He had been down in the dungeon for weeks. He only knew because the guards changed each day.
Men that use to fear him now pissed in his cell. A few men he recognized from his side of the battle snuck him more food with pity filled glances. He denied it knowing that if they were caught they'd be as good as dead. Another man tossed him a knife. He knew what it was for. In case he gave up his will to live.
One night the sorcerer came to visit him.
He only knew it was night because the ground had begun to feel like ice.
He heard the clicking of his walking stick first.
His black beady eyes were lit up like a smoking cauldron and sparkling with an intense delight that he had never seen on his face.
"Come to gloat?"
His eyes glinted in excitement barely contained.
"Afterall I've given to you this is how you repay me. Your own flesh and blood? Well half."
His lips curled in a malicious smile as he looked him from head to toe.
Scar lowered his head, swallowing brimstone as it raged within him and threatened to spew from his eyes.
He stood. Shakily. He knew how weak he was. He played guilty, broken, weak.
Really he needed to look the Sorcerer dead in the face and tell him what he knew. Even if he hadn't won the war he would blast this one last cannon in defiance.
"I'm sorry..." he muttered. One foot slid across the cold dirt and then the other as he made his way to the bars.
"I...I..." he stumbled against the bars and looked up at the man he once believed to be his father. He tried to think of one good memory to bring up to him to express his betrayal. Looking into his glinting eyes he realized they're wasn't a scrap of humanity in him.
With strength he had been hiding away he reached out quick as ever and grabbed him by the shirt collar and drug him close to the bars.
Snakeyes remained silent, his eyes still glowing with uncontained delight.
The guard stopped his progress towards them as Snakeyes waved him away.
"What are you going to do? Your weak."
Scar reached into his pocket his fingers curling around the familiar coin. He pulled it from his pocket and dropped it onto the dirt floor of the cell.
He watched as the man who pretended to be his father went pale. The man who wanted to possess his mother, who'd torn apart his family, and turned him into a killer for his own profit, and then asked him to be grateful for it.
The room went static.
"You are not my blood. Your just a perverted old man who's outlived his worth. Your magic is dried up, and nobody wants to follow you because your a piece of shit that only has people following you because their scared. Which is why you preyed on little boys to do your dirty work and branded the desperate and needy instead of giving people an option. Now you have me locked up because you know that if you ever let me out I'd be the penance you deserve. You don't have the balls to fight me the way you fought my real father because the truth is that's why your so weak. Isn't it?"
The Sorcerer's face had gone chalk white. He stood there for a while until Scar repeated himself quietly.
"Isn't it? My father didn't just curse you when he died. He weakened you. I looked into some things. Do you even remember your glory days, and your reputation? You were a big shot. Why is it, that the same year my father died, those stories stopped. You settled into the top of some low level gang in some small peice of Reavador and quit pushing for more. Quit, because you had no choice."
He laughed coldly, "My mother and father didn't sit idly by while you tormented them. They ruined you."
"And those scars on your body. You were testing the waters to see if the spell would wear out on its own because you couldn't for the life of you figure out how to undo it yourself. You want to kill me, but you can't right?" He reached out and pulled up the man's shirt.
Where he'd been stabbed while Nadine took care of him was an angry red mark. Chances are he'd suffered less, having been more prepared, but his disgust for Scar ran so deep he'd inflict hurt upon himself to keep him in line.
Snakeyes grew quiet and then began to chuckle.
"So now you know huh? You think it changes anything?"
He curled his fingers around Scars wrist that was clenched to his collar.
"Your still just some nothing who would have died without me. You are everything you ever were because of me. In fact, you should just be grateful that your mother was a hot peice of ass, or you'd be dead. I may not be able to kill you, but I can leave you down here to rot away. I wonder why I didn't think of it sooner?"
He mused with a wicked grin and released Scar's wrist as Scar released his collar. He saw black dots cross his vision. He gripped the bars to steady himself.
"Have fun down here knowing I have three woman waiting in my bed chambers and a hot four course meal. I brought you somthing. "
He pulled out a roll of bread and spit on it. He rubbed it on the bars before tossing it onto the dirt floor, and backed away with a smile.
Later Scar peeled the roll like an apple and threw the crust far enough away from his cell that he could never reach it. The knife he'd been given sat in his pocket still. He hadn't used it on Snakeyes because he knew it wouldn't kill him and he wouldn't chance another person dying for having pity on him.
