Tom's A Cold

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Tom's a-cold. Tom's a-cold. It began with the lie, a lie covered in mud and sweat, soil and water, then flesh and blood.
The young man's eyes lingered on the flame afore him, the first licks of warmth he'd had in weeks and yet... Tom was still cold. Or rather his heart was,
His heart was enclosed in ice, which was yet to be melted and that he feared never would.

He rubbed his hands erratically, his palms rough and yet simultaneously slick with the memory of sweat.
And he felt his eyes prickle with tears. But there was not enough water within him to cry. Or to sweat or even, he thought, with an aching in his stomach to urinate.

As he sat in this morbid reflection of his remaining functioning organs the king did mumble.
Incomprehensible at times, a "damn" here and there slipped out in the form of recognisable speech.
And yet thought Tom, "here is a man who was once more sane than I."
The storm could it seemed bring anyone to their knees. It howled outside, and spat with rain. Horizontal sheets of ice cold water fell.
And there... Somewhere in the distance, a bowl rattling roar, and the sound of cooking flesh.

At this the monarch sat up, his eyes wide with fresh, sobering shock.
"Now the gods wish to boil my very bones!"
He stood up and hammered his chest with pale, skeletal fists.
"Let them! Let the gods have what they will"

Beside the king a jester spoke, in soothing tongues.
"No God could concieve of such a creature. It is dragons are born of the depths of hell"