Original - “Elegy”
Title: Elegy
Universe: Menagerie
Prompt: here, from pulped_fictions
Wordcount: 2752
Genre: General/Drama
Rating/Warnings: T
Summary: Toni’s sixteenth year is the first time he tried to have a friend and the first time he did. He’s forgotten the faces - all except one - from the night he managed to protect his innocence but lost it anyway.
Author’s Notes: Backstory for Toni.
There hasn’t been any snow yet, but it’s so cold that the water pump behind the tavern is frozen and doesn’t work. Toni thinks about leaving it and just going back inside, but if he does, Dan will be able to see that he’s been crying, rather than just assuming it based on the date - so he takes a deep breath, checks to make sure nobody’s around, and unbuckles the leather arm-guards he wears.
The moment the thin layer of gold they’re lined with is no longer touching his skin, he can feel magic whispering along his fingers, ready to use, and it’s easy to warm the pump just enough that a little water trickles out.
When he’s done splashing water on his face, he knows that he should put the guards back on, but he puts them into his backpack instead, tracing the tattoos on his wrists before pulling his sleeves over them. It’s the four-year anniversary of the war, and he knows whoever started it is still sending assassins after sorcerers, but he wants the connection to his family. Every time it’s gotten quiet today, he thinks he can hear the warning bells ringing the way they did that day on the estate - a dark symphony of sounds that each had meaning, that each conveyed a message. The clear, mechanical toll of the city’s clock tower makes him ache for a time lost, but it’s telling him that it’s getting late, so he should go back inside. He doesn’t know how presentable he is, but Dan is one of the few people he’s ever told about who he is, so Dan will know why he excused himself so hastily whether or not he comes back red-eyed.
On his way back through the foyer, Toni is waylaid by a stranger who has the audacity to snag his arm and drag him into an alcove by the back door.
“You’re the one drinking with that kid in the tall boots, right?” he demands.
‘Kid’ seems a bit rich coming from someone who looks no older than Dan, so Toni scowls, snapping slightly, “I’m drinking with the young man in the tall boots, yes, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t touch me.” For emphasis, he jerks his arm away.
“Have it your way,” the guy shrugs, frowning. “I just thought you should know that he spiked your drink while you were gone.”
“Ha, ha, asshole,” Toni says automatically. “Very funny. I’m sure the chips are poisoned, too. Now move.”
“It’s not poisoned, idiot,” says the stranger, and his brown eyes are angry. “It’s drugged. Your ‘friend’ is probably planning to date-rape you.”
Something goes nauseous and hot inside Toni, pressing on his lungs. He doesn’t want to think about himself in that context, ever, and to have a stranger bring it up has set his heart pounding out of control and his cheeks burning from the invasion of his privacy.
“As if,” he sneers, quickly and more loudly than necessary, because maybe if he covers the horrible silent roaring up with words he can stop thinking about it. “I trust my friend, so I don’t need you to talk shit about him, and I sure as hell don’t need you to play knight in shining armor.”
“Forgive me for trying to help,” snaps the stranger. “If you honestly think I’d lie about something like this, go ahead and drink whatever he gives you, but don’t blame me if you wake up despoiled tomorrow morning. Next time I’ll try to control my attacks of conscience.”
“Get away from me, you perverted bastard,” Toni breathes furiously, then shoves past his indignant companion and stalks back into the main room of the tavern. By the time he gets back to Dan, his breathing has even started to slow down.
“What’s wrong?” Dan asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Nothing,” Toni bites out. “Just some asshole. It doesn’t matter.”
Dan obligingly drops the subject, but Toni can’t forget it. He knows his own humiliation made him overly harsh, but even aside from that - whether or not the guy is an asshole, what reason would he have to lie about something like that? Toni trusts Dan, in spite of his faults, but something about the whole situation rings false and sets his paranoia buzzing. How stupid would he have to be to ignore a warning like that?
When Dan looks away, Toni switches their glasses, feeling guilty and sick.
When they start home two hours later, nothing has happened to Dan, and Toni hates Asshole and hates himself for believing him. He’s in such a foul mood that he’s trembling from fury rather than from the bitter night cold, and Dan tactfully says nothing as he unlocks the door and takes them up to his little apartment.
