Laurance yearned for the man he once was in a way he not knew possible until now. Carefree was far from the right word to describe the man he once was, for he cared for all of Old Meteli and protected that town with his life. There was no weight on his shoulders, at least not the weight he walked with now. Now the burden that he dragged with him everywhere was not one he had taken on by choice. No responsibility he took on. He couldn't back away from it this time. For he had welcomed death with open arms and death turned him away. Thrusting him into a limbo where he wasn't dead, but he was far from alive. Haunted by brief moments in time he struggled to string together into a memory. Images burned into his brain matching the scars along his body that felt foreign. He had looked death in the eyes, and death waved the white flag. Awoken from a battle he did not know he won. Covered in scars he had no memory of receiving. The eyes of a man he had no recollection of meeting.
He yearned for the days in which his title was nothing more than The Casanova. For now the only think most would remember him for were his eyes. No longer the emerald green that struck down women's hearts. Rather a red that resembled blood, and felt like war. It was not a war with anyone but himself. A war that he knew he'd one day lose. An ever constant battle within himself to try and be the man he once was. The man who never won a battle with death.
People aren't really supposed to do that are they? Win a battle against death, at least no in the way he did. Sure people have near death experiences all the time, or get to the brink of death, only to come back to full health. They are alive though, they never actually die. He did though, death took him in only for him to escape it. There was no word for what he was, not quite dead, defiantly not alive though. He felt alive, but not in the sense that he once felt. No longer could he feel his body deteriorating like it once did. It could withstand far worse now, a perk in his line of work. Of course those he protected rarely saw it as that.
Laurance knew he was supposed to die, and stay dead that day. The Matron in all of her glory did not allow that though. For the woman he was willing to die for needed him. It mattered not that he was a willing soul to leave the mortal plane, for she had plans that he was needed for. She didn't plan on him dying that day, but she made sure no matter how much he begged for death to take him back it wouldn't.
It was cruel in a strange way. He didn't want to die, at least not actively. Whatever this was, whatever limbo it was that he was stuck in, he didn't want it. He was ready for it to be over, everyone he had loved and protected when he was alive was taken care of. They did not need him anymore, and yet the Matron did not allow him the sweet relief of death.
