It's Been Awhile Since I've Fucked Things Up Just Like I Always Do [Pythia]

One paw in front of the other… Tarnish moved carefully, wobbling with pain and exhaustion by the time he reached the ravine's border. The pain had long since shifted to a humming in his head, punctuated every few minutes by a fearsome stabbing agony. Dried blood matted the fur on his face where blood still seeped from the lacerations. It had spilled over his right eye, matting it shut. The walk from the wall in the north down to the southern end of Boreas had been long. His thoughts hissed and writhed in his head as he tried to figure out where he'd gone wrong. How many times had he run his mouth and come out the victor? Even two against one? But somewhere he'd miscalculated. The man he'd battled against moved with a ferocity he hadn't expected, the woman that slashed her fangs into his left thigh had moved like a shadow. She'd been upon him before he even registered her presence.

The pain.. the pain confused him. It pulled his mind in new directions. His brain shrank from it at the same time he felt himself pulled toward it. It connected him to his body in a way he savored. Ever since his illness there'd been a fog. A separation. He felt like he was watching himself, controlling a form of flesh rather than being a part of it, rather than sinking into it. Always up in his mind, up in his anger, his anxiety, his doubt. The pain wrapped around him, dragging him back into the present and drowning, smothering, all that garbage.

Still, he could feel the fog creeping back in, aided by blood loss and rum and he clung to the present with all his muster before he crossed over the border and flopped down near a fallen log, resting his back up against it.