Love Hurts

"Chaos is a ladder." Petyr Baelish A Nightmare The Sellsword knelt in the darkness, listening to the distant sound of raindrops pattering against the outside of the mausoleum.

He was wounded. Tired.

But this was not his tomb.

No, he came to this place with the faint taste of his love's kiss on his tongue. Something precious, so odd and so rare that it would be worth more than any fortune in the Kingdom of the Shadow:

Hope.

Can't stop. She needs you.

He wasn't built for labor. Not anymore. Tall, lean, all sinew and hate — a gaunt outlaw held together by spite and scar tissue.

Sweat and rain danced down onto the tomb's dusty lid. They created tiny circles where the stone looked anew. Refreshed. He wiped a lock of blonde hair from out of his swollen eyes with a blood slicked hand and lay his head on the casket.

The cold felt like a lover's embrace. Maybe he could just stay here. No one would know that he gave up - that he failed. The final image of the Sellsword burned into their minds: his hand raised, if only for that one time. His life had been a lie. What was one more?

Wasn't that enough?

Maybe this would be his final resting place.

No.

He had been the villain in every story that mattered. But this wasn't his story, it was hers.

With a snarl, he mustered all that was left and pushed. The lid croaked, grinding open with a noise that might’ve come from the sarcophagus or his own brittle spine.

Light filled the room, warm and blinding, from within the stone box.

He reached inside - not gently, but desperately.

There it lay before him.

His scarred and gnarled hands wrapped around the handle of the sword, pulling it up high into the room. The warmth flowed from the sword into the man. Energy flowed through him and he became a conduit for all that the sword was: a whispered promise.

I will always love you.

Against all logic, a tiny spark of determination pushed the Sellsword to this point. Now it exploded into a wildfire.

Let the dice fall where they may - he finally had something to wager with.

He pushed himself to stand and slashed the air with the sword.

Its name was Love.

Hold on, Dahlia.

The road from the crypt to the castle had once been the King’s Road.

The Sellsword and his Love had traveled the road many times, finding conviviality and merriment among the travelers. They had broken bread with knights and peasants alike, all sharing stories around their cook fires.

The old tales all promised the same lie, didn't they? A hero, or an antihero, who slays an unspeakable evil to win the hand of his love.

The stories all died with the heroes thanks to the Sorcerer Maximus Kaelus.

Kaeleus entered the Kingdom in holy robes. Quickly the cracks in that facade broke open and poisonous violence flowed out.

They killed him. His own father put him in the dirt. The abhorration to gods and man that he was, Kaeleus clawed his way back. Slick with rot and stinking of stubborn hate, the fiend returned. Not a man. Not a myth. A scab that refuses to stay - a rotten tooth in the Kingdom's skull.

All of the heroes had attempted to slay Kaeleus and all had fallen on his blade. Through necromancy or mysticism, the ungodly bastard had returned time and again. He laughed in the face of death.

Now the entire Kingdom lived in Kaeleus' shadow.

But for the first time in ages, there was light.

A beacon to all those lost and scared - illuminating the night from within the Sellsword's sheath. It was no longer a whispered promise, but a howling scream. A death cry.

Let's see if Kaeleus comes back without his fucking head.

They met at the gate.

Kaeleus' cabal of freaks and mutants formed a wall. They slang sneers and insults at the Sellsword that melded into a cacophony of white noise, but the Sellsword held his chin high. He was of the opinion that weak men needed simpering men around them to prop them up.

He only needed her.

Hoofs clacked in the distance and the cabal parted. On a great, black beast appeared the Bloody Bastard, the Great Sorcerer, Maximus Kaeleus the Undying.

"Ah, the Sellsword," Kaeleus oozed arrogantly as he strode forward. He leapt from his black horse, that wicked and awful grin the only thing visible through his hood. "To what do I owe the displeasure of your presence?"

The Sellsword said nothing as he slid down from his horse. The fire still burned, but the vessel was broken. His blood painted the side of his white steed.

"Look at you, you can't even hardly stand," Kaelus called out as he stalked toward the Sellsword.