“Sometimes getting drunk only makes things worse,” he admits, mixing two glasses of something on the counter. “It screws you up, and you can remember everything anyway. But if you drink this, you won’t have a headache in the morning.” He turns and proffers one of the glasses - some mixture that looks foul and smells even fouler. But if Dan says it’ll help, it will, so Toni takes it with a muttered word of thanks and manages to choke it down, trying to ignore the taste. Dan smiles apologetically at him.
“Doing all right?”
“Yeah,” Toni mumbles, and then a moment later, “N-no-” because something’s wrong. There’s a dull, cold emptiness spreading through him, so profound he feels numb, but he can’t identify the source. It wasn’t his drink; he would taste poison through anything; he’d literally sense it-
-but he can’t. He can’t sense anything, because his magic has bled out of him like bright colors in the sun, and everything feels bland and muted and gray. It’s not like wearing the arm braces and feeling power crackling, suppressed, just beneath his skin: it’s gone somewhere he can’t reach it, can’t even sense it, and he feels as weak as a shadow.
“You p-put gold dust in my drink,” he whispers in shock, sinking to the ground as his knees buckle. He feels colder than he’s ever felt in his life.
“I had to,” Dan protests. “Marcus made me do it; one of his friends is a bounty hunter.” He sounds so weak that Toni finds some of his strength back in anger.
“Nobody made you tell Marcus that you knew a sorcerer!” he shouts. “He keeps a brothel; do you really think he’s the kind of person you can trust with a valuable secret?”
“He looks out for me!” Dan argues back. “Sometimes I have to look out for him, too! I don’t like it, but-”
Before he can finish, Toni punches him in the face. There’s a loud, satisfying crack, and he’s already halfway to the door before Dan has even managed to pick himself up, because he knows he still has a chance to get away - and if he can lie low for a few days, the gold will pass through his system and he’ll have his magic back, and everything can still be okay.
He’s at the top of the staircase when he hears a gunshot and feels pain explode in his right shin, and his leg crumples beneath him before he can stop his momentum. The fall down the stairs is a swirl of disoriented pain, and when he hits the floor of the entryway, he just lies there for a moment, gasping for breath and trying to clear his hazy vision. Nothing feels broken, but he struck his elbow so hard it’s temporarily blocked out even the pain from his leg, and he’s still clutching his arm to his chest and trying to make his head stop spinning when the door clicks open in a rush of frozen air.
“Marcus!” Dan says from the top of the stairs, relief in his voice, and Toni feels sick. He’s going to die. If he doesn’t manage to get up off this floor and get away, he’s honestly going to die.
“What happened here?” asks a cool voice, deep in a way that could easily be pleasant.
“He tried to get away,” Dan says helplessly. “I fed him the gold dust, but then he hit me, and he was getting away.”
“It’s still unfortunate that you had to make the poor child suffer,” says Marcus’s voice, and a moment later, strong arms lift Toni easily and gently. As they start up the stairs, he has a wild hope that maybe Marcus or whoever isn’t tracking down sorcerers to kill them - maybe he wants Toni’s help with something. But then the gentle voice continues, “Once he passes out, I’ll break his neck. It’ll be quick enough he won’t even wake up, and much more humane than your gun.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Dan grumbles, and Toni hears him go and put it away. Marcus keeps walking, and Dan follows a moment later, up to the bedroom at the top of the house, which is small and chilly. Marcus lays Toni carefully on the bed, then sits down on it to examine him, and Toni gets his first good look at the man.
He doesn’t look like a murderer - he’s calm and steady, maybe forty years old, with light brown hair and a face that’s well-defined and handsome. He’s stern but not cruel-looking, and he looks more like a patriarch than a brothel-keeper and hired killer. The hand he lays on Toni’s forehead is gentle and feels like it would be warm if everything didn’t feel so cold.
“You’re all right,” he says softly, meeting Toni’s eyes and smoothing his bangs back. “I know it hurts, but just try to sleep.”
Toni shakes his head weakly. He’s actually glad of the pain, because without it, he’s not sure that he could keep himself conscious. Either the bump on the head, the fear, or the shock of losing his magic has made him so dizzy and shaky he can’t even move.
“Shh,” Marcus whispers. “Close your eyes, love. Close those lovely eyes.” Toni feels a thumb brush across his cheekbone, just under his left eye, and flinches.
“How old is he?” Marcus’s voice says quietly, and Toni wonders if he’s having an attack of conscience, like Asshole did before Toni was so rude to him. Something in his chest aches.
“Sixteen,” says Dan, sounding slightly uncertain. “Why? Are you really going to… you know…” He doesn’t seem to be able to say the words ‘kill him’ with Toni watching.
