After The Last Kingdom

Think of Uhtred and Brida ever running across a paper cut:

a sword failing to absolve itself of the crimson stain it skims into.

She sits with him on dismal stairs and trauma bonds -

sleeps with him on yearning dreams - that lover in Aldous' Brave New Wolrd

who suffers the allegorical deaths of his phantoms.

To kill you would be to kill a part of, myself but you bear a role to fall

in engulfing vengeance so that he may sob in the vanity of victory at last.