Seeing the Sorcerer and his lackeys before him, the Sellsword began questioning himself. Was the raging fire enough? He'd known so much loss recently. So he'd fell one foe. What made him think that he was ready to take on evil incarnate?

I have Love.

It had to be enough. He straightened himself and cracked his neck.

Silently, confidently, The Sellsword began moving toward Kaeleus. It was slow at first, like a great mountain emerging from the sea.

He matched the Sorcerer's movements step for step.

The cool night air turned their breath into clouds of white smoke - two beasts of prey moving toward collision.

"Where is she," The Sellsword questioned through gritted teeth.

His love. The Dahlia. Captured by Kaeleus as so many others had been.

Maybe this was the true fallacy of the Kingdom. Of the Sellsword. He remained silent when Kaeleus' cabal took commoners and princesses.

But now he had taken something the Sellsword needed. His lifeblood. The maiden who pulled him back from the abyss and gave his worthless life meaning. Now it was his turn to save her.

"Oh, she's warming my bed."

The image of this abortion of humanity with his Dahlia cracked through the Sellsword's mind like lightning. He would taste Kaeleus' blood or die trying.

"Throw the dice, Kaeleus," The Sellsword broke his silence.

A heinous cackle and they were within striking distance.

"No, these are your stupid rules, Sellsword. They mean nothing to me."

"Then let the old ways die with me - if you can best me. But for this, Kaeleus, you must roll the dice."

The Sellsword's was beginning to succumb to his wounds and fever. His mind was shifting in and out of reality. On the edges of the light coming from Love, he kept catching glimpses of the Dahlia.

I am coming, my love. 

Cloaked in shadow, she moved throughout the Sorcerer's abominations, smiling sweetly at the Sellsword.

"Ha, you fool. Look at you. You can't hardly stand. You can't even tell which of me you're fighting," Kaeleus responded, his awful smile opening like a snake unhinging it's jaw to swallow it's prey whole.

"Then I'll kill all of you."

"So be it. Don't say I didn't give you an out."

The Sorcerer revealed a set of die carved from the bones of the fallen. The Sellsword unsheathed Love, causing a momentary pause in the Sorcerer.

"You found it. Do you actually think it will help you," the Sorcerer asked, his disgusting face visible in the glow of the legendary sword.

"Roll the fucking dice."

With a flick of his limp wrist, the Sorcerer cast out the dice in the space between the two men. They rolled and bounced before stopping directly in front of the Sellsword. Two single dots looked up at him.

"To the death," the men spoke in unison in a tongue long forgotten.

The Sellsword readied his blade.

"You've come back from hell too many times, Maximus. I am not here to bring you with me - I aim to bury you where no god or man can reach you."

"What the fuck does that even mean," The Sorcerer cackled.

The Sellsword didn't give him time to ponder. With a pained shriek like a captured feral, he struck out wildly at the Sorcerer.

But the Sorcerer was faster, parrying and then drawing down his own blade.

Their weapons screamed, sparks flying each time they met. Every slash was matched with a parry or block - both men completely unrelenting in both their defense and attack. Their battle seemed to last forever. Perfectly matched yin and yang dancing in the light of Love.

Until they weren't.

The Sorcerer caught a swing from the Sellsword in midair, holding their swords in the air between them. Both men pushed in close trying to gain the upperhand. They were so close that the Sellsword could smell the pus and rot that was the Sorcerer.

The Sellsword swiftly withdrew and raised Love high above to deliver a kill shot from above. In the distance he heard Dahlia's laughter and it made him hesitate for just a second. She was calling to him.

"Come to me," she begged.

What is life but a series of moments? Moments comprised of seconds that are measured in lifetimes.

In the moment where the Sellsword listened for his Dahlia, the Sorcerer ran his blade across the Sellsword's belly. A clean slash that ran through the Sellsword like a hot knife through butter. Within a breath blood flowed like a river down the Sellsword's legs and into his boots.

The light from Love suddenly burned so bright that all else faded away.

And there she was.

The Dahlia appeared in the distance, running toward him. They were free.

Somehow her beauty shone even brighter than Love.

He held his guts in with his left hand, refusing to let go of Love with his right. Pain shook his consciousness like a great earthquake with each step that he took. Every fibre of his existence screamed at him stop, but each step was towards her and so he told the screams no.

