(Warning: violent content may be disturbing for some readers.)
Without the jittery blanket of fear and cold anxiety that lay over everyone except the new visitors, the day would have seemed just like any other workday at the encampment.
Daphne had spent enough days there by now to know how these days would pass. How the work flowed.
Well. How it flowed when the nervous energy in the camp didn't have everyone's hands trembling.
The only one who seemed immune to it was Harold.
He came into the camp near the evening, grinning like a fool.
Daph watched as the idiot walked up to the man who exuded a frigidness unlike any man she had met. The "boss", who seemed barely human.
Harold walked up to him and shook his hand like they were childhood friends.
The man regarded him with disinterest. He did not even seem to care to be Harold's master. Still, clearly Harold meant something to whatever he was planning; the man took Harold into his cabin to speak privately.
The camp seemed to breathe, now that the man was out of sight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was hours before they came out again, and it only seemed to happen because supper was being served at the moment.
All from the camp, save those keeping watch, sat around the fires with stew. Harold looked down at his bowl with something near disgust, unsurprisingly. Daphne had not seen him eat something so simple, even in this encampment. Most ate gratefully, however. The cold man and his seven lieutenants ate it without care.
Daphne had little appetite, and pushed the stew around with her spoon. She had been forced to sit to the man's left, while Harold sat to his right. A smooth, deep voice broke her from her reverie and startled her into dropping her spoon.
"Petunia Jewelweed," the man began, only flicking his eyes to her briefly to smirk. He was clearly pleased to have gotten a visible response from her.
"Easy, Daph. Don't show it."
"Harold and I were speaking of the developments at my encampment here," he continued, not waiting for further response. "I granted him my manpower to build his business, under the agreement that his business would bring further weaponry and stronger...manpower to me."
He spoke as though choosing simpler words than he was accustomed to using.
She did not know why he was bringing this up to her, and remained silent as he spoke. Harold looked very proud of himself.
"Yet. I see little development. Little progress. It seems he has taken my aid and spent everything for his own gain. Even in gaining you, who he promised would bring better results in business and stronger training, only he seems to have gained." His tone turned darker and he seemed purposeful in how he looked at Daphne, with his back to Harold.
Harold began to speak, shakily protesting. The man held up a hand and he was silenced. Finally, after staring into Daphne's eyes for a moment, the man smiled slowly. She shivered.
"It wasn't disinterest earlier. It was-.."
Daphne's thoughts were cut off by the man suddenly swinging around, quicker than her eyes could track at the moment. She heard a sound that she had not heard in a surprisingly long time.
Everyone around the fire froze, eyes widening. None jumped. Only the seven lieutenants grinned. Daph could not see around the man beside her, until he stood and walked into the cabin behind him.
There lay Harold, gasping for air as his hands clawed at his neck as though both trying to close it and rip it open further. The skin she could see around the spurting of bright red blood, was blackening and looked to be crumbling.
The man had slit Harold's throat with some manner of poisoned blade.
Harold's bulging eyes stopped on Daphne. She sat there, frozen in shock as the blood pooled toward her.
"It was hatred." Her thought finished, as she moved near Harold.
His legs kicked and he writhed. Dying utterly alone, in a camp full of people.
"I stopped loving you," she began in a shaking voice, speaking over his gurgling gasps. "But I wouldn't have seen you dead like this. I'm here, Harold. You're not alone. You're not alone."
She took one of his hands, not caring to notice the blood covering her as he failed to cover the artery and as it seeped into her clothes from the ground.
His writhing slowed. She held his hand until his heart ceased beating and his eyes fixed.
She sat there, staring at the one she knew in childhood. She had thought she hated him after all he'd put her through. But she did not. She despised all he had become, and she pitied him.
Pitied him for his life. Pitied him all the more for his manner of passing.
Voices laughed and spoke to her, but she ignored them, her eyes fixed on the growing black on his neck. It had slowed since his death, but continued growing.
"This is what he meant. That I would enjoy this evening quite a bit. Why? Why all this? What's going to happen to me now? Oh. Huh. I'm a widow?"
Then, flashes of light went through her vision before all went black.
