[PRP] Harrowed

[Kimaria]

He had sought sleep after the discovery of his dark and dismal future. He had sought it and found it, though it had brought him no peace at all. Nightmares came to snap at his heels and chase him through shadows. Phantoms hounded him. Sometimes they had unknown faces. Other times they were his brothers. Once they had even worn Eione's face.

And when he jerked from sleep to the world of waking he was as tired as he had been when he had first closed his eyes -- and the nightmares had followed him. His wound hurt. His head hurt. His heart hurt, too. And the disease was still real and he was still waiting for it to strike him. Waiting for it to claim his life and end it before it had even begun.

More recently he'd switched between despair and anger, but the anger had quickly faded away. He had no one to blame but himself and Eione had told him his fate in the most gentle way possible. After all, how did you tell someone that they were going to die of plague? He wasn't even sure what the illness consisted of but he had no doubt in his mind that it would be a painful end.

It was nothing but a waiting game now.

Ecavi

 

[Kimaria]

Her sigh drew his attention and he turned his head slowly to look across where Eione had seated herself. Healthy and young and so kind that it was strange to think that she had lived her life around so much death and misery. Perhaps learning to become a healer had helped her numb her feelings against such things. He didn't know.

"You sound as tired as I feel." He said at last, her quiet sigh ringing in his ears over and over again. His head hurt and thinking made it worse but there were some things he had to know. Eione seemed like the best person to ask, too. He knew her a little better than he knew he other healers, after all. "Are you too tired to answer some questions?" He felt the churn of dread in him to think of it but he had realised, perhaps only a few hours prior, that he needed to know.

He needed to know what was going to happen to him.  

[Kimaria]

"My death." He started, biting the bullet. There was no point beating about the bush. Every living thing was scared of death - or so he liked to believe - and he was certainly not going to be brave about that. He didn't want to die, not until he was old and done. "Is it going to be painful? How will I know when the plague...has got me?"

He hadn't realised, before then, just how pessimistic he could be. But, at the same time, Dabula wasn't about to fill himself with false hope. Whether he believed he would be well or not would not matter in the end. He wouldn't wallow in denial.  

[Kimaria]

He wished he could have taken the news with a brave face, unflinching and unafraid. That was what would have been expected of him, he was certain. Perhaps his brothers would have dealt with it better. But the more she spoke the more afraid he got until he found that the sound of his heart was drowning out her words.

He heard enough though. Enough to be fearful.

When her explanation was done he turned his head away and set his jaw, gritting his teeth hard in an attempt to keep the emotion off of his face. Suffocation. Starvation. Those options sounded just as bad as one another. Thinking about not being able to breathe properly for days on end. Or being so hungry but not being able to eat. Surely it would be kinder to just rip the suffering lion's throat out.

He swallowed to find that his throat was sore. "Why is your pride like this, Eione? No other pride suffers like this. Is it the land? The water?" There had to have been a reason, right? What if they moved somewhere? Maybe the sickness would lift.  

[Kimaria]

He sighed.

Lions that were caught in a never-ending cycle. Perhaps they would be more panicked and afraid if they were suddenly all declared well again. Maybe they didn't want a cure. This was their way of life. What made them unique. If that was taken from them then what did they have?

...Their health?

"Perhaps we're all being punished." He muttered under his breath. "Though I don't know what I did to deserve this." He shifted his weight and turned away from her. He was tired but too afraid to sleep. And yet being awake seemed no less frightening, either.

He felt sick.

"I'm going to rest some more. I don't feel strong enough for a walk today." A part-truth. He was too afraid to go out there. He could play on his wound a little while longer.