Mere feet from one another, the Sellsword collapsed into his Love's arms. She embraced him with a squeeze that surely popped something loose inside him. He was counting breaths at this point.

The Dahlia tried to wrestle the sword free from his grasp.

"You can let go. You won," she whispered in his ear.

Once a man has found love, true love, he will never let it go.

"No, I can't," the Sellsword whispered back just before plunging Love deep into the belly of the woman holding him together.

The gods and devils all heard the banshee's howl that came forth from her lips. Her grip strengthened, trying to squeeze the remaining life from the Sellsword. His eyes rolled into oblivion as he twisted the blade and cried out in pain.

All at once the color ran from her face and that terrible, familiar smile broke through. The spell faded and his beautiful Dahlia's face melted away to reveal Maximus Kaeleus holding the Sellsword.

"Damn you, Sellsword," Kaeleus muttered as his grip loosened.

The Sellsword broke free from the Sorcerer's embrace.

Letting his insides fall from his stomach, the Sellsword grasped the sword with both hands and swung with all his might. It was not vengeance nor spite that guided the final blow that freed the Sorcerer's head from his shoulders - but Love.

Love hurts.

Cooley I nearly hit the stratosphere coming out of that nightmare, like I was trying to escape it. Escape it all. The dream, this world, and the fact that I was going to face Max Kael in a little less than a week.

The pain and fear and joy from the dream was so real that I checked my hand to see if the sword was still there.

It wasn't.

What the hell did that mean?

Rhiannon lay perfectly still next to me. Her ebony skin stood in stark contrast to the moonlight cutting through the curtains and the three-thousand thread Egyptian cotton sheets.

How did she sleep through that?

And yet, I mused as I lit a joint and stood in front of the window, she was scared. Max Kael and his threads had scared her.

This diamond, rough and beautiful, who played Snowman despite knowing Fat John's mean right hook was waiting... was scared.

The sun would be up soon. There was no time for sleep. I chopped out a line on the ledge of the window and got myself ready for the day. A little pick me up. Some people like coffee, some energy drinks - I, for one, prefer cocaine.

Outside the window the tiniest of purple and orange and blues were beginning to cross the horizon.

In the parking lot a group of young men in white button up shirts with silly little ties are piling into a nondescript white van. They're either being sex trafficked by the clean shaven dork holding the van door open or a bunch of Mormons on a mission to save the savages of... Toronto.

"It's a new day."

Suddenly, I know what I have to do.

It's a funny thing that probably looks really misguided from the outside looking in, but what doesn't? Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. I mean the marriage between drugs and religion. I'm serious, man. You spend enough time around trap houses and with dope heads and you'll find that all roads lead to talking about God.

You know why that is?

Nobody knows what the fuck we're doing and we're all scared.

Even you, Max Kael. Maybe you most of all. It's fitting you started out as a religious nut.

There are so many parallels to unpack.

Identity. You have no clue who you are and your story is just one ill-fated attempt after another of trying to find something to make you feel a part of. So you push further and further into the occult, which if we're being honest, is just the opposite end of the spectrum.

There's also the obvious.

Resurrection.

Black Dahlia

I pretended to sleep as Cooley tortured over his scratchy note left on the coffee table. He definitely got into the white stuff this morning.

Love hurts.

Girl, listen: I was a stripper in West Virginia.You think some cheap ass Joker rip off running his mouth is gonna take any skin off my ass? I'd carve that turkey up with ease.

But my man needed a little something.

You see, Cooley is a bad motherfucker. He's lost, though. The boy don't know his ass from a hole in the ground right now. I'm gonna sort all that out, but miracles take time, baby.

So for now, I needed to give him a little something. A leg up.

"Oh, baby, I'm so scared of Max Kael," I told him.

You should've seen the fire in his eyes.

"Gone to talk to God"

The Priest People don't like to think of me as a person.

It makes sense. You only see me at this specific place that you tie to particular actions with the goal of... inner peace? Eternal salvation. Forgiveness. Joy. The reasons are as numerous and diverse as my congregation, but I digress. Either way - be it the pageantry or the authority, once you put on the white collar everyone just assumes you spend every hour praying or reading the bible.