“You don’t have to watch,” Marcus says, and his voice sounds kind. “Go wait downstairs.” He removes the bundle he’s had over his shoulder and spreads it open. There’s rope, a set of cloths, and a shovel that he leans against the wall, though even the sharp edge of the blade probably won’t be enough to dig through the frozen ground outside. Toni wants to cry, not because they’re going to kill him but because he can hear his own voice saying I sure as hell don’t need a knight in shining armor, and now he’s going to die alone because he threw that chance away.
Dan glances at Toni, heads for the door, and then pauses. “Are you going to… to sleep with him before you… you know?”
Toni spares a moment to be even more disgusted by Dan’s cowardice than by his betrayal, but then Marcus says, “I’m thinking about it,” and Toni’s mind goes absolutely blank.
The door closes behind Dan.
Toni has only felt true, unconstrained, animal panic once before in his life. It’s what drove him down into the dark water beneath the house, because all that mattered was getting away from those uneven, shuffling footsteps behind him. Now all that matters is Marcus letting him go and never trying to touch him again. He fights like a demon, and his attacker gets violent in return, grabbing him and throwing him back into the room every time he tries to get to the door.
When he hits the wall, his leg screams out so badly that he has to grab onto the handle of the shovel, shaking, to hold himself up. He’s going to lose this fight; he’s starting to feel it in a sickly sense of terror, and he can see it dawning contentedly in Marcus’s eyes as he steps forward, reaching.
Toni would like to believe he’s completely lost control. Fear, despair, and a violent, instinctual revulsion are what give him a sudden burst of energy, and maybe it’s the combination of fear, despair, and instinctual revulsion - like a knee twitching, or a gag reflex, something he can’t even control - that makes him pick up the shovel and swing it as hard as he can.
He closes his eyes just before it connects.
For a little while, he feels nothing, and he doesn’t know how much time passes before he hears Dan open the door and give a strangled cry of horror, then footsteps running back down the stairs.
Another moment passes, and then Toni opens his eyes and discovers he’s lying on his side on the floor.
His own handiwork is a foot away.
All the numbness vanishes, and Toni recoils and scrambles backward, half-sitting and only discovering that someone shoved a rag into his mouth at some point when he has to spit it out to throw up on the blood-slicked floorboards. He can hear footsteps running up the stairs, and he knows it’s probably Dan coming back with the gun, but all he can do is squeeze his eyes shut and retch, over and over again.
The footsteps stop.
“Oh, shit,” Dan breaths. “Toni, you - what’s wrong with you?”
Toni opens his eyes and looks up, and the gun barrel rises to aim at him. He’s feeling strangely disconnected again, warm inside and almost floating, his extremities tingling, and he doesn’t realize what it is until Dan reaches for the trigger.
The gold dust is in a puddle of vomit on the floor, and Toni’s magic is back. Before Dan even has the chance to fire, it explodes out of him, color and light and hatred, and he discovers that killing a second time is as easy as it was the first.
When he wakes up, he’s warm and comfortable, but he can smell the chilly air of early morning. For a moment, he keeps his eyes closed, and then he startles as he feels a soft kiss on his eyelid. Another touches his cheek, and then his lips, and Toni opens his eyes.
It’s not kisses. It’s snow.
When he blinks and manages to sit up, he realizes that he’s under a rocky outcropping, in a small half-cave near the entrance to the town but hidden from it, across a field covered in snow. The ground is a wash of pure, untouched white, and the sky is gray; it’s the pale, misty hour before dawn. He checks himself and notices that he’s wrapped in an unfamiliar blanket, lying on the ground with his backpack as a pillow, and that the injury on his leg has been dressed.
When he opens his backpack, checking automatically to make sure that everything’s there, he discovers a fresh roll of bandages, and more food and money than he thinks he had before. It’s bewildering - he has no idea what happened after he fainted, but he’s so overwhelmed with relief not to be waking up in that horrible room that it’s difficult to concentrate on anything else. Part of him wants to stay and investigate what happened, but he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to go back into the city, even though Marcus and Dan are dead now.
In the end, he forces down a little food, dulls the pain in his leg with magic, and packs the unfamiliar blanket into his backpack, then turns his back on the city and runs. Years later, he’ll have blocked out most of the memories - he won’t remember Dan’s face, or Asshole’s, or the house or tavern - just Marcus’s staring, glassy eyes.
