Back To The Palace
It was dark.
It was soft.
It was warm.
But all the same painful.
Every bone in his body voiced its anger at him, and he couldn't do much more than groan in response as his cocoon was punctured by a spec of light. His mind took offense to it, not yet ready to deal with awareness, but incapable of ignoring it any longer.
With another disgruntled grunt, he was forced to open his eyes and stare blankly at the ceiling.
Now fully awake, his mind had to grapple with information it had to put off for a while. Where was he? How did he get there? Was he even alive?
The agony that seized him answered his last question. He wouldn't be in pain if he was dead, which he took as a good sign, marginally.
He forced his heavy head to move around, to spy and take in where he was and found the surroundings familiar. He was in the guest room in Harun's palace.