Chapter Text
An Open Window: Part Three
Sigrun recalled nothing of what happened next except for a new smell that she presumed was blood; pungent and metallic as it spread over the rotting boards of the street.
What she did recall was that by the time Bard had succeeded in half-dragging, half-carrying her across town to his house, she was arguing with him, though she couldn’t fathom why.
It probably has something to do with his killing three people in cold blood. Maybe I’m in shock. Ha ha.
‘Sig,’ Bard grunted as he deposited her, squirming, into one of the moth-eaten armchairs, ‘you need a doctor.’
‘Doctors cost money,’ Sigrun growled; his hands on her shoulders and the worry on his face only serving to fuel her irritation, ‘doctors ask questions.’
‘Sig –’
‘Let go of me.’
Bard dropped his hands immediately, but insisted on dogging Sigrun’s steps like some stupid solicitous lover as she forced herself to her feet and hobbled to the cupboard.
The pain within her was volcanic as she opened the cupboard door and laughed bitterly at the contents.
‘You still keep drink in here,’ she chuckled mirthlessly.
‘I keep it so I remember,’ Bard replied; the fearless way that he pronounced his words ill-fitting the shame on his face, ‘what are you doing?’
‘Wow,’ Sigrun said, dodging his grasp as she closed the cupboard door and staggered to the cracked mirror with a bottle of brandy in hand, ‘that sounds like a load of dragon poo poo.’
‘What are you doing?’ Bard insisted, his eyes fixed on her as she uncorked the bottle of brandy and looked into the mirror.
A thousand bruised and cut versions of herself stared back at her as she poured the brandy straight onto the open wound on her forehead.
The pain was like death. The world faded. Bard shouted in horror. She heard him dart forward and catch her as she collapsed.
And the darkness around her felt like warmth.
She saw the guards drop one by one. The path each arrow took was a sharp shimmer of silver in the air, before the air turned red.
Then she saw him at the top of the stairs; the bow drawn to his chest with terrible accuracy. His hands did not shake. She expected them to. And yet the bow looked a part of his body: like it suited him. The thought made her sadder that she had felt in a very long time. Her friend was not a killer. It was not who he was.
As she stared at Bard, their eyes met, and she could tell that he was thinking the same thing. Then in her dream, his eyes began to turn yellow; like a bird of prey; like something that was made for killing; like something that was good at it.
She jolted awake. She was lying down. It was pitch black, her body was a throbbing mass of pain, and she had no idea where she was.
Then she caught the scent of the blanket she was wrapped in, and she was too tired and too weary to fling it away from her. She tucked herself deeper into Bard’s scent, breathing him in like a warmth that sank deep down to her bones, then forced herself to sit up, slowly; her fingers still clutching at the edge of the blanket.
Her muscles screamed in agony, and her pulse throbbed in wave after wave of unnatural crimson as she shuffled to Bard’s closet door, and pushed it open.
He was sitting on his parents’ bed in almost complete darkness with his back to her, with only the first, blue light of dawn lighting the room through the shutters. His head jerked slightly when he heard her stirring, but when she closed the closet door and hobbled forward, he did not move; his gaze fixed on the opposite wall.
His eyes were glowing black. His clothes were still spattered with the blood from earlier. And on his face was an expression of silent, suffering horror; as though he were looking into a mirror that only he could see, and saw a stranger staring back at him.
Sigrun sat wordlessly down next to him; the bed creaking like a scream beneath her. She looked down at Bard’s hands. They were shaking.
‘There were three of them,’ Bard said, not looking at her.
Sigrun, not knowing what to say, said nothing.
‘I killed three people,’ he murmured, as if to himself; his face a horror; more horrible to Sigrun that her own silence; ‘I’d do it again… if things went back again…if things were the same…but –’
Sigrun took his trembling hand. Bard looked at her. She could feel him looking at the bruises on her face and clenching up within himself.
‘I’m sorry I took so long,’ he mumbled; his eyes travelling upwards to the cut on her forehead.
‘I’m alive,’ Sigrun replied; much too loudly, in her sudden eagerness to make him feel better.
He smiled sadly at her ineptitude; his light making his eyes turn grey again. Then his smile disappeared as his mind turned inwards again, and he looked firmly at the wall in front of them.
‘One of them was younger than me…’ he muttered, ‘an idiot…I’d seen him sometimes…’
His other hand had covered hers. His fingers were lingering over her pulse.
‘You mustn’t think this is the sort of the thing that usually happens,’ Sigrun blurted, wishing he would let go of her hand but suddenly afraid of hurting his feelings, ‘at pamphleteering, this isn’t what normally happens –’
‘I don’t care about what ‘normally happens’ at pamphleteering,’ Bard declared; as though he were suddenly annoyed with her.
‘If you don’t care, then why did you join?’ she indignantly asked.
‘You know why I joined,’ Bard told her, equally exasperated, but still miserable enough to keep his voice down.
Sigrun looked at him not looking at her, and pulled her hands out of his, even though she didn’t understand.
‘I don’t know why you joined,’ she quietly declared.
Bard finally looked at her; his expression earnest, and calm.
‘Yes, you do.’