"You killed them, Dagramir. They're dead because of you. Look back at all the rotting corpses you left in your wake. You deserve to die for the things you have done. Yet you failed to even kill yourself. Do you hear their screams, 'Black Viper'? Do you?!"
Dagramir's eyes flash open, and he bolts upright in bed. Panting. Ragged breaths of air making their way through the empty Dawnhall infirmary. Beads of sweat racing their way down his forehead and chest, being caught by the occasional swing of the chain around his neck. Shrieks of noise would continue to echo around the walls of his mind, and a hand races to grip onto his temple, wincing in pain. Another nightmare. It seemed such bad dreams were becoming more common since the return of his old friend, Jegauer. Gulping hard, he throws the covers away from his exposed body, and swings his legs over to seat himself on the side of the bed. Looking towards the bedside table with some urgency, he sees what he's looking for, and he makes a quick grab for the unmarked bottle he had left there only the night before. Shaking it to reveal that he had left a small amount of contents left, he sighs thankfully, and brings the bottle to his lips, downing the rest of its contents in rather fluid motion. Dropping the glass rather carelessly to the floor, the bottle rolling into the darkness beneath the bed-frame, he sits patiently as the ringing in his ears slowly settles down to become unnoticeable once more.
Since tackling that man over a balcony, and landing hard at the bottom of the resulting stairs, he had been suffering bad from the effects of a concussion. Headaches and tinnitus had plagued him for the last few days, though he was certainly improving over time. That was, until he had a chance encounter with a man he had thought long gone. Gritting his teeth, Dagramir grabs his discarded trousers from the floorboards below, before slipping them on, giving himself some decency as he slides to his feet and makes his way outside. Feeling the cool, midnight air biting at his pale skin, his lips line into the rough makings of a smile. Looking out across the courtyard, he would find some measure of peace. This was his home now. These people, sordid or not, were his family. Yet the flashes back to a time best forgotten had left him very troubled indeed. Slowly, he steps down onto the grass below him, feeling the moisture and dew pleasantly beneath his toes, before taking a walk through the grounds. Hands clasping behind his rear, he takes this time to reflect on events that had transpired. The disembodied voices that tortured him each night were right. There was a long line of bodies that lay behind him. Losing his figurative sister, Annsuel, left him in quite an emotionally wounded state, during his grapples with the infamous 'Bree-Town Ripper'. And then his wife, Tailia, and daughter Abby, being lost to the butchering hands of a man Dagramir will never likely see again. Was this Eru's punishment for the horrible things he had done in his time, the unspeakable actions he had taken?
Coming to a stop at his intended destination, the edge of the cliff that the Dawnhall would sit above, Dagramir smiled to himself. What did any of it matter, anyway? He was yet another speck of grey dust in the endless cycle of the world. He had become what he had hated: insignificant. Wars going on in the world around him, people fighting for causes greater than themselves, and there he was.. Drinking himself into oblivion each and every night to avoid facing his past. He had lost his purpose in the world, it was true. Sighing to himself, he thinks of simpler times. Where the only thing important to him was himself, stealing coin purses left and right, and fucking whores like there was no tomorrow. "No tomorrow.", he muses to himself; sunken, blue eyes drawing down to look towards the long drop that lay before him. The wind blew across him in a mildly content form. The raven-black strands of his hair fluttering away from his face, to reveal the thoughts that coasted through his mind. Death. Such a sordid thing it was, but. Forever knocking at the door, reminding him of how close to the end he forever sat. Just one step would send him tumbling towards the dark waters below, at such a velocity that with some luck, perhaps his bones may crack apart upon impact. As his head drooped, his eyes taking in a more fuller view of the abyss that lay in his path, his body edged ever so slightly forwards. Only, at that moment, the wind would choose to violently pick up. No matter Dagramir's intentions, he was rather suddenly blown backwards towards the safety of solid ground, stumbling, and landing quite unceremoniously on his rear, away from the lip of death.
A slow grin adorned his face at this rather mystifying moment, as he scampered to his feet, eyes blazing towards the heavens above. "Not today, ah? Not on my own terms?", firing his questions to the heart of any creator who may have sat watching, who may have blown that steady course of air which perhaps saved him from impending doom. Whether it be the divine intervention of some omnipotent being, or more suitably, his sheer luck coming into play again, it did not matter. "Today is not the day I die.", the Gondorian affirms with himself, a line he had uttered so many times that it had transcended to gospel. Taking a longing last look from the stars twinkling beautifully across the sky, to the edge of solid ground, he slowly turns to make his way back to the infirmary, a fulfilled smile on his face. His thoughts lying with his departed wife, as he would amusedly question himself on what she would say to him at a time like this. A choice lay before Dagramir, one he had hoped he would never have to make, but. One could only run so far. His demons floated around him, agonizing him with their presence. Making peace with his friend of old, Lord Amber, the man who stood by him through the entire saga of serial killers, would dismiss them. Sending the undesirables back to the depths of his mind, where they rightly belonged to be locked away. Which would allow him to return to the righteous man he used to be, the man willing to lay his life on the line for all he held dear. Or.. Allow himself to become one with his nightmares. Descend through the depths of hell, and become the man he had sought to kill all those years ago. Be the fabled Demon King, and finish what Doctor Praesule Etheridge of the past started.
Such dramatic choices, however, were lost upon him, as he grabbed hold of a misplaced bottle of unknown contents on his way back to the bed he called home. Biting the cork free from the neck of his new companion, he spits it out to the floor, and seats himself back onto his bed, tilting it up to drown himself with the alcoholic contents that lay within. Dagramir had once again chosen a third option. His own option. To offer a figurative 'two fingers' to any choice he had to make, and drink. Fuck the headaches. Fuck the nightmares. Fuck his past. He would sooner die than resort to filling his life with more dramatic decisions with dire consequences. What the Gondorian had now was the only thing that was important to him, and was he hell going to let a ghost of the past destroy the life he had built in the absence of love. He had a life. Albeit a questionable one with a somewhat morally-hazy job, but it was a life of normality in a world filled with shit. Such a homologous existence was no longer so unappealing to the Viper. He was troubled, most certainly. But he was alive. Falling slowly back into a relatively comfortable position beneath the warmth of his covers, guzzling through the flow of amber liquid, he eventually found his limit. His limit being, he had ran out of air. He dragged the overflowing bottle away from his lips, fluids dripping from his mouth, and the lip of the bottle, to spatter across the floorboards below. With a gasp of breath, and then a laugh, he places the half-empty bottle upon his bedside table, and tosses over to worm his way into a comfortable position, eyes fluttering to a close. Resetting back to his initial position, as if he had never left the comfort of the bed. Flickering envisions of women brought him back to a more stable condition, a certain freckled redhead floated through his thoughts, before he drifted back to the unknown reality of sleep.
