"-and I'm telling you, that was super cool!"

"Keep your voice down! You don't want to wake him up, do you?"

Arthur was awoken by some voices.

"Sorry," the first voice whispered.

"It's okay."

As the grogginess left from his mind, Arthur recognized the voices. They were Nigel and Sahtar. He hadn't opened his eyes yet though, so they didn't know he was awake.

"How long do you think he's gonna be out for, anyway?"

"With those wounds, it's a miracle he even made it."

Arthur wanted to sleep again. But wait. Wounds? Come to think of it, there was something going on before, wasn't there?

Arthur bolted upright as realization hit him, throwing his covers away in the process and scaring Nigel shitless.

"And here I was wondering when you'd stop playing around," Sahtar commented calmly.

"What happened?" shouted Arthur. "The ogre!" He tried to get up, only to feel a burning pain in his left shoulder. He screamed as he fell back on the back.

"Take it easy, Arthur," Sahtar said as he pushed the man's chest down. "You're still injured."

"What happened?" Arthur asked again, as soon as the pain got soft enough that it was tolerable.

"You killed the ogre and then collapsed," Nigel explained. "The General and Sahtar took the minotaurs down too, so the goblins just ran away. Then we got out of the Ant Maze and came to the nearest city to get you treated. That was three days ago. Do you know how the dwarves call you lately? The Ogre Killer! How cool is that?"

"Your condition was pretty bad," Sahtar interrupted Nigel's completely inappropriate merry speech. "Luckily, there were some skilled healers among the soldiers as well as at the town, or else..."

Arthur was dozing off when he suddenly noticed something very, very disturbing.

"Hey, Sahtar..." he asked hesitantly, "um... Where is my arm?"

Sahtar and Nigel looked at each other grimly. Indeed, Arthur's left arm was missing from the shoulder down. The shoulder itself could not be seen as it was bandaged so much it was little more than a white sphere.

"I'm sorry, Arthur," Sahtar bit the bullet. "Your arm was done for by the beast... the doctors had to amputate it."

"So it's gone? I don't have an arm anymore?"

"Yes."

"Forever?"

This time Sahtar just nodded.

"Oh... Well... I guess that's that then," Arthur managed to force out the words. Nigel was just sitting on the side, a sad look on his face.

"Do you need some time alone?" Sahtar asked.

"Yeah..." Arthur replied absent-mindedly. Having to live with only one arm for the rest of your life is not something that's easy to come to terms with.

"We understand. It's ok," Sahtar stood up and went next to the door. "Take as long as you want," he said on the way out.

"Arthur..." Nigel raised his head to look at his friend's eyes. "You were very brave out there. You saved many lives. I... I really admire you." Then he exited the room as well, and Arthur was left alone.

Looking around to distract himself, Arthur noticed some peculiarities about his room. First of all, the ceiling was too low. He figured that if he stood up, it would barely fit him.

The next one was that the room was made out of stone, unlike the wooden houses he was used to. It reminded him of his room in Waterslide, which was carved inside the mountain itself. Well, I guess this works better against fire, he thought to himself.

Looking around the room, Arthur saw it was simply but beautifully decorated, discreetly revealing a woman's gentle touch. A vase with flowers stood on a lone table with three chairs, while a small painting was on the wall opposite to the bed. Arthur couldn't see it very well from where he lay, but it looked like a flower bed next to the sea. Or was that the sky? He really couldn't tell, but he thought it was beautiful. He tried standing up, but only having one arm made it tricky and painful, so he soon gave up on the process. He didn't care about some stupid painting anyway.

And why did he have to lose his arm? He was the only one who fought the ogre, the only one who was brave enough. And he fought well too. Yet, this was how he was rewarded. How was this fair at all? What bullshit god allowed for this?

He lost his arm and only got some thanks in return. Great. And now he couldn't even raise his body from the bed. Perfect. Pathetic.

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Grumbling, Arthur tried to turn his attention to the space around him, to keep himself away from such thoughts. He could tell he was being irrational. He noticed that he didn't quite fit the bed, but there were some pillows resting under his legs to keep him straight.

Like he cared about his back being straight. If only he could have his arm back instead of some pillows, but no, they couldn't do that. They had to cut it off to save him. Was that even necessary? Maybe they were just jealous or didn't want to risk it. But nobody asked him. He would have risked it. He NEEDED his arm.

He tried to get up again and was met with some success this time, but the pain came back and he had to grit his teeth to stifle a scream. Momentarily losing control of his body, he fell back down, prompting another, even more intense bout of pain in his shoulder.

After a few minutes of alternating between self-loathing and general loathing, he was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"No," he growled, but the door opened nonetheless and General Escers entered the room.

"It's nice to see you're back with us, Arthur," he said slowly, ignoring the cripple's, because technically that's what he was now, cold gaze.

"Yes," Arthur replied after a bit.

"I'm sorry about your arm," the General said again.

