trans_9 | If you prick us, do we not bleed? [open]

In some ways fainting had been a blessing to Chaucer. Medically, it was nothing but a nightmare, but he hadn't had to deal with the doctors or healers, or whoever had patched him up in the end. Whoever it was had done a brilliant job; Geoff had been terrified that he'd lose his arm at the very least, probably die. Instead he'd woken up to a splint and some heavy sort of wrapping. He couldn't move his arm, but it wasn't missing. A few minutes of checking it over had passed before he'd even noticed the odd pulling in his side and noticed the bandages there.

The relative lack of pain was a marvel in itself.

He needed to find out who had helped him, thank them, eventually. When he got out of the medbay. For now he was propped up slightly in his bed, struggling with the stylus for his comm. Left-handed writing was ridiculously difficult, made even more awkward by the unfamiliarity of the surface, but it was something to do. A way to write Philippa, one he could transcribe into legibility later.

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Despite his insistence that it wasn't necessary, Khel had been brought to the medbay anyway. At the very least, no one had tried gluing his skull back together. The pieces had sealed themselves once put into position just as he'd predicted. Still, now he had a rather large wrap around the upper part of his cranium, covering one eye socket and leaving the skeleton oddly unblinded. It was strange that he could see through the bandage so easily; then again, he'd never tried to blind himself.

"I am curious; what does thy writing relate to?" he asked coaxingly, stepping closer to the mortal in the cast.

"Ah," is all Chaucer can manage at first. There is a skeleton and it is talking to him and first and foremost he should not scream.

"My wife. It is a letter to my wife."

Usually he'd lie, but whoever it was had startled the truth out of him.

"Thy wife is fortunate to have a husband so attentive," Khel replied. Adjusting his helmet in the hopes of appearing perhaps slightly less ridiculous, the skeleton nonetheless picked up on the man's discomfort almost immediately. Several millennia of existence and challenges by overzealous adventurers had honed it in him.

"My name is Khel no'Gran, scribe. Thou hath no need to be afeared of myself, for I intend no harm upon thee."

Well, then. Geoff swallowed down his fear. This wasn't the strangest thing he'd seen, after all. He tilted his head, considering before he answered. "I think she would rather I was present than merely attentive in my letters, sir, but thank you."

Khel chuckled in response to that, worn leather creaking as he sat down across from the man. "'Tis true that most women wouldst rather have their man at home than afar. At least, such as I remember it. The memory of such things ... they dim after the first thousand years."

"The first thousand years?" Geoff finds himself asking before he can think about it. Damn his curiosity, it seems to be running away without him, and that's not the safest thing.

"I have remained bound like this for well over five millennia, cursed to wander existence as an undead, eldritch thing I have gained atonement for my sin."

"That sounds... unpleasant," Geoff offered, feeling slightly awkward and trying not to let his unease well up again at the mention of anything eldritch. "What was your sin?"

"My sin ... was not dying before my kingdom."

"I see."

What?

"I know not how the gods work in thy realm, but in mine own they are very real, and sometimes they grant boons and strengths to followers. I was a servant of Tyr, and one of his dominions was that of the oath, of duty.

"I was a king, many centuries ago..." What Khel recited (http://forced-unlife.livejournal.com/profile) next was a concise history of what happened to him, and of his broken vow and of his spirit's raising.

"Now I live an unlife, bound to these bones until the day comes when I have atoned for my sin."

If you prick us, do we not bleed? [open]

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