Makings of a Monster

Tamoko barged in Winski's laboratorium. The man still looked like a ghost and sat slumped at his desk, his eyes closed. There was a glass in front of him, but he wasn't touching it. His face was a mask of stunned pain.
- "Winski! Why don't you answer me! You scared me! And where is Sarevok?"
- "Gone," he whispered, barely audible.
- "He is gone to... Cormyr to kill Reiltar? In case he even really is there?" Not that Tamoko needed an answer. After witnessing Sarevok's primal pain and rage she knew he'd hardly come up with a more detailed or rational plan. She'd need to find him, but first there was Winski to deal with. Perhaps at some time she could allow herself to collapse and shed tears for Jelena... and for them all, their shattered dreams. She would have a very broken soul as her lover for a long time still.

- "Winski... the guards took J... Jelena away." As Tamoko had anticipated, his face twitched at the mention of the name. "They think that she surprised a burglar, who panicked and killed her. Some silvers were missing."
Winski made an absolutely joyless laugh.
- "But of course," he said. "It is always a burglary gone wrong. I wonder if it sometimes actually happens."
- "What do you have in that glass?" Tamoko enquired.
- "Stuff."
It didn't smell of alcohol.
- "What stuff, Winski? Do you intend to kill yourself?"
He looked up, mustering a small spark of anger in his hollow, tortured eyes.
- "So what if I did? It is a custom in that country of yours, isn't it? I only choose a less masochistic method! Everything that matters... everything.... gone. And I can't have this pain." The anger faded away, as did his voice.
- "Don't you dare bring up harakiri here!" shouted Tamoko. "It is an honorable act, while you..." Her voice softened. "I can't blame you for feeling pain and wanting to escape. But you told me that you have sworn to be always by Sarevok's side, no matter what. Would you abandon him now that he is in just as great pain as you are? There are still things that matter. Him."
- "Yes... Sarevok. Trust me to be selfish," Winski sighed.
- "Well. I bet he isn't thinking much but his pain either," said Tamoko in a way of comfort.

-"I remember only the scent of her hair... I try to think back how I was when I thought there is no love. When I had ambition and..." his voice trailed off for a while. "But the pain just rips me apart and at the same time it numbs me so that I can't think. Or cry. Or even hate Reiltar. It is as if he had gutted me, and I lay here dying, and I've bled so much I'm too weak to even hate."
Tamoko took Winski's hand and held it, contemplating what to do with him. Obviously he would be more of an hindrance than help in his condition if she took him with her, but if left alone the pain and despair might get the better of him. It would be very dishonorable, and perhaps he would think of how much it would wound Sarevok, but could she count on that? She knew that Winski had been an alcoholic, and had an built-in tendency to escape the power of his despair with whatever chemical means he had available. She made up her mind.

- "Winski. Can you ride?"
He just shrugged, looking at Sarevok's beautiful beloved through an odd, distorted haze. Not completely unlike being drunk, he recalled, but the colors were more bright. They looked like someone had adjusted them so that whole the world was out of joint, his brain trying to match it with what was just a day ago. He felt almost like laughing, apart from the fact that the joke was assuredly on him. Laying his heart on open, letting his guard down, nurturing and developing all those feelings, trying to find a way to be a good man... and all the time he, being under the illusion of being a subject of his own destiny, a creature of reason and emotion, had been but a plaything to cruel, immortal powers who cast him aside like this, without second thought. Unless they still were having fun with him.
- "Yes, Tamoko. I can hold the reins and manage to sit on a horseback without falling down," he said.
- "Where would he go first?"
- "To the Throne, demanding to know where exactly Reiltar is."
- "I hope he hasn't killed anyone," sighed Tamoko, as they took off, Winski barely able to keep on his feet.