Merlin grimaced, “It may heal on its own, your vitality as a champion is incredible, it’s true. But it will take a long time. Such damage is difficult to repair, many tiny things to mistakenly cause more damage to. You would need a great life mage to fix this quickly, and it would be painful. I’m surprised you’re not screaming in agony. The injury was sloppy, and unrefined. This will scar your face even further, friend.”
Dog nodded, his face passive.
“Are you alright, my boy?”
“Yes.” Dog nodded.
“You don’t look alright.” Louen said.
She eyed him, and his newly minted eyepatch as he covered his eye. She’d always found him to be unique looking. His dark hair never seemed to grow, and was always the same way even after trimming. Spiked up and back along his head, as if he was ready for a fight at a moment's notice. She wouldn’t say he was traditionally handsome, his fierce visage difficult to appreciate. But when relaxed, his charm and looks unveiled themselves. All tainted by a scar that would not heal right, and the loss of his eye.
Dog said nothing.
“You’re acting like nothing happened.” Louen growled, “Look at what she did to you! She hurt you!”
“Everyone hurts me at some point.” Dog said calmly, “I am just a Dog.”
“You may go, my boy.” Merlin patted his shoulder, watching as he began his descent down the tower.
“I don’t like this, Merlin.” Louen bit her lip, “I had him move rooms. How could she do that to him? After how much he struggled for her? Bled for her? We’re all united now because of his efforts. We might survive. She just… She just snapped!”
“I agree, Louen.” Merlin said, “But I fear his heart may not.”
“What do you know, Merlin?” She asked, “I can’t let him go after the battle. She’ll kill him! I know I’m not perfect, but I’m not her! I’d never hurt him like that.”
“It’s not my place, child.” Merlin said, “It is a burden I fear he may never relinquish. Something terrible happened to him, and it left a scar upon his heart. I thought Victoria may yet heal it, but I think she may only reopen the wound.”
“Was she always like this?” Louen asked.
“Victoria has never escaped the darkness in her heart, but it did not rule her thoughts as it does now. Her upbringing is not a bedtime story either. I worry that his docile, and obedient nature has awoken something in her she has fought since she was young. I just hope they both survive it.”
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“Victoria hurt Dog.” Ruby noted as he laid back upon their shared bed.
“I’m not sure what to say.” Snow added quietly, “I never thought she’d hit you. Not like this. Not this badly. Your career as a mercenary could be over.”
“I will adapt.” Dog said.
“Aren’t you angry?” Snow asked, “I would be if Karl hurt me.”
“I don’t feel anything, Snow.” He replied.
“Smells like pain.” Ruby said at his side.
“I don’t feel any pain.”
“I think she means heartbreak, Dog.” Snow carefully noted, “I haven't seen you for weeks, and now you’re missing your eye. I’m sorry I failed you, master.”
“You didn’t fail me.” He said, sitting up and throwing his legs off the bed, “I failed me.”
He exited quietly, body moving robotically as Snow glanced at Ruby.
“Ruby.”
“Yes, Snow?”
“Teach me more about your little knives.”
Dog wandered, entering the city proper and staring up at the lanterns that lit the street. He watched the people meander, knights and others drinking long into the darkness, attempting to ward off the impending battle’s anxiety. He failed to notice the men following him, his mind adrift amidst the light and colors.
He shifted, feeling a club smack into the back of his head, but the pain curiously absent. They beat him into the cobbled street, his body broken, and battered, yet he continued to stare. One man sneered, spitting on his tunic as they made off with his mediocre money purse. He rose, his arm limp at his side, face busted and bleeding, his body covered in welts, and aches.
“Dog?” A voice called.
He turned, Harlow approaching him from a nearby pub.
“Oh my Gods.” Harlow gasped, “What happened? I heard the commotion and came to check the body. How did they do this to you?”
“I am well.” Dog said, standing and limping away, his arm drooped, leg bent.
Harlow watched on in horror, unable to respond to what she was seeing as Dog continued for the wall.
“Harlow?” John called, “He alive? What happened?”
“That was, Dog.”
John spat out his beer.
“Go get, Siegfried, and Victoria. He didn’t look right!” Harlow said, and John raced off to their quarters in the city.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Dog’s thoughts were empty, his body obeying his commands despite the agony it endured, a voice not his own whispering in his mind.
Come home. I told you. She took your eye. I told you.
“You took her from me.” Dog slurred, ignoring the gazes of the peasantry.
I had to. Nobody but me can use you properly. Don’t you see that now? How will you fight now? Your only purpose, wasted.
“You didn’t.”
I did.
“You’re all liars.” He said simply, slowly scaling the stairs along the ramparts.
What’re you doing, brother?
“I can’t fight.” Dog said.
What do you mean? Why can’t you fight?
“I don’t know. Didn’t you say that yourself?” Dog replied.
Wait. Dog! No! Don’t you dare!
“I am useless if I can’t swing her axe. I am worthless. This is all I had left. This is all I ever was. This is all I ever could be. Now I am nothing, needed by nobody. I am nothing.” Dog mumbled, scaling over the town walls.
Dog! No! Don’t you dare you dumb bastard! I’ll kill you myself! Stop!
“Goodbye, brother.” Dog struggled around his broken jaw, “Take care of her axe for me.”
DOG! He heard his brother's voice in his mind, before he hit the river at the bottom, darkness surrounding him.
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“Éadrom,” Her voice called, “Why are you here, little light?”
He opened his eyes, the warmth of the sun on his cheeks, soft meadow grass on his back. Sitting up with a start, he turned, and she smiled back at him.
Her long blonde hair flowed down her back in neatly done braids. Her facial markings glowed even in the daylight, a set of rectangular shapes running down either cheek to match her bright blue eyes. She sat, her lower half lazing in the grass as she sharpened her axe, an all knowing smile on her face.
“Mother.” Dog rasped.
“Hello, