The Dresden Files / Bob / #24. Insanity
Title: Primal Scream
Author: Cyloran
Fandom: The Dresden Files (tv-verse)
Characters: Hrothbert
Prompt: 24. Insanity
Word Count: 314
Rating: PG
Summary: The locals learn of the death of Winifred.
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files do not belong to me; just passing through.
Table: Here There be Ghosts
It was a loud, high-pitched ululating sound that literally made the earth tremble and the heavens to crack.
Field workers dropped their harrows and stumbled backward from their plows as the ground bucked and shuddered beneath their feet. Less than a mile away in the tiny hamlet of Bainbridge, peasant and noble alike fell to their knees, grasped crude crosses or glittering holy relics, and prayed for deliverance as thunder and lightning split the sky.
The county priest found his tiny church suddenly besieged by frightened men and women demanding to know if the End Times had arrived. He had no words of comfort to offer, for he himself was on his knees begging forgiveness for his sins and hoping they would not bar him from the wrath of Heaven.
"Grand'da! Grand'da!" A small boy flung himself into the arms of the old man seated on a bench outside the door of their simple wooden cottage. "The sky is falling!"
"Hush, lad," he said gently. "It's doin' nothing of the sort."
"But what is it?"
The village wiseman did not need to see the wizard cradling the limp body of his slain love to his breast, her heart's blood saturating his own tunic and cloak. He could hear it.
"It's the sound of madness," he said sadly.
"Is it an animal?"
"The most dangerous kind, lad. A wounded animal." He looked over the boy's head toward the wood and the horrible keening that had only now begun to fade. "It's the sound of a man who's had his heart and soul ripped out." A man who now had nothing and no one to live for. "It's nothing we need fear."
"He won't hurt us?"
"Not us, lad. Whoever the poor wretch is, we've done him no harm." But he wouldn't give a pence for the lives of the ones who had.
Poor bastard, he thought.
Author: Cyloran
Fandom: The Dresden Files (tv-verse)
Characters: Hrothbert
Prompt: 24. Insanity
Word Count: 314
Rating: PG
Summary: The locals learn of the death of Winifred.
Disclaimer: The Dresden Files do not belong to me; just passing through.
Table: Here There be Ghosts
It was a loud, high-pitched ululating sound that literally made the earth tremble and the heavens to crack.
Field workers dropped their harrows and stumbled backward from their plows as the ground bucked and shuddered beneath their feet. Less than a mile away in the tiny hamlet of Bainbridge, peasant and noble alike fell to their knees, grasped crude crosses or glittering holy relics, and prayed for deliverance as thunder and lightning split the sky.
The county priest found his tiny church suddenly besieged by frightened men and women demanding to know if the End Times had arrived. He had no words of comfort to offer, for he himself was on his knees begging forgiveness for his sins and hoping they would not bar him from the wrath of Heaven.
"Grand'da! Grand'da!" A small boy flung himself into the arms of the old man seated on a bench outside the door of their simple wooden cottage. "The sky is falling!"
"Hush, lad," he said gently. "It's doin' nothing of the sort."
"But what is it?"
The village wiseman did not need to see the wizard cradling the limp body of his slain love to his breast, her heart's blood saturating his own tunic and cloak. He could hear it.
"It's the sound of madness," he said sadly.
"Is it an animal?"
"The most dangerous kind, lad. A wounded animal." He looked over the boy's head toward the wood and the horrible keening that had only now begun to fade. "It's the sound of a man who's had his heart and soul ripped out." A man who now had nothing and no one to live for. "It's nothing we need fear."
"He won't hurt us?"
"Not us, lad. Whoever the poor wretch is, we've done him no harm." But he wouldn't give a pence for the lives of the ones who had.
Poor bastard, he thought.