The sun set over Dorne in the late hours of the day, sending the honest folk, if there were any at all, to sleep. But a true Dornian knows that life here begins only after sundown. The numerous petty criminals that were hiding in the shadowy alleys now had the cover of darkness on their side to help with their devious deeds.
The city was divided into a lot of gangs and clans that each dominated a part of the local underworld. The consul cared little for the locals, as seen by his lackluster effort to keep the streets clean and the pedestrians safe. To say that Dorne was a city delved in chaos was the understatement of the century, for every guard there were ten criminals armed to their teeth. The city was still a pretty important place for the land of Orin, as it was the only place to overlook the grand desert in the south and a place for the Orin-militia to rest their heads, should a current war or conquest require it. Such a day was today, as a large Orin force was approaching from the western steppe lands and cities, leaving a large dust cloud in the dry sands they crossed, it seems it was time for war.

In the headquarters of the horned dragons, a certain human was getting some much-needed rest in the medical wing. Well, if you could call it that, it was as unsanitary as the rest of the filthy old building, and the smell could drive out the most vicious of beasts.
Melkor lay in a makeshift bed, with bandages across his body and an old, wet towel on his head to lower his temperature. By his side stood a pretty worried Durant steel, who looked over her newly assigned comrade, and tended to his wounds. Since the minotaurs weren't very good in medicine, they usually just sent one of their own to watch over a crew member to make sure they don't die. Basically, their way of treatment is to 'sleep it off'.

After a few hours pass, a very exhausted and bruised Melkor opens his bloodshot eyes. Looking around the empty room he noticed that someone placed a little vase filled with flowers on his bedside, he grimaced at the idea that these meatheads have a cheesy side to them.

Steel shifts and quickly hands him a keg of water. He grabs the beverage with his good arm and takes a few deep sips, spilling a lot of water in the process.

"Oh, he-" The human couldn't finish his sentence, he was cut off by the massive pain in his throat.

"Don't strain yourself, the gas you inhaled yesterday was a pretty nasty poison." She then smiled at him and took the water.
"You should be able to speak, just keep your voice low and stay hydrated." She earned herself a smile from him, followed by a pained groan.

"What the fuck, happened?" Melkor asked in a low and pained voice, his burns had almost healed overnight but his broken arm would still need time to fix, he displayed an unnatural healing factor compared to the other residents of the hospital, while it is different from species to species, and the magic power of the being plays a good role too, it was still a bit uncanny.

"Well, it seems you and Jerb have pissed off the wrong cats. The Pawfright-cartel is a pretty large organization of drug lords and thugs, and it seems your buddy broke the arms of the boss' son. Which is never a good thing to do, thank goodness it ended this well for you, could have been a lot worse trust me." She gave him a stern look after her sentence was finished.

"Hey, I wasn't the one who went berserk. Blame the big guy, he started it, I just helped when shit went down." He sat up against his rock-hard pillow, the long period of laying in bed made his back sore and his joints hurt worse than they already did.
"But yeah, I guess I'll be more careful next time. Your name is Durant Steel right?" He asked his makeshift nurse.

"Yes, that is my name. You can call me Steel if you want, we minotaurs have such long names, get's confusing sometimes." Melkor smiled at that.
"Thanks, I'll remember it. Back where I'm from, we also have another name depending on the family you're from," He always found the names in this place to be kind of weird, they were just adjectives and nouns.
"Oh, so Melkor is not your full name?" She asked, a sudden spike of interest in her tone of voice.

'It's not even my real name' He thought to himself while quietly snickering. 'Fuck, I gotta come up with a family name now, good job man'.

"I abandoned my family name after I joined the army, it's kind of a tradition where I'm from. So I'm just good old Melkor, nothing more, nothing less." 'Good save man, good save'.

Durant Steels' eyes widened and a little spark could be seen in her eyes.
"Where are you from exactly? What kind of place is it?" She asked while inching closer, since Melkor seemed to have a growth spurt since arriving in this land, she was a bit smaller than him but still muscular and strong looking, the sight of minotaurs was something he would still have to get used to.

He swallowed hard and gave himself a metaphorical facepalm. He couldn't just say he was from another dimension or something, these knuckleheads probably wouldn't understand a thing he is saying, so he had to make a backstory up from out of nowhere, oh boy.

'Great, how do I get out of this one?'

