Larkspur Plagueheart

"Merosiel!"

He's had the fleeting, mad thought before that if he could scream loud enough--if he could kill enough people, if he could make a large enough disturbance--he could call the dead and the lost back to him by force of will alone.

"MEROSIEL!"

It's the madness of a diseased mind; the insanity of a rotting brain. There's no bringing them back when they're really gone. No amount of spilled blood, no number of shattered limbs, split skulls, silenced voices will absolve him of failing them when they needed him most, of not being there just as Meros is not here. Driven from house to house in a crush of armored bodies, wailing like a mourner, he finds neither hide nor hair of what he's looking for; no indication the faithless jailors have kept their promise, no sign his friend still lives.

"Where are you?!"

The mêlée spills out onto the streets, guards falling to the cobbles as he weaves among them with all the lewd grace of one of the Scourge. Here one trips over his own guts and falls in a groaning, dying heap; there another froths and shakes and collapses like an unstrung puppet as plague eats her from within, and he should take joy in the carnage but he can't. (Another guard drops from a heavy backhand blow; finishing her with a headsman's stroke from Terminus Est, he kicks the body into the canal.)

He can't, because something has happened to Meros, something has happened to Merosiel, because--he mounts up the steps of a bridge, not caring he's being chased to the heart of the city--his friend isn't answering him, and something has happened there are blood and terror in the air tonight that are not because of his rampage.

"Meros! Answer me! What have they done to you?!"

They can hear him calling, screaming himself hoarse, and each respite he gets is shorter than the last. This time they bring a paladin--a fucking, Light-sucking paladin; why aren't they looking for MEROS?--and he calls the lately dead back to their feet to aid him against their once-allies. All is fair in love and war and where is he they promised they promised they wouldn't kill him--

"CAMPION, YOU CHILD-MURDERING SCARLET SON-OF-A-BITCH! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MEROSIEL?!"

---
Our Lady Peace -- "Denied", Taproot -- "Lost In the Woods"