During the day he slept when it was warm. During the night he tried to work out a bit to keep in shape, and stay warm. He had to be careful, because his energy was at an all time low.
One night when the shifts were changing Carver leaned up against the murky stone. He looked like shit; gruff and unshaven, dark circles beneath his eyes. A man who had lost everything.
His voice came out even worst. Gravelly, drunken, not at all like Carver's voice.
"They're all dead Scar. All but a few who managed to get out before they were marked, and even then Rat remembered some faces."
Scar felt bile rise in his throat.
His voice came out raw.
"I'm sorry about Ghost."
Carver stiffened upon hearing her name. Then he spoke as if half dreaming.
"One night in her bed. One morning waking up beside her in fresh morning light. One day of talking about our future." He paused and Scar remained silent.
"We had talked of getting married, having children. I could become a carpenter, I have all the qualifications...She a dress maker, she was quite good at it when she was a little girl."
He grew quite for a long moment.
"I think we made the wrong choice following you...Now she's gone, and nobody can change a damn thing. We'll never see her beautiful smile again."
His voice broke and Scar couldn't do anything but stare at loyal, trustworthy Carver as he pushed off the wall. His face twisting from pain and mourning to a vacancy that burned his heart.
"I'm suppose to be guarding you, but I think I can't bare to see your face..."
He started to walk away.
"Perhaps they'll kill me for leaving you unguarded." He smirked at the thought and stumbled. He kept walking until his back had faded into the shadows.
"Carver."
He heard the slow retreat halt for a moment in the dark.
"I will avenge her death. I promise you."
An ugly laugh rose from the dark, "Vengeance? The only vengeance you'll get is on yourself." Then the steps proceeded and faded away.
It was a few more days before he saw Carver again.
He had been sleeping when two of Snakeyes men penguin waddled up to his cage a heavy load between them..
A large wet load was dumped in front of his cell and he woke to see Carver's steadfast eyes blurry and sightless.
He trembled with anger while looking at his friend, cut to ribbons. He screamed his name until his voice felt raw.They left him there for a few days until the smell of his flesh began to make him puke bile each morning after a meager scrap of rotting meat had been tossed between the bars of his cell. He left it on the dirt floor for hours until even it looked appetizing. Even though his eyes stung when he opened them he would crawl across the cell long enough to eat the meat. Hating himself every bite, but someplace deep inside of him still burned with a small flame . After everything he had been through; he still wanted to live. So he opened his stinging eyes long enough to find his pitiful meal, and hoped the meat was just fresh enough that his stomach wouldn't reject it. Then he'd go back to his corner.. As far as he could get from the pile of flesh and bones that he told himself was no longer his friend. He kept his eyes closed shut until next time he was fed. Some of his blood pooled into his cell a few feet from his body, and over the days dried. The air held the nausiating scent of decay and copper.
He had failed. He had better hopes for Carver.
He had hoped he'd pull through. Hoped they wouldn't notice when he had left his cell unguarded. Hoped one day that they could meet again, both whole and healed. Hoped that long ago a woman could love him; the way he loved her. Hoped he could avenge his true family and find his half brothers.
Hoped a man who had once been his childhood best friend may be his friend again.
Perhaps it was best that Nadine and his half brother were not tied to him now.
There was no place for family in a gang. Snakeyes would have never let him be happy, and he had learned now how foolish he had been.
What being a fool had cost him.
No, Hope hadn't gotten him anywhere.
He held a hand over his face one day hoping the starvation would take him quicker, and laughing bitterly as he realized he was hoping again.
Perhaps it was in his foolish nature to hold that hope.
He cast it away. Without hope; what did he have left?
He smirked at the answer. He had absolutely nothing now.
No family, no friends, no one left to love him.
With Ghost and Carver dead he felt his heart crumble. Not that he had ever been very close to Carver, but because they had died following him.
The pain of it was more than Scar could bare. He might not have killed them, but he was just as guilty as the sorcerer who had.
He had done what he had promised he would never do. He had used people as pawns and those pawns had been badly played.The thought was a loop he rode for days. He hardly even noticed the figure that crept in the shadows and slit a guards throat.
He looked up blankly noticing that the guards blood splattered over the dried up pool infront of him. He leaned back up against the wall and smiled as foolish hope flickered within him again.
"Who would've thought you would end up here?"