And waking up in a field of white, finally feeling warm.
Universe: Menagerie
Prompt: here, from pulped_fictions
Wordcount: 2752
Genre: General/Drama
Rating/Warnings: T
Summary: Toni’s sixteenth year is the first time he tried to have a friend and the first time he did. He’s forgotten the faces - all except one - from the night he managed to protect his innocence but lost it anyway.
Author’s Notes: Backstory for Toni.
There hasn’t been any snow yet, but it’s so cold that the water pump behind the tavern is frozen and doesn’t work. Toni thinks about leaving it and just going back inside, but if he does, Dan will be able to see that he’s been crying, rather than just assuming it based on the date - so he takes a deep breath, checks to make sure nobody’s around, and unbuckles the leather arm-guards he wears.
The moment the thin layer of gold they’re lined with is no longer touching his skin, he can feel magic whispering along his fingers, ready to use, and it’s easy to warm the pump just enough that a little water trickles out.
When he’s done splashing water on his face, he knows that he should put the guards back on, but he puts them into his backpack instead, tracing the tattoos on his wrists before pulling his sleeves over them. It’s the four-year anniversary of the war, and he knows whoever started it is still sending assassins after sorcerers, but he wants the connection to his family. Every time it’s gotten quiet today, he thinks he can hear the warning bells ringing the way they did that day on the estate - a dark symphony of sounds that each had meaning, that each conveyed a message. The clear, mechanical toll of the city’s clock tower makes him ache for a time lost, but it’s telling him that it’s getting late, so he should go back inside. He doesn’t know how presentable he is, but Dan is one of the few people he’s ever told about who he is, so Dan will know why he excused himself so hastily whether or not he comes back red-eyed.
On his way back through the foyer, Toni is waylaid by a stranger who has the audacity to snag his arm and drag him into an alcove by the back door.
“You’re the one drinking with that kid in the tall boots, right?” he demands.
‘Kid’ seems a bit rich coming from someone who looks no older than Dan, so Toni scowls, snapping slightly, “I’m drinking with the young man in the tall boots, yes, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t touch me.” For emphasis, he jerks his arm away.
“Have it your way,” the guy shrugs, frowning. “I just thought you should know that he spiked your drink while you were gone.”
“Ha, ha, asshole,” Toni says automatically. “Very funny. I’m sure the chips are poisoned, too. Now move.”
“It’s not poisoned, idiot,” says the stranger, and his brown eyes are angry. “It’s drugged. Your ‘friend’ is probably planning to date-rape you.”
Something goes nauseous and hot inside Toni, pressing on his lungs. He doesn’t want to think about himself in that context, ever, and to have a stranger bring it up has set his heart pounding out of control and his cheeks burning from the invasion of his privacy.
“As if,” he sneers, quickly and more loudly than necessary, because maybe if he covers the horrible silent roaring up with words he can stop thinking about it. “I trust my friend, so I don’t need you to talk shit about him, and I sure as hell don’t need you to play knight in shining armor.”
“Forgive me for trying to help,” snaps the stranger. “If you honestly think I’d lie about something like this, go ahead and drink whatever he gives you, but don’t blame me if you wake up despoiled tomorrow morning. Next time I’ll try to control my attacks of conscience.”
“Get away from me, you perverted bastard,” Toni breathes furiously, then shoves past his indignant companion and stalks back into the main room of the tavern. By the time he gets back to Dan, his breathing has even started to slow down.
“What’s wrong?” Dan asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Nothing,” Toni bites out. “Just some asshole. It doesn’t matter.”
Dan obligingly drops the subject, but Toni can’t forget it. He knows his own humiliation made him overly harsh, but even aside from that - whether or not the guy is an asshole, what reason would he have to lie about something like that? Toni trusts Dan, in spite of his faults, but something about the whole situation rings false and sets his paranoia buzzing. How stupid would he have to be to ignore a warning like that?
When Dan looks away, Toni switches their glasses, feeling guilty and sick.
When they start home two hours later, nothing has happened to Dan, and Toni hates Asshole and hates himself for believing him. He’s in such a foul mood that he’s trembling from fury rather than from the bitter night cold, and Dan tactfully says nothing as he unlocks the door and takes them up to his little apartment.
“Sometimes getting drunk only makes things worse,” he admits, mixing two glasses of something on the counter. “It screws you up, and you can remember everything anyway. But if you drink this, you won’t have a headache in the morning.” He turns and proffers one of the glasses - some mixture that looks foul and smells even fouler. But if Dan says it’ll help, it will, so Toni takes it with a muttered word of thanks and manages to choke it down, trying to ignore the taste. Dan smiles apologetically at him.
