Chapter 13
Nægling is Forged

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!"

Something woke me up in the middle of the night. A miserable moan as it repeated over and over again.

I lifted my head and saw the outline of someone sitting at my desk, rocking back and forth as a hand gripped their face in agony. Blinking wearily I looked over as recognized who it was.

"Glenn?"

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." He moaned over and over again.

I sat up uneasily, spooked by this new development. I had never seen any spirit look so desperate and helpless before. What was Glenn doing now?

"Please forgive me." He begged looking up at last. His eyes were different, empty and black and full of such sorrow and desperation that it threw me off for a moment. His pathetic plea, doubled with the expression in his face struck something in me and made me want to forget entirely about what he did and just forgive him, but the pride in me wouldn't let it go so easily.

"How can you ask me to do that after what you did, Glenn? You did more than control me. You dominated me…"

His head bowed in agony as he stared at his hands. "I know. I'm… I'm a monster. You can't hate me more than I hate myself."

As angry as I was, this was still my friend and he deserved an opportunity for forgiveness. I got to my feet and stood in front of him. "Will you ever do something like that again?"

"Never!" He vowed. "I will never do such a thing again. I swear."

I let his vow hang in the air before I moved towards him, "Then I forgive you, Glenn. And I'm sorry you felt desperate enough to take matters into your own hands. I'll try to do everything I can to put your spirit to rest."

"I can't rest," He announced. The declaration looked like it was bringing him immeasurable pain that he was trying to ignore. "I have to watch over Maggie and little Hershel. I can't rest."

I crouched down to meet his gaze. "You're getting sick, Glenn. Your murderer is making you sick. You're full of so much anger and vengeance. You need to go on, like Abraham and T-Dog. They're waiting for you."

His expression turned just as rapidly from desperate to angry. The blackness in his eyes spread and he looked terrifying. "Why do I have to go on if there are others that can stay?" He announced in a hiss that was not his regular voice. "Hershel and Beth and Lori are all still lingering. Why don't you tell them to go on?!"

"Their killers have been dealt with. Yours hasn't and it's eating you up, making you something that you never were in life. Not once."

"Things are different." He stated in that same inhuman hiss.

Just then he rose to his feet and towered over me. The darkness in his eyes crawled through his veins and traveled through his body straight through his hands and feet. But it didn't stop there. It swept from his feet like a strange shadow till it engulfed my entire room, swallowing up the dim light and creating a void where the only things that existed were me and him.

"No one will do it. No one will avenge me. Not even Rick."

"Glenn," I tried to reach for him carefully. "This isn't you talking. You never once spoke about vengeance. You never once thought about "getting even", even when you had the right to. How can you say this now?"

"I want my son to live without fear. I want Maggie to be able to raise him in freedom. I want that tyrant destroyed!" The darkness just then seemed to be pulling me under like I was stuck in quicksand or tar. I tried to pull away but I only sank faster into it. I looked back at the spirit and was terrified to realize he did not look like Glenn at all.

"And if you won't do it—then I'll find someone who will!"

"Glenn, NO!" I reached for him but the tar pulled me under before I had a chance to scream for help.

I woke up breathing hard and trembling all over.

My eyes snapped opened to find the light of sunrise streaming in through my window. I kept my eyes opened wide, frightened of blinking and finding the tar behind my lids and Glenn's dark vengeful spirit. My eyes stared at the ceiling, my body straight and rigid as I lied on my back to peer at it.

That dream had been among one of the worst nightmares I could ever remember having. Glenn was worse than I thought. The only thing that seemed to hold any chance of putting him to rest was the idea of killing Negan. But what would that do?

Glenn might go on at last, but what if Negan decided to linger in his place? If someone as brave and forgiving as Glenn could turn into something that terrifying, I could scarcely imagine what someone like Negan could become. And the worst thing was that I'd be the only one to see him. He'd be there everywhere I turned and went. He'd follow me always and there would be no escape. That seemed almost more terrifying than letting him live.

