Just About to Break

[shosen]

Dire Maul, fighting ogres and demons, and something hits me and I freeze, twisted up. Do demons feel this, when I banish them? The dislocation, rending, trying to pull you from the physical form you call your own. I fall, slump on the ground, look up into the faces above me. Trolls, friends and sort-of friends.

Four, then three, then two but one.

The four are gone and the three stand, swathed in dark robes, I cannot see, but one of the three is also the one and there he stands in feathers and beads, and the light in his eyes is frightening as I lie in pain and listen to his twisted tongue as he turns to the two of the three and laughs.

I can move then and I do, lunging up off the table in awkward movements, arms too long, body too heavy, but motivated by hatred. I don’t know him, but I have never wanted to kill anyone more in my life.

“You had no right!” The words don’t sound quite right, my own words twisted strangely. Doesn’t matter though.

The two of the three stumble back as I crash into the one, and there are shouts in my strange tongue from shadowed figures around us. I don’t care, don’t pay attention.

“You had no right!”

The words echo in the inn room, in my mind, and I have no idea what they mean. My hands are shaking with rage and my heart feels like it’s been ripped out of my chest. Same dream as the night before, worse though, because I still have the empty-panicked feeling from losing Moggett in the Undercity. I should not be trusted with wolves, I always fail.

I collapse on the bed, breath slowly and try to let the rage flow out with the air. It’s been years, why are they back now? But they’re different, more, not the feelings, but the images.

How long did they last before? A month, I think, and I can’t do that again. There’s too much to deal with now, and if I don’t get some of it out I’m going to go insane.

“Damn.”