“Doing all right?”
“Yeah,” Toni mumbles, and then a moment later, “N-no-” because something’s wrong. There’s a dull, cold emptiness spreading through him, so profound he feels numb, but he can’t identify the source. It wasn’t his drink; he would taste poison through anything; he’d literally sense it-
-but he can’t. He can’t sense anything, because his magic has bled out of him like bright colors in the sun, and everything feels bland and muted and gray. It’s not like wearing the arm braces and feeling power crackling, suppressed, just beneath his skin: it’s gone somewhere he can’t reach it, can’t even sense it, and he feels as weak as a shadow.
“You p-put gold dust in my drink,” he whispers in shock, sinking to the ground as his knees buckle. He feels colder than he’s ever felt in his life.
“I had to,” Dan protests. “Marcus made me do it; one of his friends is a bounty hunter.” He sounds so weak that Toni finds some of his strength back in anger.
“Nobody made you tell Marcus that you knew a sorcerer!” he shouts. “He keeps a brothel; do you really think he’s the kind of person you can trust with a valuable secret?”
“He looks out for me!” Dan argues back. “Sometimes I have to look out for him, too! I don’t like it, but-”
Before he can finish, Toni punches him in the face. There’s a loud, satisfying crack, and he’s already halfway to the door before Dan has even managed to pick himself up, because he knows he still has a chance to get away - and if he can lie low for a few days, the gold will pass through his system and he’ll have his magic back, and everything can still be okay.
He’s at the top of the staircase when he hears a gunshot and feels pain explode in his right shin, and his leg crumples beneath him before he can stop his momentum. The fall down the stairs is a swirl of disoriented pain, and when he hits the floor of the entryway, he just lies there for a moment, gasping for breath and trying to clear his hazy vision. Nothing feels broken, but he struck his elbow so hard it’s temporarily blocked out even the pain from his leg, and he’s still clutching his arm to his chest and trying to make his head stop spinning when the door clicks open in a rush of frozen air.
“Marcus!” Dan says from the top of the stairs, relief in his voice, and Toni feels sick. He’s going to die. If he doesn’t manage to get up off this floor and get away, he’s honestly going to die.
“What happened here?” asks a cool voice, deep in a way that could easily be pleasant.
“He tried to get away,” Dan says helplessly. “I fed him the gold dust, but then he hit me, and he was getting away.”
“It’s still unfortunate that you had to make the poor child suffer,” says Marcus’s voice, and a moment later, strong arms lift Toni easily and gently. As they start up the stairs, he has a wild hope that maybe Marcus or whoever isn’t tracking down sorcerers to kill them - maybe he wants Toni’s help with something. But then the gentle voice continues, “Once he passes out, I’ll break his neck. It’ll be quick enough he won’t even wake up, and much more humane than your gun.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Dan grumbles, and Toni hears him go and put it away. Marcus keeps walking, and Dan follows a moment later, up to the bedroom at the top of the house, which is small and chilly. Marcus lays Toni carefully on the bed, then sits down on it to examine him, and Toni gets his first good look at the man.
He doesn’t look like a murderer - he’s calm and steady, maybe forty years old, with light brown hair and a face that’s well-defined and handsome. He’s stern but not cruel-looking, and he looks more like a patriarch than a brothel-keeper and hired killer. The hand he lays on Toni’s forehead is gentle and feels like it would be warm if everything didn’t feel so cold.
“You’re all right,” he says softly, meeting Toni’s eyes and smoothing his bangs back. “I know it hurts, but just try to sleep.”
Toni shakes his head weakly. He’s actually glad of the pain, because without it, he’s not sure that he could keep himself conscious. Either the bump on the head, the fear, or the shock of losing his magic has made him so dizzy and shaky he can’t even move.
“Shh,” Marcus whispers. “Close your eyes, love. Close those lovely eyes.” Toni feels a thumb brush across his cheekbone, just under his left eye, and flinches.
“How old is he?” Marcus’s voice says quietly, and Toni wonders if he’s having an attack of conscience, like Asshole did before Toni was so rude to him. Something in his chest aches.
“Sixteen,” says Dan, sounding slightly uncertain. “Why? Are you really going to… you know…” He doesn’t seem to be able to say the words ‘kill him’ with Toni watching.