What the hell could I do?

My head rested in my arms as I leaned against the porch railing to watch my dad and Aaron pack up some supplies. I was so angry I could barely look at him. He knew I was staring but he ignored it until it was that time to move out at last.

He was hobbling on his bad leg, though he was doing his best to muscle through it. Out of instinct I looked away from his struggle. It just made me angrier but I kept my mouth shut till he finally was ready to say goodbye.

He approached but I turned away, glaring at the tree in our front yard.

"I'm going." Dad said.

"I don't care." I bit out angrily.

"Judith, please I don't…"

"No!" I cut him off, staring back at him. "I should be going along. I should be looking, too. You said I was capable of being out there. Why do I have to be stuck here?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "We've been over this."

"No you've been over this! You're the one who should be staying behind!" I flung my arm towards his bad leg. "You can barely walk. You're going to get yourself or Aaron killed out there and I'm not going to cry when you do. You know what I'm going to say when you come back as a ghost? I'm gunna say "Told you so" and you're going to turn around and say back, "Yeah, I guess you did." And I won't cry because I was right!"

He looked like he wanted to say something angry right back at me, but he reframed, closing his mouth to sigh.

"I'll be back in a few days."

"No you won't," I snapped matter-of-factly.

He said nothing but turned away. For some reason I was angrier for his composure and had even wished slightly that he would yell at me again and stay longer to do so. But he didn't.

"I'm telling you right now I'm not going to cry!" I shouted at his back, thinking that would at least jar him enough to turn, but he didn't. I was furious and desperate to get him to stay.

"Yell at me!" I shouted. "Damnit, yell at me!" He opened the car door, but before he got in I ran at him, desperately trying to hold him back. "Don't go! You won't come back if you go!"

"I'll be back in a few days" He said resolutely.

"At least let me come! I can help. Please let me come, too!"

He only untangled from my arms and got in the car. "Three days." He promised. "I'll be back by then."

"Dad!" But the car was already pulling out of the gate and Michonne held me back so I wouldn't follow.

"He shouldn't have gone. He's gunna get himself killed!" I sat on the edge of Carl's bed while we talked together in his room. He didn't look at me while he whittled away on something.

"That's Dad's decision then." Carl responded.

"To die?"

"Dad's survived worse. Much worse, Judith. He'll come back."

It was a bit rare these days when the two of us ever hung out. In all honesty, I preferred Enid's company. But today we were both feeling a bit bitter; me with being left behind and him being left behind to play babysitter. He was so often with Dad or Michonne learning what it meant to be a leader and what not and I was off doing my own things. The only real times we were together was when we had to do chores or in the evening when Bianca was on. People suspected he would probably follow in Dad's footsteps, if that jerk Spencer would stop getting in his way already.

We sat together in his room and I fiddled with one of the animal caricatures he had littered around every flat surface. Over the years he'd gotten pretty good in his skills for whittling, though I knew his true interest was to become a blacksmith if only Dad would let him go to Hilltop to apprentice there.

He said he wanted to be useful, but I think he really just wanted to make sharp things. In my opinion he was still able to help make plenty of useful things already. Carpentry, after all, was always useful.

Just then Carl handed me what he'd been working on. I turned it in my hands and realized it was a new slingshot. The shaft was carved from redwood and looked like it had been sawed off of something else while a horseshoe screwed into the frame served as the prongs. It wasn't near as nice as the one Dad had given me as a birthday present but it was sturdy and would do the job. Plus Carl had worked hard to make it for me. I turned it in my hand and stopped when I noticed an inscription carved into the wood with fading gold lettering.

My hand went to my mouth as I gasped in shock.

Lucille

"Is this…?" I couldn't even say it.

"I gathered up the other pieces and burned them in our fireplace." Carl stated. "I don't' know why I didn't toss this one in, too. But I couldn't for some reason."

