Dead men walking

Ronin, of course, made straight for the bed positioned beneath the skylight, waving a hand absently at a nearby chair that he used to sit in to sketch and paint, before he'd gotten too sick to be bothered with it any more. Leaving Loren to the chair and sinking down onto the side of the bed, Ronin clenched his tremoring hands into fists. It was like one of his fever dreams, he realised, and perhaps that contributed to his muted and easy responses. Or maybe the blight had just put a barrier between the shock of his old friend's sudden reappearance. Either way, it was a situation that balanced on a knife edge. "Healing doesn't really... do much for me, right now." He shrugged his shoulders, brushing his fingertips over the bandages on his arm. Luckily the wound had closed enough that the dressing wasn't stained ink black with the sludge that currently pumped through his veins instead of blood. Letting his hand drop, he gazed up expectantly for the explanation that, like it or not, he felt he was owed. Only... when it came, it blindsided him completely. Loren would have shocked him less if he had slapped him across the face. He had been here? The entire time? Through the wedding ring on his finger, he had no doubt that Remi, wherever he was, would feel Ronin's heartrate increase to a thundering rhythm, and he had to force himself to take a deep breath in and out again before responding to anything Loren was saying. "You shut yourself down," he repeated, blue eyes sharp as he gazed up at the Launceleyn. "I died," he said, as if that was a good enough place to start when it came to what he'd been up to this whole time. RONIN Darkness is a funny thing. It creeps up on you.