proper reward | drabble

There is a crunching noise. And it should satisfy him, make him feel better, make him feel good for the first time in almost a year– but it doesn’t. It only makes him angry, makes that hollow part of his chest fill with the greatest of all hurts, even worse than it had before. At least back then, back when he had only ever been able to dream of tracking this son of a bitch down, he could pretend this moment would bring him something good.

Greatsword is raised again, the one wielding it feeling equal parts desperate and furious. Howe is not dead yet, though the life fades from him quickly, and Balfour’s blade only cuts deep one more time before the traitor chokes on his blood or succumbs to his wounds or– anything, as long as he is dead.

He should stop. Balfour knows as much, as there is no use in turning a dead man into little more than pulp and bits of bone. But there’s a darkness in his blood, in his bones, a fury in his heart and in his soul that has yet to be settled. It is a kind of pain and anguish that rips a scream from his throat as his blade continues to rise and fall, hacking away at a man who will never feel the suffering the last of the Couslands wishes to make him feel.

All he sees is red and red and red. All he hears are his grunts and the sound of cutting flesh, and the pathetic broken sounds that he will never admit to making. He can barely breathe, can barely feel the wounds inflicted upon him in the fight he refuses to let end, all he can do is carry on.

Until he feels a hand grip his shoulder firmly. It makes him freeze– and then he turns, covered in blood and gore and with such pure, putrid hate in his eyes that it even makes Leliana and Alistair shift uncomfortably, so far away.

Morrigan stands firm, and he cannot even imagine what she must think of him. The man she loves is respectable, somebody who judges on need and gain rather than pure emotion– and here he stands, near frenzied, all thanks to a hurt that has poisoned his heart more than any taint ever could. 

                                            “‘Tis done, Warden.”

But he still feels sick. He still feels lost and empty and as broken as he had when Duncan pulled him kicking and screaming from his family’s castle. He wants to scream again. At Howe, at Morrigan, at Alistair and Leliana as they cower like children at the ghastly sight before them.

But his heart thumps.

                And suddenly he just wants to be a little boy, cradled in his mother’s arms while he shatters.

With a shaky breath, Balfour stumbles backward, away from what’s left of the man he’d once called friend. What an odd thought– and one entirely uncomfortable.

            “May the Maker fucking damn you, you pitiful piece of shit.”

Those are his last words, uttered in a voice so very torn as he pushes his way past his companions. He cannot bear to look a single one of them in the eye. If he does, he will surely break.

                                         And Balfour Cousland is so very tired of being broken.