"Well, it's a long story, you sure you wanna hear it?" He asked with a sheepish smile that absolutely gave off the 'I don't want to be here right now' vibes.

Durant Steel nodded her head very hard, the spark in her eye seemingly getting brighter and bigger.
Melkor wasn't getting out of this, so he sighed and began to weave an epic tale of where he was from.

"Well, I am from a land far in the north, where no cartographers of you or the other species of this world have ever been. My home is the uuuuh... isle of Menkaind, where our glorious Empire was founded over ten thousand years ago!" He began to speak in a tone that you would expect from a BBC documentarist, him doing it was very underwhelming though, and very harsh on his throat so he gave that up quicker than the french did Paris in 1940.

"We are a peaceful people, who live inside a sea that is ridden with storms and destructive winds, so no one ever visited Menkaind. We spent our years believing we were the only intelligent beings in this world, and without rivals or interference, our land and our race thrived. We began to build large cities and ports and cultivated the land, we developed a culture of beauty and art. We never knew of magic or anything so we focused on developing our gear and technology. We built the best weapons and armors imaginable, water delivery systems and heated floors!" Steel gave him an odd look at that one.

"Until..." Melkor's look darkened and his head sank, he didn't spend 5 years doing amateur theatre for nothing!
"Vile beasts as large as a mountain came crawling out of the ocean and devoured our people like there was no tomorrow. A hundred years later, we drove them back finally, but the cost was simply too great. Our Cities destroyed and our leaders broken, in the end, we numbered less than five hundred. And Menkaind was a barren wasteland covered in death and the diseases these leviathans brought. I was part of those who were tasked with finding new horizons, along with my captain and two hundred soldiers, we sailed in a large ship, to the unknown." He underlined his speech with pretty solid acting and some crocodile tears, whom he summoned by not blinking for a minute.

"And you pretty much know the rest, we landed in this land and were lost to the desert. I am possibly the last survivor of this expedition. But I found new purpose, and will continue to live my life to the fullest." He wiped the tears off his face and gave Durant Steel a heartfelt smile. 'I should get an award for this' he thought, his imaginary shit-eating grin growing wider and wider.

One look at his comrade confirmed that his roleplaying was on point, the look of terror and sadness on her face was priceless. Give this man an award already!

"My god... Melkor I am so sorry, that is such a horrible thing to experience!" She put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a sad look.

"If there is anything I could do for you, please tell me." He thought about the Idea, he was pretty bored and wanted to get out of bed as soon as possible.

"Are there potions in your land? Or rather, in the guild?" He asked her very nicely, rubbing his broken arm. "I can't stand to be in this bed any longer, and I clearly need some training since those cats want my ass now. Do you think you could get me something to speed up my recovery?"

She rubbed her chin and drifted off into thought. After a small while, she seemed to have gathered an Idea.

"Well, the boss has a few magic potions that speed up the body's recovery rate, but he doesn't give them out lightly. You would have to take on a personal mission to pay that thing off. And by that I mean alone, he gives those things only to those who can prove themselves to him. Terry did one once, and he barely made it out of that sandwraiths cave. I think if you are willing to do something like that he would give you a potion."

The human didn't quite listen to the part where this mission is supposed to be life-endangering and difficult to accomplish, all he heard was 'magic potion' and 'recovery'
Melkor didn't really think hard about this, it was a no-brainer to him. Spend a month in bed or get out of bed and do a little chore, easy. The faster he could get out of bed, the faster he could go after that asshole of a wizard that broke his sword and his sword arm.

"Deal, I'll do it." He said without any hesitation, not thinking about the fact that he might end up more beat up than he currently is afterward.

Steel just stood there, baffled at the lack of hesitation he showed. The missions given by the boss were indeed ruthless and resulted in the deaths of many who took them too lightly, this man was either stupid as hell, or one of the bravest guys she ever met, then again, after what he told her about his war against the leviathans, she could guess that he has seen his fair share of threats and could know what he was doing. She could respect such courage.

"Alright, I will bring him the information, but I hope you know what you're doing. It would be a shame to lose you." She punched his shoulder, earning a pained expression on his face, but he kept himself from making any unmanly noises or shedding any tears.

"Thank you Steel, I owe you." He gave her a nice smile and rested his head on the pillow again, sitting up was not as easy as previously thought, and the conversation had been lasting for an hour or so.

