Numb hands grasping a hilt he could feel like his own skin. Numb arms, no sense of the strain he could see taut in the muscles, as they lifted the heft of him. How he could see, that dizzy, encompassing awareness around the length of himself, he couldn’t say – the eyes he had once watched the world through were blank.

The body, his body, blank, still moving by his will, but from what felt like a secondhand distance. All he could feel was the sword it lifted, wind cooling the blood along its, his, length, fleeting warmth and breeze dripping from his own keen edge.

His body, secondhand, began to walk. Holding it, him, walking the way he wanted, westward, but without a word or the slightest glimmer of life or understanding on what had been his face.

Westward. She would have to be able to help. Would have to be able to set it right, put him back where he belonged, if anyone could. If not…

It seemed a sword could still fear, even without a heart to race or blood of its own to chill. Numb hands curled more tightly around his hilt, holding him as close to whole as he could still be while his body walked on towards the only help they could hope for.