Lachesis Grins Featuring: Merrymock ( @madkingmerry ) & Lasher Locale/Time: Blood, Sweat, and Beers, Nearly Midnight
Ablutions in a cold river bed lift away the layers of grit & crimson that stain him, and he is reborn, pale and perfect, from plumes of red and ash that swirl away in his wake. He dresses methodically in the darkness, stark white in forested shadow, and leaves behind the death he wrought as if it is nothing at all. Acts like this should make him feel more human, awaken his senses from the haze slouching through his mind, but it only reminds him he is dead. What he feels is a suggestion of biting cold. An echo resonating through resurrected sinew and bone β like a stone hitting the bottom of an ocean. A distant knock, forever unanswered.
Tonight, the voice of the Scorn-raven is lost to him, leaving him an empty, hollow vessel in dreadful silence, aching. Even that stentorian thrum which buzzes in his limbs, borrowed energy from a higher source, has gone quiet, and he is torturously free of all his usual purpose & distractions. He is truly alone. Errant. Lost. It's nights like these when he feels the need to claw at the ivory cage of himself, to see if he can break free, feel anything, recover something. He is, all at once and without warning, a slave loosed from his shackles with no concept of what it is to be free.
The drive to run when there's no escape makes it impossible to rest.
Lasher finds his way into the heart of Destarin, some old rote buried deep within him taking over and directing him towards a nondescript tavern. Perhaps in the life stolen from him, he drank his fill every night, enjoyed the company of a shapely woman when she'd have him, brawled tactlessly with his brothers at arms. Perhaps he laughed, fucked, scrapped, and howled at the moon like the others and felt a perfect sense of belonging and rightness with the universe when his head hit the pillow after.
But now, he sits stiffly at the bar, his scarred palms flat on the surface β strange, white-knuckled appendages that once were his to wield, just extensions of NΓΓ°hrafn. Acts like this should make him feel more human, but only remind him he is dead. The warmth of the hearth within doesn't chase the chill away, and the lively music doesn't move him. The din of patrons drunk and red-cheeked around him is only a miserable static. He is but a vestige of human, a starless abyss that rips and tears.
His woolen hood masks his citrine eyes when he addresses the barkeep, ordering the most vicious whiskey distilled. His voice is gravel and growl. When he shifts, the greatsword between his shoulders glints silvery white.