"Don't mention it bud." She then walked out of the room and closed the door behind her. The atmosphere quickly grew quiet again and Melkor thought about all the bullshit he made up and any more possible stories he may have to come up with.

'I sure hope Jerb is doing fine, then again, the guy is a mountain of muscle and fury. He'll be fine.' with that thought, he tried to lay down more comfortably, which was a chore on its own. He never actually felt this much pain in his life, and the actual fight was more difficult than anything he had done before, but it somehow brought him joy seeing what he could do now, and he was eager to test the limit of his abilities once he was out of bed. And he still had to deliver on that promised duel with Sheathed Blade. He also thought about home and some things that he missed, well-cooked meals and tv, as well as the internet or hanging out with human friends. But things here were different and in a good way.

He looked outside of the window and gazed off into the distance, the city was dark, but you could hear a lot of things. Cries for help and people running rampant in the streets, as well as the distant clashing of blades or the occasional spell being fired.

"This place is a mess, I'm glad that I'm not down there." He sighed and tried to blend out the noise.
The candle by his bedside was slowly dying out, and the wind coming in through the window quickly snuffed it out a few moments afterward. Or was it the wind?

A sense of uneasiness overcame the lone human in the dark room, who wouldn't be a bit paranoid after yesterday's events?
He looked around and saw nothing but the yawning emptiness of the medical ward, which surprisingly had no other residents than him. It was very quiet, almost too quiet, and he couldn't help the feeling that he was being watched.

He concentrated on hearing something, anything. In his current condition, he wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight anyway, the best thing would be to logically think about this.
Calling out for anybody might get him killed before help could arrive if there was indeed an intruder in here. There was of course still the option of his mind playing tricks on him, which could very likely be the case, the dark leaves much for the imagination.

He slowly stood up, as silently as he could manage, it took him a lot of effort and nearly a minute, his whole body was on fire, literally. The magic that lies dormant within him seems to react to his heart rate or something because he was giving off a cloud of steam again, he couldn't turn it off either since he is not really in control of it yet. He silently cursed to himself and grabbed a pair of scissors that lay on the nightstand beside him, they could be useful he thought.

'Nothing is in here, there is no one here, calm the fuck down!' He violently repeated again and again in his head. He so desperately wanted to believe that everything was okay but his body wouldn't let him.
Now every other noise that was inside seemed to die out to the noise of steam coming out of him.
A curtain moved and he quickly turned around, too quickly, as one of his damaged ribs seemed to crack.

He let out an involuntary groan and almost fell from the pain. He swore he heard the sound of something on the floor, there was someone in here. There had to be!

He was ready to bolt to the door, he knew it would be painful but what else could be done?
He began to count down from three

'one'

the room seemed to get wider and wider as he looked that the door, Melkor felt a fear he hadn't in a long time, a fear of the unknown.

'two'

It hadn't grasped him that hard since his first days in a room without his parents when he was a small child.

'THREE'

He slammed his foot on the floor and started to run towards the door with all that he could, the wood beneath him gave away to his empowered foot and the heat coming from his body was increased tenfold. Every step hurt, and he could feel his body growing weaker with every millisecond.

He reached a hand for the door, but it was opened before him, a very concerned-looking Durant Steel on the other side.
The opened door flooded the room with light and the sight of his comrade gave Melkor some much-needed relief.

"What is up with you? You need to be in bed!" She very sternly said, almost having a motherly tone in her voice.

Melkor turned around and saw that the room was indeed empty of intruders or living things. He sighed with relief and almost collapsed from the pain this little escapade gave him.

"I.... just have to go to the toilet, really bad." He said through clenched teeth, trying to hide his pain.

"Don't scare me like that." She crossed her arms and shook her head. "The boss accepted your proposal and will give you a task in the morning-" She showed him a small vile filled with a bronze-looking liquid. "Drink this, it will heal your arm and the rest of your body overnight, this is one of the better potions so be ready for some hard work, now go and relieve your bladder before you die on me." She said with a slight smile and waved him outside of the room.

Melkor thanked her and limped out of the room, on his way to fulfill what he had told her.

The female minotaur walked over to his bed to place a cup of warm milk on his nightstand, blushing a little bit, hoping he would notice this little act of kindness.
As she turned to leave the room, however, she noticed something odd.

The vase that adorned his nightstand from before was gone.

Author's Note

Back from the dead! :)