Pain.

It defined his existence. He'd not been able to see a healer, as d'Artagnan was still stuck in the Throat and he had no way in hell to go rescue him right now. The charred skin on his hind end was warm, pulsing with painful infection, and the beginnings of a fever was spreading through his body. He could feel it haunting him, mocking his pitiful attempts at sleeping, setting a deep ache in his joints. Movements was pain. Living was pain. Pain and hate and fury blending into a mix until he knew neither up from down, only that everything hurt. His head hurt. His heart hurt. He swam in a sea of muddled thoughts and broken promises, broken trusts, broken emotions. He was broken. Well, no - not really. He just felt like dying anyway. Somewhere, deep in his heart, his spirit still raged, fetter to a stone. He had to get his life back into some semblance of order. Drag his aching thoughts together from where they lay scattered across half the universe. He needed to function. To live. To breathe.

But everything felt hollow.

Even the bond stretching to the owl felt weak and stupid in this pitiful world. Insignificant. It thrummed with empty worries and attempts to soothe, which fell short of the mark. The stupid, warm infection lay like a wall between him and everything. It would get worse before it got better. d'Artagnan was off somewhere in the sand and sun.

He hated that green bitch, Xira. She hadn't taken his Doctor but he hated her anyway.

Hated everyone.

Weak sunlight filtered in through the cave's mouth, splattering like blood on the walls. Was the day already over? He expelled a shivering, shaking breath, drawing his frosted hooves and leaden limbs closer to the oncoming dark. He was hiding here. Away from the world. Away from misery and joy. Away from food, stupidly enough. No food in winter anyway. Hiding with his tired shame and his battered body, its weakness. He still smelled of smoke and burnt hair, burnt flesh. It could've been worse, though - he could've been dead, though maybe it would be a blessing instead. To not feel. Not know. A talon in his scalp, and a humorless smirk. He was too tenuous - and too stupid - to give in to death.

Ice rubbed against his grimy shoulder, and he leaned heavily on the cave's rough wall. He was used to the heated hammering of pain in his body, of the weakness swimming in his blood. He dreamed of fire and screamed and woke up, alone with an owl. He spent his days in delirium or daydreams of vengeance and divinity, occasionally hobbling outside to browse for the hardy tundra vegetation hiding under the thin blanket of snow. A shadow of a grim smile drifted across his face like the last remnant of warmth from a dying sun, before fading into oblivion. His eyes closed, face lapping up the bloody rays.

He hated everything.
And still his burnt back throbbed.

Mauja Frosthjärta