The sailor’s comatosed hippocampi rumbled the risks, similar to the odds in one of his many Dragonchess face-offs, permutating the rationale of Greenest’s Kolmogorov-like prison. [i]Consolidating the causalities with the living would spread sickness like wildfire.[/i] The whispered voices in the distance forced his fretful hand, though, as a now left-sided grip on the frozen hammock, packing several dehisced soldiers, many panting in pain from the bolted heat of a survived Armageddon, towed towards the inner sanctums of the keep. His elderly rheumatoid fingers remained shaky, as he sluggishly tugged on the callous fork-lift, knowing there were less arrows than ogling scalps of the courageous. The pink of Kyra darting along the parapet, reminded him of a lighter red, the Rayleigh scattering in the horizon and upon the citadel, promising hope to those who endured. [hider=Flashback: Family of Gifts] [hr]The sleek lady with carroty locks and strands beamed, elated. She first closed the shackled door, and the pirate finally heard the ouroboric rattle of the sliver helix bound on the other side. Once she unfastened the metallic umbilical cord and forced the hinges to squeak a greeting, her slender arms and smile became wide to embrace him. He didn’t return the familial act, as he paced in, but she didn’t appear snubbed. [i]Wretched loft.[/i] He was doing her an immense favor. The oath grasped the alcoholic’s brainstem, gingerly reminding him to strike when the moment was right. And leave. Looking to his left, a black kitten hunched over its water dish in the kitchenette, lapping up a river. Torus could also notice the Kundalini hum of the hearth, the reek of frozen food sluggishly softening in its heavy sauces in a nearby cauldron. [color=fff200]“Do you want some ale, Uncle?”[/color] the woman extended. He gritted his bark-textured teeth. [color=00aeef][i]“No, dear, I’ve brought my own.”[/i][/color] He took out his flask and took a deep swig from the liquid lantern, ever-glancing at her, out of the corner of his peripatetic vision. Then he hid it away, without bothering to offer her any of its thwarted light. She grinned, regardless, and snagged a vermillion bottle out of the blemished leaden ice chest. Pouring herself a magenta juice glass full, she skipped over to the couch, the food amidst the crotchety fireplace grabbing her attention again. [color=fff200]“What’s this about a gift?”[/color] she called over her cachectic shoulder. [color=fff200]“I don’t see anything wrapped.”[/color] [color=00aeef][i]“You have three guesses, Wenonah. If you can guess what it is, I won’t give it to you.”[/i][/color] The feminine statue peeled her eyes away from the bottom of the pot and pored over him. [color=fff200]“That’s strange. You won’t give it to me if I guess what it is?”[/color] [color=00aeef][i]“That’s right. Now what’s your first stab?”[/i][/color] [color=fff200]“That doesn’t make any sense,”[/color] she conjectured, intrigued by the weird, unconventional nature of the present. She hadn’t even planned on celebrating her birthday. No one at the tavern knew today was the day, and she was fatigued, from juggling two jobs and a new baby. Maybe she and some of the girls could get together this weekend, if Torus could watch over the new bastard addition again. [color=00aeef][i]“Just indulge your Uncle, sweetheart.”[/i][/color] [color=fff200]“Is it tickets?”[/color] She came over to stand with him near the armchair, hoping to gain a clue, to see if he held something that might give away some of the suspenseful surprise. Old man Torus rolled his foaming pupils. [color=00aeef][i]“No, it’s not tickets.”[/i][/color] [color=fff200]“Is it a new flute?”[/color] [color=00aeef][i]“No, it’s not a flute. I wouldn’t know which instrument to bestow upon you, las. All your bardic experimentation sounds like a jostled racket to my salt-filled ears anyway.”[/i][/color] She cackled, as the meal’s aroma and smoke was filling the room. [color=fff200]“Oh no. Is it a collar for Schrödinger?”[/color] as she quickly opened a window. [i]Schrödinger?[/i] [i]What the hell kind of name is that for a cat?[/i] The druid wondered. [color=ed1c24][b]“No, it’s not that. So now I’ll let you have it.”[/b][/color] He sighed heavily as he drew the length of perfumed wood from the recesses of his Minotaur hide. She concocted a confused face — just as all the women always did — and he swung the coumarin club at her face with such burnt ferocity that it burst her left eye at once. A spatter of copper blood showered across the oak floor and the oblivious furniture. The puzzled look remained on her contorted face, but her orbit bulged with burgundy pain and welled with scarlet lacrimation. The possessed oaf struck her again, and she fell. [color=00aeef][i]“I’m sorry, honey, the price was right.”[/i][/color] Then again. [color=ed1c24][b]“And you know I exist.”[/b][/color] And again and again and again. She didn’t move, slumping awkwardly against the lower cabinetry in the make-shift kitchen, her legs splayed out at a painful angle and her sweatshirt sopping up some of the spilled carnage. The remaining murderer locked and manacled 3E and plopped down on the threadbare loveseat, his head in his caked hands, unmoving, his propitiated tears exuding slowly like sap from an Adonic tree’s severed limb. [color=00aeef][i]“Schrödinger, clean up some of that goddamn mess in there, would you?”[/i][/color] The feline licked its stoic paw twice, then went into the hidden bedroom, towards the vengeful cries of the unattended infant, and curled upon the adjacent hamper. By the time the vexed smolder had aired out, the Tethyrian was brutally drunk, more than a Moorish feudal lord, but he still had some agronomistic work to do. He pulled his corrupt corpus up from his stolen throne, with a suppressed sob and returned to the small alcove to tidy up the remains. [hr] [/hider] After the recent Titanomachy, he condemningly bore the brave, repetitively back and forth from the wall into the citadel’s refuge, noting the worsening immersion into the ever growing petri dish of sepsis, whilst Orchid arose, almost unscathed, next to Brannor. Perhaps a magical green beacon needled amongst a haystack of bereavement. [i]Miraculous.[/i] Despite Torus’ and the cleric's tending to the wounded, the infectious shock was setting in those not completely cauterized by the dragon’s lightning breath, with serosanguinous fluid seeping from exposed peritoneums and compromised extremities alike. Disfigured rhabdomyolysis, deteriorating bradypnea, necrotizing fasciitis and the persistent clonus of intractable status epilepticus were all heralds that mere medicine and simple magic would not save these loved ones. Like the signs of the inevitable seasons that revolve around life and time, or even an unceasing Euclidean veil imparting flavorful consistency within fatal permanence. The wailing of the soon-to-be departed harked to all that borne of suffering emerge the strongest of souls. Out of sacred scars surface the infantile flesh of revenge and righteous perseverance.