The guards could more accurately described as policemen, and as they approached quickly, I put my hands up. My long sleeves fell down pas his elbow, and I saw that my arms had wasted and paled in color.
The younger of the two became flustered, "Madam, you shouldn't act like that in front of us. We know that you would never attempt a crime. It's just that you seemed a bit ill."
The other bowed and said. " l'll retrieve you shortly if you still can't get home by yourself, until then."
The younger took it upon himself to stay with me as a stretcher came. As a true king and as the next Shah among Shah, feeling this helplessly sick felt embarrassing, and I expected that the policeman would be as well. Instead, he tried to hide a smile, as if he was in presence of a great figure.
Now, I was liked by my troops and subjects, and maybe they could even call me 'Madam'. I regret the thought, but quite a few of my habits led to the creation of that nickname. I wouldn't get mad, but no one ever saw me as an amazing individual. I was a killer, someone who sought the impossible out of glory and idealism, but this man thought otherwise. I wonder how many fine young men like the scrawny fellow in front of me fell by my lance.
Obviously, this added to my confusion, and I promptly faded out, seeking the awakening from this dream.
When I woke up, I saw my brilliant physician's white robes and called out, but my voice still sounded different.
“Please, Princess. Do not strain yourself. You've been treading in and out of consciousness for a few hours now.â€
Not only was he not my attending doctor, but he went too far with 'Princess'. 'Madam' was about as far as I could take. It was not something you say to your dying king.
"She seems to be delusional, but I don't see any signs of injury, not even sunstroke. We've also ruled out the possibility of magic influence. She wasn't even particularly dehydrated when we found her."
An impressively dressed, yet strangely familiar couple allowed themselves in, and no one thought anything of it. The crowned man looked at me compassionately, and asked whether I could recognize him.
"You must be a lesser vassal. You have some nerve walking in here," I heard myself say. My voice had acted up three times now, and I think I accepted that the local medicine had changed my voice.
"Hoh," he laughed "You must be okay if you speak like you usually do. But this is not the time for that."
I really did not recognize him. Nor did I the lady, or the physician, the guard, I could not read my own medical information when presented to me, as if it was foreign text.
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"Amnesia. She doesn't remember a thing. In a few days, more of it will return as she goes through her daily life," the doctor diagnosed after a few excruciating moments of interrogation.
My father looked distressed and couldn't stand to see me, but he looked sincere. "It must be the companion amulet. l'll have the best artificers examine it for faults. Rather, we could just get a new one."
Mother interjected now, "I really wanted you to have that amulet. It's a heirloom after all," but it seemed she was talking more to the king than me.
They said my name was Celine, I was their daughter, and I truly delusional if I still believed I was anyone else. The medicine of this country seemed to be simultaneously exotic and banal.
I looked down at myself a few times, but I was not keen on examining a different, female body just then and there. They sent me to my chambers and ordered me to rest, and after realizing the truth in the mirror, I became to question whether my life as "Alexander the Great" really was just a vivid dream.
The violence and conquest, as well as my lost allies and companion, Hephestion, and my malaria became something distant, yet I could recall details that would never be present in a dream. But Celine was right in front of me, me and her the same.
My treatment was much like that from when I was just King of Macedonia, if not more guarded. I played along, only because I was still unsure. My parents were nice people, and they sat with me when I taught how to read and write again.
I spoke the local language passively when I spoke, but reading was initially difficult. I had to go through the alphabet, and I had to read each letter when going through words, and I could not even write my own name. Celine, a Greek origin name, was written differently now.
To complicate matters, no one seemed to recognize my Greek writing. In fact, when I named the countries and regions of the world, no one caught on. I was in fact, with no nation in India at all. Everyone, from my attendants to parents, assumed I had just concocted an elaborate fantasy world. I would have realized sooner. The people here, myself included, looked European, but I knew that it was not Europe at all.
Luckily, when I did manage to go through a word, it came naturally to me, as if I had already known it and had just remembered.
About a week had passed in my retraining, but I insisted that my rehabilitation include more and more things. Since my memory hadn't "returned", no one opposed that. I read literature and did mathematics, and I learned that this Celine had been a highly intelligent and philanthropic princess, however, I was allowed to practice athletics and sports, and I realized that I was not a weak person either.
But the best thing I learned was that my parents loved me. As Alexander, while my father was true and noble, my mother may have loved me too much. She forbid me from spending too much time with friends in an attempt to spend time and bond with her. Writers always exaggerated her cruelty, but the most unforgivable thing was that she isolated Hephestion, my one best friend. It was not my fault he had some issues:
She still love me though. One other thing was that she took in cousin Cyrane. I wasn't jealous, it was just that Mom made me model clothes she was going to buy for Cyrane when she wasn't around. That led to some strange habits.
My new family was indeed cozier, only because the Queen didn't have any of those quirks, and you know, the King wasn't dead yet. Even if I would've felt this way as Al, I left for conquest before that happened, and it seems by life would end too soon.