"It's okay," Arthur replied out of reflex but his stance betrayed the opposite.

"You fought very bravely. I'm proud of you,” the older man tried again.

This time, the younger man didn't even respond.

Finally, the General exhaled soundly. "I'm sorry, Arthur... I know I am partially responsible for this," he said softly. "But what's done is done."

As a General, he had many strong points, but compassion wasn't one of those.

"Partially!?" Arthur erupted. "I lost my fucking arm! And you WERE responsible. How the hell am I supposed to fight an ogre?? But you could! It's all your fault!"

The General sighed, keeping his calm even at the young man's angry shouts that were most definitely heard outside the room.

"Listen, Arthur," he continued, "this is war. And things happen. Be glad you even got away with your life after stupidly engaging like that."

"Stupidly?" Arthur’s eyes widened as his shouts evolved into full-on, lung-tearing roars. "You're stupid. Your whole family is stupid!" he shouted as loudly as he could. He knew people were listening, and he was taking sick pleasure in knowing he was humiliating the general, even if he didn't really make sense. His shaken mind didn't care. If he had to be hurt, then why would he not hurt others?

The General frowned and his temper started to flare. "I hope you get better soon because tomorrow we're leaving. The war is starting and I have no time for children!" he declared in a slightly raised voice. He turned around to leave the room and slammed the door behind him.

"Fuck you too!" Arthur yelled from inside the room.

Escers walked out to find the rest of the humans staring at him. They were at the mayor's house, and just outside Arthur's room was the living room.

"Dear..." Miss Nan raised a brow.

"You should be more patient, General..." Nigel commented warily.

"You all be quiet," The General had still not calmed down. He wasn't used to people offending him. "I have no time for children. This is war, and he bloody needs to get used to it."

He then walked away. Miss Nan sighed. "I'll talk to him", she said as she followed her husband outside.

Sahtar and Nigel shook their heads looking at each other, then walked away too. Arthur did need some time alone.

🧙‍♂️🧙‍♂️🧙‍♂️

They did leave the next day. An urgent message had arrived the day after they came to town, telling them that the war was beginning and that they had to come back as soon as possible after finishing their mission. Therefore, after Arthur woke up, they allowed him one more day to rest before setting out.

Arthur, who still couldn't walk, was being carried in a wagon the dwarves had lent them. They had tried to set up a bed for him, as comfortable and steady as possible, but the uneven road still rattled him every once in a while, causing him to grit his teeth in pain.

The General didn't try to approach Arthur, and neither did he. The former was too proud to give in to a ‘teenager’, while the latter was still dealing with the trauma of losing his arm. Deep down, he knew that the general was only responsible for a small part of it, but he wasn't close to acknowledging it. He felt cheated by the world and therefore that everybody owed him, so he could be as stubborn as he wanted. It should be others begging for forgiveness, not him.

And the days went by unchangingly, which was admittedly a relief to everyone, until Waterslide appeared on the horizon. They had easily passed the borders with a special permit they’d gotten in Olympus, making the trip back much faster than expected.

One night, the General begrudgingly (and privately) apologized to Arthur. It had taken a lot of nagging from Nan to convince him, and he was ready to leave if Arthur started talking back to him again.

He did feel responsible for the young man’s injury, but there was a limit to what he could accept in return. An apology or some form of personal remuneration fell inside that limit. Withstanding insults didn’t.

To his surprise, Arthur was quick to apologize himself, stopping the General's apology. "It is just war," he said, and the General nodded vigorously in approval. This was indeed the young man he held in such high regard.

The two men made up in the blink of an eye, and that night all of them sat around the fire and drank merrily. And moderately. They were still in times of war, after all.

"To the Ogre Killer!" they loudly celebrated what was apparently Arthur's new war title.

At this point, Arthur had begun to realize that getting maimed was mostly his own fault. While those in command should have predicted the ogre and acted accordingly, there wasn't much they could do, at least not much that Arthur could think of. After all, it was Arthur himself that chose to engage the beast, and Arthur himself who made the mistakes leading to his lost arm. He knew that if he wanted to blame anyone, he should mostly blame his own weakness.

That's why, for the last few days, Arthur had been exercising as much as he could. His stump of an arm was better now, allowing him to stand up and even walk a bit, so he took the opportunity to start exercising his other arm. As a plus, the lack of an arm meant that training took significantly less time.

Additionally, he thought that if he was only going to have one arm, he would make that one strong enough that it would be enough by itself. He didn't need more than one arm to swing a sword anyway.

From the moment he thought of that, Arthur was practicing his swings as much as he could, trying to re-calibrate his practiced movements to account for the loss of balance due to the missing arm. He was being moderate, of course. The pain didn't let his movements get intense at all, but at least it was something to take his mind off things. And it was getting better by the day. Soon, he would be able to fight too.

And so, as they were almost at Waterslide, Arthur found himself slowly coming to terms with his new disability and his new life.