“You don’t have to watch,” Marcus says, and his voice sounds kind. “Go wait downstairs.” He removes the bundle he’s had over his shoulder and spreads it open. There’s rope, a set of cloths, and a shovel that he leans against the wall, though even the sharp edge of the blade probably won’t be enough to dig through the frozen ground outside. Toni wants to cry, not because they’re going to kill him but because he can hear his own voice saying I sure as hell don’t need a knight in shining armor, and now he’s going to die alone because he threw that chance away.
Dan glances at Toni, heads for the door, and then pauses. “Are you going to… to sleep with him before you… you know?”
Toni spares a moment to be even more disgusted by Dan’s cowardice than by his betrayal, but then Marcus says, “I’m thinking about it,” and Toni’s mind goes absolutely blank.
The door closes behind Dan.
Toni has only felt true, unconstrained, animal panic once before in his life. It’s what drove him down into the dark water beneath the house, because all that mattered was getting away from those uneven, shuffling footsteps behind him. Now all that matters is Marcus letting him go and never trying to touch him again. He fights like a demon, and his attacker gets violent in return, grabbing him and throwing him back into the room every time he tries to get to the door.
When he hits the wall, his leg screams out so badly that he has to grab onto the handle of the shovel, shaking, to hold himself up. He’s going to lose this fight; he’s starting to feel it in a sickly sense of terror, and he can see it dawning contentedly in Marcus’s eyes as he steps forward, reaching.
Toni would like to believe he’s completely lost control. Fear, despair, and a violent, instinctual revulsion are what give him a sudden burst of energy, and maybe it’s the combination of fear, despair, and instinctual revulsion - like a knee twitching, or a gag reflex, something he can’t even control - that makes him pick up the shovel and swing it as hard as he can.
He closes his eyes just before it connects.
For a little while, he feels nothing, and he doesn’t know how much time passes before he hears Dan open the door and give a strangled cry of horror, then footsteps running back down the stairs.
Another moment passes, and then Toni opens his eyes and discovers he’s lying on his side on the floor.
His own handiwork is a foot away.
All the numbness vanishes, and Toni recoils and scrambles backward, half-sitting and only discovering that someone shoved a rag into his mouth at some point when he has to spit it out to throw up on the blood-slicked floorboards. He can hear footsteps running up the stairs, and he knows it’s probably Dan coming back with the gun, but all he can do is squeeze his eyes shut and retch, over and over again.
The footsteps stop.
“Oh, shit,” Dan breaths. “Toni, you - what’s wrong with you?”
Toni opens his eyes and looks up, and the gun barrel rises to aim at him. He’s feeling strangely disconnected again, warm inside and almost floating, his extremities tingling, and he doesn’t realize what it is until Dan reaches for the trigger.
The gold dust is in a puddle of vomit on the floor, and Toni’s magic is back. Before Dan even has the chance to fire, it explodes out of him, color and light and hatred, and he discovers that killing a second time is as easy as it was the first.
When he wakes up, he’s warm and comfortable, but he can smell the chilly air of early morning. For a moment, he keeps his eyes closed, and then he startles as he feels a soft kiss on his eyelid. Another touches his cheek, and then his lips, and Toni opens his eyes.
It’s not kisses. It’s snow.
When he blinks and manages to sit up, he realizes that he’s under a rocky outcropping, in a small half-cave near the entrance to the town but hidden from it, across a field covered in snow. The ground is a wash of pure, untouched white, and the sky is gray; it’s the pale, misty hour before dawn. He checks himself and notices that he’s wrapped in an unfamiliar blanket, lying on the ground with his backpack as a pillow, and that the injury on his leg has been dressed.
When he opens his backpack, checking automatically to make sure that everything’s there, he discovers a fresh roll of bandages, and more food and money than he thinks he had before. It’s bewildering - he has no idea what happened after he fainted, but he’s so overwhelmed with relief not to be waking up in that horrible room that it’s difficult to concentrate on anything else. Part of him wants to stay and investigate what happened, but he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to go back into the city, even though Marcus and Dan are dead now.
In the end, he forces down a little food, dulls the pain in his leg with magic, and packs the unfamiliar blanket into his backpack, then turns his back on the city and runs. Years later, he’ll have blocked out most of the memories - he won’t remember Dan’s face, or Asshole’s, or the house or tavern - just Marcus’s staring, glassy eyes.
And waking up in a field of white, finally feeling warm.