fredag 26 december 2014

Facets of Fantasy: Tears

The man's breath was heavy with alcohol, his accent stained by the tongue of Those-We-Raid. He raised a hammer high. He spat. He said, “This is what we do with rebels.” The hammer fell. The shoulder broke.

He woke up, sweating. Long hair tangled in his face, blinded, but he could feel the pain shoot up and down his useless arm again. The bedroll stank of urine. The young'uns said Varro wet himself from fear, in his nightmares. The truth was more prosaic; age. His bladder played tricks on him, had been for a few years now. Probably some sickness he'd caught in his youth... back in the slave days. Back when they broke his shoulder.

He couldn't sleep. Rolling out of the cloth, he climbed to his feet with his good arm, grunting as he went. The camp was silent.

Except, of course, for the newcomers. They were sleeping nearby. He wondered if Harkon knew about it, the way he spoke in his sleep. His tongue was thick and strange, the language of the Far West, where a mighty Empress had a fleet of a thousand ships. Varro didn't speak it, not a lick, but he understood the feelings well enough. Was it a greater shame to piss or to weep in one's sleep? Varro didn't know, and he was too old to let shame rule him.

The old man had lost his clan. Let him sleep and not feel shame.

There would come a time when he'd weep while awake, not giving a damn who saw.


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