horseboykarl

Starts right after Karl and Eric break up

Ire is glad to see me when I come home. Poor fellow, I’ve abandoned him, just coming around long enough to feed him and change clothes for the last two weeks. I pet him absently and then look around, not seeing, not thinking, afraid of what scene will unreel behind my eyelids.

I don’t want to be inside for some reason, so I build a campfire down by the pond, as the evening sun disappears. Ire flops beside me as I stare into the flames, tracing and retracing the tangled path of alternatives that led me here. When did I have a choice where I could have turned aside? . . .

( I wrench my mind away from the ‘what if’s’ before they drive me crazy. )

Éomer: We go back to the elf man’s house, Hugo, and he calls a friend of his, a discreet doctor, I am told. After a time, a woman shows up and inspects our wounds. She places a poultice on my arm and tells me it is second degree, but not deep, as she bandages it. I just nod even though I do not know what she means, but I do not know if she knows who I truly am.

She wants to give me some medicine, but I refuse until my uncle uses his authority as King and First Marshal and orders me to do it. I am not a child to be dosed when the pain is acute, but I do as he asks and swallow the tablets. A strange lethargy wells over me and before I realize what is happening, I have fallen asleep on Hugo’s couch.

Later I seem to wake up, but Karl is there and I know I must be dreaming. He is stroking the hair out of my face.

( “The evil is defeated.” )

I wake up to the light of the full moon, casting silvery shadows through my room. My mind is fogged by the drugs, but I turn over to catch sleep again, and I see him at the end of my bed. I sit up rubbing my eyes, trying to make him disappear. The shadows shift and I see him more fully.

If I hadn’t known who he was with my very soul, I wouldn’t have recognized him. He is kneeling, naked, with his hands behind his back, his head shaved. He hasn’t said anything, no taunts, no growling suggestions.

I get out of the bed to look at him more closely, and he raises his head in the pale moonlight. I gasp, seeing him completely at last. His eyes are expressionless, dead-looking. He has been beaten, that much is clear. He doesn’t speak because some sort of leather gauntlet has been stuffed in his mouth. His hands and forearms are wrapped in chains that pull his shoulders back cruelly and his back is covered with welts, some oozing blood. There are more chains around his neck, tight enough to cause the veins in his neck to bulge. More injuries cover his chest and shoulders, more chains around his legs, the blood here running more freely. His face is smeared with dirt and in the shadows, I can’t tell what is filth and what is bruises. There is a wound on his bare scalp still flowing sluggishly with blood dark in the shadowy room. His dick is small and limp.

I wonder dispassionately who he offended so much to warrant such punishment. This seems extreme to do for political purposes. What was done to him was done with hatred and rage, perhaps. I turn away from him, look out at the peaceful night, chilled suddenly. He has always been so powerful, who could possibly be strong enough to do that to him?

I shake my head, bemused. What do I care? He’s just a figment of my imagination, nobody can hurt something that doesn’t exist.

Then the realization hits me squarely and I gasp for breath. If he belongs in my imagination, then the only person who could do that to him is . . . me.

I whirl around, staring at his bowed head. Much as I resent him, do I want to see him like this, so . . . defeated? He shivers in the chill in the night and suddenly my hatred comes flooding back.

“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” I laugh bitterly. “That last little touch was a bit over the top. I almost bought it . . . I almost believed you needed me to rescue you.” More manipulation.

He flinches as I step towards him suddenly, but I don’t care. I crack my fist across his face, as hard as I can, and he pitches over to his side and I follow with a kick to his ribs, laughing, knowing I can’t hurt him.

“You are just me, don’t you see, you fucking bastard? I want you gone from my head and if I have to kill you to get my sanity back, I don’t give a shit.”

I turn away from him then, leaning on the window, staring at the moon-drenched forest, smiling grimly. It must be working. I must be on the way to getting rid of this other personality if it is resorting to such tricks to sway me.

I turn to go back to bed. I hesitate for a minute, wondering . . . if I thought for one minute that he was actually real, would I do that to him? I shake my head, if he was real, I would have unwrapped those chains, no matter how much I hated him, and I would have treated his wounds and then tucked him under the blankets to heal, no matter what kind of butthead he is.

But . . . he isn’t real, and he needs to go. I climb back into the bed, still covered with slanted moon shadows.

“Don’t bleed on my carpet, asshole.” And I cackle gleefully at my own wit, pulling the covers up, knowing he will be gone when I wake and the carpet will be fine.