"I'm in a lonely room some joker sings the lovesick blues winter's walking up the avenue and I ain't seen the sun since the 6th of June but I'll tell you this don't call a doctor I'm gonna get better don't run for the priest I'm gonna find some faith just because I burned my bible baby it don't mean I'm too sick to pray"
~...I only expect it cleaned up in a timely manner. If it is not done, then there will be changes made in order to get it done...~ The Lord Marshall's words were posted on nearly every door around the MystHaven Guardhouse and had an effect on some of the ranks. The words only ran around inside Rue's head like some renegade marble. Now that he could stand, with the aid of a cane - something he might well need the rest of his life - he was no longer bound to that cot. And he thought, no longer bound to the nightmares haunting his sleep and the worried thoughts that would not leave in the daylight hours. A bitter resolve had seeped into his cursed soul and steeled him against the outer world like the finest elven armor. It was too damp of a season to tell for sure about his leg. With any luck, some soaks in the hot springs near the ruins might just do the trick. Until then, the healing sessions helped ease the pain of the worst wound that had been left festering for too long. But his jaw, well, that was another story. It never -quite- felt right, even during a healing session. Speaking was a real challenge. Any emotional twinging of his facial expressions shot an arrow of pain up to his temple and straight out the back of his head. He often saw black spots and felt a tingling sensation behind his eyes. He kept these last two details to himself. If he was cursed, then he was cursed. The wagon-load of healing he'd received this week had been enough to heal an entire village of ailments for a year. What pain remained was hopefully nothing that wouldn't fade with time and maybe a pinch or two of snuff. He'd heard a rather well-fueled rumor that maybe the top brass was looking to "retire" the three guards who had survived their ordeal with the Wyvern Gang, but no one had come to officially debrief him. Well, isn't that what you did when your horse couldn't charge into battle anymore? Just let someone try to tell him that he couldn't charge, and they'd have a wild animal seeking to tear apart their chest. For some reason though, he didn't think that would happen. Rue felt he and the other two recuperating guards were the force's best card to use in drumming up a plan to catch the marauding scum. Why not use their circumstances to rile the isle and smoke out those shadowy figures? Oh, and speaking of shadowy, there were other rumours floating around too. Some ridiculous. Some pretty heavy-handed. For example, that he and Captain Lani Prai were really secret agents for the Wyverns. And that someone from the MystHaven guard had knocked off a bank in Alcornal. Trustworthiness amongst one's peers wasn't exactly a selling point just now. Lani had certainly kept her distance while he'd been here recovering this week, for whatever reasons. It went straight to what little he had left in his heart for tenderness and caused it to shrivel. The joke running around was the wildcat shrew couldn't bear the ugly sight of him now. All sorts of comments about being tortured and buggered by gang members came at Rue good-naturedly while holed up in the sick ward. He barely heard them. He felt so far removed from everyone just now, it didn't really matter. He had a singular goal in mind, one in which Rue intended to talk over with the Lord Marshall at the monthly Captain's meeting. But that was weeks away, and a determined man didn't wait weeks. 'No time like the present for a little stroll across the street,' Rue thought as he slowly made his way out of the infirmary. He was being transported back up to Brookshire tomorrow, a solid day's ride away. Why not see if he could walk across to the LM office on his own? ~*~ Nearly 3/4 of an hour later, sweat beaded up on Rue's temples as he rested his forearm and forehead against the doorframe of the office and sought to regain his breath. Then he cleared his throat, edging the pain out of his voice, and he stated to the Lord Marshall's attache/clerk, "Captain Denali...to see the Lord Marshall, if he can spare a moment." the_____________end A brief background on Rue Denali: http://www.dragonmyst.f2s.com/char/rue.html "It sounds cold, but it's not cold," he explains. "I mean, what the truth in life is, you need failures, you need tough times to get any kind of value on what's important to you and what's not. There's no way around it." (BP '92) -- To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives & Other DMI Lists: http://www.dragonmyst.f2s.com/lists.php3