I think about this a lot.

I like my eggs runny and love cat videos on Instagram. Yellow peanut M & M's are my favorite, and you cannot convince me they don't taste different.

And, even more shocking, I was a person before I put on the cloth.

Before I became Father Bill, I was William the Orphan and the truth is I really should be used to being seen as some type of prop in others' lives as I was one of the poor souls who grew up in Sin City. Life was full of transients just using my home for the very things they would later confess to me in the little six by six wooden box.

It's a heavy load bearing all of your secrets.

I remember the first time someone confessed to a murder. To pedophilia. Early on these were ground breaking experiences - things that made me question my own faith. The secrets that are truly sick, though, aren't some Hollywood movie.

The path to absolution isn't confessing your actions - it's being honest about the things that made you do it. The dirt under the fingernails of your soul. Forgiveness only exists in that space - where you've bared all and stood naked in front of another human and God.

What could that be?

"My child was born with a deformity and I worry that there's something wrong with me. That I won't be able to love them. What are people going to think of me?"

Grace lives in the darkness.

These are the things I mused about as I sat in the confessional booth that day listening to soccer moms claim guilt at overeating and work addicted fathers feign shame at ignoring their children.

The reality is none of these people wanted to be better - they just didn't want to feel bad about it anymore.

I peeked outside the curtain and said a brief prayer of thanks that I'd gotten through to the last petitioner.

Through the grille, I see the outline of a skinny man. I say the words, but I'm truly staring at the ceiling trying to remember if I DVR'ed the last episode of Mobland.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let us pray that the Father is in your heart and helps you to unburden your soul today my child."

On the other side of the booth I hear a noise that quickly snaps me from the clouds and plants my feet firmly on Earth. This man is lighting a cigarette.

"What's up, padre," he replies cooly, blowing a thick cloud of marijuana smoke through the grille.

Cooley Blood red carpet. Why do they only put red carpet in movie theaters, churches, and strip clubs?

I'm reminded of Dahlia and why I'm here.

"How long has it been since your last confession," the Priest asks from the other side of the little box. I can tell he's thrown that I'm smoking a joint, but I personally find little space between intoxication and spirituality.

"Oh, I'm not here to confess. I just want to talk."

"That's, uh, that's not how this works?" the Priest questions.

I see him fumbling through the barrier between us. The vale between man and mysticism is so thin. Why not rip it down and see what's on the other side?

We're all scared.

"Right, well. When in Rome. I've never confessed, Padre."

I can feel his discomfort growing with every word. I live in discomfort, Padre - I am discomfort. Let me be your sherpa.

"Look, I'm here cause I'm scared. The reality is I don't feel bad about the things I've done. Maybe I should?"

"Go on," the Priest responds, his interest piqued.

"My life has been a hole. Maybe I was born into it or maybe someone dug it for me when I was too little to fight back. But all I've ever done was just trying to fill in that hole. Trying to get enough shit in that hole that I could maybe climb out. But it never fills. I've stolen. Lied. Hurt people. Not for the thrill, but because I thought if I didn’t, I’d just disappear in that hole. Like I needed to prove to the world that I was there, even if all I left behind was scars."

"And now?"

"I used to think love was just another con for soft people. But now? Man, she showed me the light. She crawled in the hole and sat with me - saw me. All I can think about is how scared I am to lose this. And not because of some cunt like Kael, but because of who I am. Maybe I am the hole and I just damned her? I'm not so different from Max Kael. Do you believe in fate, Padre?"

“No, God gave us free will. We make our own holes," he responds.

Feeling the weight of all of my own existence, I suck hard on the joint.

Silence.

“I don’t know if I’m asking for forgiveness. Or permission.  I just needed someone to hear it, I guess. I'm going to kill Max Kael."

Priest "The best we can hope for in this life is to not be alone and we should do whatever we can to protect that."

Grace exists in these moments.

"Love hurts, my child. Love hurts."

Coda: The Dice Somewhere far from the Kingdom, far from the church, far from the hotel window coated in coke and sunrise, the dice Cooley tossed at ReVival 69 finally land. Snake eyes. Deathmatch.