Darkly Dreaming Demographic.

Pain; the words lights up his brain like a falling star. Pain; the one thing that kept him alive, kept him clinging on, reminded him what he had to do, who he was doing it for, all the pain, the endless pain.

Pain. Gone. Pain. Gone.

The pain was gone.

Cur awoke from his dreamless sleep, feeling nothing. Not cold nor heat, the pain was gone. The pain he had become accustomed to, the pain that was so familiar, the pain that had become his friend and only ally, the reason he woke, the reason he slept. His constant companion reminding him that there was still life in him. Still love, somewhere buried deep down under all the pain, all the scars, the broken bones and blood.

But it was gone.

“Awake, marvelous” a voice above him cooed, and as he spoke the sound of metal implements jossling excitedly could be heard just out of sight. “So this is the one that made Ogma the silver tongued so pretty” The voice laughed mockingly “And shortened that silver tongue no less”.

There was a silence, the sound of a blade scraping against metal. Cur opened his eyes but could only look up and all he saw was a cold flat stone. The room was dark, it was night time perhaps. He could feel a slight chill coming from a crack or window.

“You came to kill me, did my father send you?”

Cur strained and grunted as he felt his bonds tightened at his wrists and ankles and neck. His wrists.

A strange feeling, a phantom hand reaching out for nothing. He cast his gaze down and to his confused horror an arm of flesh and bone replaced what once was silver and filled with pain. He felt dreamlike and painless and almost giddy.

“What did that whore give me?”

“She tried to kill you but it seems death has no sway, it doesn’t want you. And that whore is my sister”.

“Then you are already dead” Cur cackled. His booming laugh filling the dark low ceilinged dungeon.

“I’ve had some time to examine this weapon of yours.” He said as he walked around the table Cur was strapped to. In his hands he held the silver arm, a small lantern dangled from his hip and was the only source of light.

Cur strained to follow his path with his fierce feral stare, like a caged animal waiting for moment to strike. The walls were damp, almost dripping, stained red with rust or blood and he could see the tuathan’s breath hanging in the air. The barbarian saw out of the corner of his eye a table next to his head full of bladed tools and implements. He could feel air but from his limited vantage could see no windows.

“Funny isn’t it? That I would use the technique I planned to use on Nuada on the very man that took his arm and his throne and started all of this.”

“I also took his head” Cur laughed wickedly.

Miach swallowed that bitterly but tried to hide his disgust. He regarded the arm clinically as one might a piece of art or some kind of experimental device. “Still it is rather elegant” He looked at the giant laid out on the operating table “Far too elegant for something like you”

Cur strained against his bonds but his new arm was atrophied, it was weak and had little feeling in it.

“I think I’ll keep it, as a trophy” Miach said as his footsteps echoed out of the dark dingy room taking the only light source with him. Leaving Cur alone to painless black slumber.

https://www.inkitt.com/stories/action/300249/chapters/15