured. Where else would he find someone willing? The holy water stung his eyes. Figured, too. Given the life he had lived what else had he expected? Wasn't even really alive, not in the way that mattered. It helped though. Priest was human. Not a demon. Other people, though? Not so sure. Things started to blur around the edges. Shadows seemed to move, to jump, to creep behind him.

Wasn't so bad at first, not until he got back to Myrken, not until he learned that it was all too late. Karolinger had been killed. Some sort of magic mess. Details hard to get, harder to understand. There was a report but he couldn't get access to it. Something to do with the new town mage. Why would they keep it from him, though? Deny him that closure? Something stank.

Something bad. But his eyes were anointed. His dagger was anointed. The demons were starting to come into focus, and they were everywhere.