He wasn't sure when he had stopped feeling his heart beating or how long he had laid there , all he knew was that he was going to die. The crimson liquid oozing from the hole that had appeared after the cold metal of a blade was pulled from his chest which had eased through his flesh and muscle like a hot knife though butter, an inch from his heart. His tall frame was now resting on it's side letting the blood matt into the carpet as it gushed from him, pooling beneath him and spreading as more joined. Time was moving slowly for him as his darkening green eyes watching as the blood crept out, dispersing before him, not believing that his body had actually held that much and kept telling himself he was almost out.
His pale skin was slowly turning paler and almost ghost like as he was trying to breath normally and regain some sense of normality with his body but it was refusing to respond. The air he was taking in stunk his lungs and burnt his throat to the point he wanted to give up on the life fuel and just accept this as his fate but he had made a promise. A promise he wanted to keep. That he needed to keep.
Stood in front of him from the corner of his eye he could see the sword that had ripped through him, his blood trickling down the edge and dripping onto the floor, creating a smaller puddle than the one he was lay in. The person who had pushed the blade into his tender flesh stood there watching him as his life was draining away, the hilt of the sword grasped firmly in their hand. Opening his mouth to speak, to try and get the sword wielder to help in some way, a chocked cough came from him as the air he longed for, to help him carry on, caught in his dry throat.
The blood wasn't the only body fluid now leaving the slowly dying body as he could no longer hold back his tear as he looked into the cold pale eyes of his killer. He had trusted this person with his life and they had betrayed him, almost literally rammed a sword through his heart. The blood was now drying into his hair not that you could tell as his red curls where outspread across and around him. He wasn't sure what hurt more, the hole next to his heart or the betrayal that had overcome him.
It was clear in his eyes there wasn't much fight to live left in the red head as the sword wielder knelt before him, being careful not to kneel in the blood that had started to soak into the ground. Blonde hair shadowed the other's face from view as he looked down to the ground not wanting to meet the others gaze, his own tears rolling down his cheeks. The red head used the last amount of strength he had to lift his arm and place his pale hand on top of the others which were still clasped round the hilt of the sword and spoke four last words that would forever ring out in the blonde's head and haunt him for the rest of his life.
" I ...forgive you...laddie..."