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She kept his coat longer than he thought she would.
It hadn't reappeared around his shoulders by the time the trees grew thin and the horizon began to glow with the familiar sunset. But she was still on his tongue, so he wasn't surprised.
It stayed gone while he cleaned The Redeemer- as clean as The Entity allowed, anyway. It didn't matter what he tried, the metal was stained red, as though rust had begun to devour the harpoon. He wondered how much of the stain was hers.
Still coatless, he patrolled the wide-open, dead expanse of his realm. Empty, of course, save for the countless corpses. All dead by his hand, he knew. When he was lucky, he didn't recognize them. When The Entity was displeased, he saw the faces of his comrades; of the innocent, women and children even. Next time, he was certain it would be her body, slumped in the corner with an empty hole for a stomach and crow-pecked eyes, and it would hurt more than it should, and The Entity would know that, and take all the more pleasure in it.
The Deathslinger continued on.
He wasn't going to find any survivors, he knew that. The realm changed under a trial- or maybe it was a separate trial realm entirely, but his Glenvale didn't have any generators, or a basement, or a trapdoor. The hooks stayed, however, always looming, menacing. But that wasn't the real difference. The Entity did not just change his realm, it changed The Deathslinger himself. It thrust him back in time, ripped open old wounds and reminded him of his incensed bloodlust. Survivors were sometimes unrecognizable, just convicts, more Wardens, more Bayshores, all bounties, to be paid in blood. And it was so effortless, with the way The Entity sharpened his senses, strengthened his bones, even dulled the pain in his jaw and leg. Being summoned to a trial was intoxicating, exhilarating, like all the best drugs were... Then when all was said and done, it left him feeling empty and used, like all the worst. His past was used to manipulate him in the name of The Entity's entertainment, but he'd learned long ago that his anger had a better outlet than the survivors. For The Entity was no better than the Prison Warden. It was Henry Bayshore, it was tycoons and chiselers and-
Every crow in Glenvale screamed, and Caleb gritted his teeth. The Entity did not take kindly to blasphemous thoughts. But they both knew he would hunt and kill for it whether he wanted to or not. He knew better than to fight back against something so untouchable, but it still took every opportunity to reassert itself.
A nearby crow stared at him, standing atop the blond head of a mercifully indistinct corpse.
Caleb's lip curled. No, he assured the crow, she wasn't a weakness. What she gave him was clarity, was all. It ain't hard for a man to get a bit squirrelly all alone for so long. And if she was a weakness, his hide would be all the more prepared for a tanning.
The Entity did not like that. The crow screeched, spread its wings, and flew at him, talons outstretched-
And was promptly speared to the wall.
Caleb reeled in The Redeemer without a backwards glance at the bird. He'd see no retribution for killing it. He and The Entity both knew it wouldn't do anything beyond what could be considered a warning. There were rules to this place; laws that even The Entity adhered to. Punishments and rewards were earned. The next time a trial went poorly, he'd have more than earned the torture- a tingling in his bad leg promised him that much. But he had nothing to fear until a trial went poorly...
But each performance was under the arbitrary, subjective judgment of The Entity.
When he finally walked back into the saloon, a crow was pecking a hole in the shoulder of his duster, draped over the back of a chair. He should have been happy to have it back. Instead, an unfamiliar feeling weighed down his chest. One way or another, she'd stopped thinking about his coat, but it hadn't appeared on his shoulders.
Because he hadn't stopped thinking about her.