"Why would you do this?"

He sat back in his chair and rubbed his neck. "I'm not even sure. It's probably in poor taste. Maybe I just wanted to rub it in Negan's face for once. Maybe I wanted a reminder that good things can come out of bad things—I don't know."

I didn't know what to say or how to feel. This was the weapon that had killed Abraham and Glenn. This was the weapon that Negan threatened and intimidated us with. This was the weapon that I had destroyed.

But it wasn't…

It was something new.

I didn't know what to do with it—if I liked it, if I wanted to use it, or if I just wanted to throw it away.

"Look you don't have to use it." He said, seeing the look in my eyes. "I'm not saying you have to. I'm not even sure if I want you to, really. I made it mostly to remind me of those things. I don't want to forget what it did even if I do hate it, but maybe in your hands it'll become something else."

I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't know what to say or if anything was appropriate to say.

"I just need one thing changed on it." I gripped it hard and turned Carl's attention to the inscription. "Is there any way to erase this part here?" My finger traced a line through the last three letters in the name. Without a word Carl took it from me, turning back to his work table and grabbed a piece of sandpaper. He rubbed circles over the letters, wearing them down to nothing so that even the name of it was no more.

Luci

The weapon was new entirely now. It was like… legendary. One sword forged from the pieces of a different darker weapon. Somehow, I was certain something like this had been described in a sort of old tale of heroes, but I couldn't remember which one that had been.

Even with that in mind we both couldn't stop staring at it, uncertain if this was okay or not. This thing had killed our people and who knew how many others. It was a symbol of our oppression and at least two other communities.

"Is this right?" I murmured.

"I don't know." Carl admitted. "But it would be nice to show him that it's yours now. That you can do whatever you want with it. He can take it back, sure, but it'll never actually be his again."

"That would be nice." I guess I was keeping it then. It would rest in my back pocket till I could make a new holster for it. "Thank you, Carl."

He shrugged.

"How do you think Dad will react when he sees it?"

His shoulders dropped in ennui, as if he didn't even want to think about it. "I don't know. But it's not his call. Use it, don't use it, I don't care and he shouldn't either."

He turned his back on me once again, but I didn't leave just yet. I looked down at the weapon in my hands and sighed, dropping my shoulders the same way Carl's had.

"Why is this happening?"

"I've been asking that question for eleven years." He said. "And I still don't know why."

My gaze turned into a glare as I mumbled. "Why did I have to poke my nose where it wasn't supposed to be? I should have just kept walking."

"Are you talking about when you were in the woods?"

"Yeah. If I'd just kept going then I wouldn't… but then he'd still be…" I stopped those thoughts in their tracks. I knew that if it were any other way he would still be toying with my dad and brother and making them hurt worse and worse. Better he was toying with me, I know they didn't think so, but he couldn't hurt me the way he hurt them. At least not yet. I think he thought since I was so young I could get away with a little more and because of that innocence I think he thought it was amusing in some way, almost like I was a kitten trying to roar at a tiger yet I only managed some weak high-pitched meows that were more adorable than fierce.

The scratches I made never even broke his hide. At the most it only made him irritable. I thought I was biting at a snake's head, but it was just his tail whipping back and forth.

I felt stupid for even trying, but I just couldn't stop running my mouth in his presence. No matter what he said, no matter what he did, why did I always have to open my mouth?

Author's notes: Thanks for all the reviews, guys. They really help so keep them coming.

I'm posting two chapters today. For those of you who don't know Hrunting and Nægling are swords of legend from the poem of Beowulf. The first was shattered in a battle between Grendel's mother and though it doesn't say so I have this theory that Nægling may have been forged from the pieces of the first. I know I'm really grasping here but I was doing research of legendary weapons that were made from the pieces of another and came up with pretty much nothing.

I hope that doesn't look tacky or half-assed.

Again thanks for the reviews.