Ven: Part 2

The end

I stare down at what remains of my arm.

Well, I would if it wasn't completely covered in flies.

I take a step closer and they take off with an angry buzz.

What's left is a dark stain of blackened, dried blood, the arm itself eaten down and crawling with maggots.

"Huh," I grunt.

"You okay?" Tasma is next to me, her hand on my bandaged shoulder.

Most of me is bandaged at the moment.

Jack could only do so much what with everyone else needing help too.

Even the healing power he'd prepared had spread uncomfortably thin.

4 days asleep had done me some good, though not quite good enough.

Tasma was still holding her arm protectively even though it was fully healed.

"Dunno." I finally say.

Am I?

I still feel off balance.

My whole body aches.

I feel...

Yeah, I sure feel.

"Wanna take it with you?" She nudges it with her foot.

I laugh.

"No, no, that's okay," I wipe a tear from my eye.

I reach down and grasp the hilt of my sword, it's still embedded in the cobbles.

I wrench it out after a couple of tries, still not used to using my left hand for everything.

It's heavy too.

Heavier than I remember.

I swing it behind me to sheathe it.

But the opening for the sheath is on the opposite side.

"Can... can you help me get this off?" I shrug my remaining shoulder.

"Yeah, of course," Tasma's hands gently coax the leather straps that make up the sheath off me.

I slowly put the sword away while she holds the sheath.

"Thanks." I take it off her.

The oath down the fuller is gone.

"We'll work it out," she sounds reassuring.

"I uh... yeah, we will."

She links her arm with mine and we begin to walk away.

After a few steps I stop, my arm unlinking from hers as she carries on.

"Ven?" She looks back at me.

"10."

"10?"

"I killed him 10 times. I killed him." My gaze shifts down. "I didn't just take his life. I killed his core, his very being, everything that made him alive. And I did that."

Her mouth opens and closes.

"So many are dead because I didn't act. Because I messed around for so long, because I..."

She cuts me off with her cool hand on my cheek.

"You are a good man." She says.

"Doesn't feel like I am."

"You will," she smiles so sweetly at me I can't help but believe her.

We walk home, hand in hand.

A giant yellow tree with purple leaves waits for us, our town and home lodged in its branches and wrapped around it's trunk.