The payment you deserve

He looked down at his hand, considering the fine lines criss-crossing it. Lines that had come from a long life filled with hard work and struggle. He was old now. Things were coming to an end, and he was well aware of it. And if he was to be honest with himself he'd have to admit that he didn't really mind. He knew he'd had more time than was rightfully his.

His only wish was that he'd be given time and luck enough to undo his biggest crime - deserting his only kin.

Stuck in the fall of life he could no longer leave his shabby rag of a matress other than in spirit. In his mind he was still travelling all across the world, though not doing the deeds he had while still able to go in flesh. In his mind he wasmaking up for all the evil he had done, all the chaos he had created merely by being himself. He leaned back on his dusty, torn pillows and waited for his scouts - all ragged little guttersnipes - to return with news of his daughter. All he wanted was to be allowed to tell her that he loved her. She was the only one he had ever cared for, but had he showed it? Never! Not him, the infamous King of the Roads, with all his threats and mean acts. How could he show sympathy and compassion? It simply didn't make sense, and in his world there had been no place for illogical appearances. He had a reputation to live up to, and there was no place in that for kindness to the daughter of a whore.

Now on the final edge of life he desperatly regretted not cherishing the only good thing that had come from his existance. She was a fine lass, he knew that. Her mother had had sense enough to send her away (and that merely a week before her throat was slit by one of her customers).

He was getting impatient. His fingers tapped against the frame of an old photography. He wanted her to have it. He wanted her to know that her roots weren't all that bad, that only her father had been a creep, not the rest of the family. And somehow he also wanted her forgiveness.

For months he had struggled for his life in that very same room. His last reserves were running out. He was so weary. His guilt was all he had left. Everything else was long since gone. He closed his eyes and imediatly fell asleep.

In the morning when one of the scouts returned he found the old man frozen in an expression of pure agony, eyes wide open in fear and pain as he had seen his final judgement come over him. His hands were cramped around the old photography, and his mouth with it's pale blue lips open in one last eternal scream.

The lad grinned in joyous contempt at his dead master. He figured it served the old bastard right. Straightening his face to a faked mourning he walked back out to the other room. He turned to the young woman he had brought with him and said:

"I regret to say this, good lass, but your old man's dead."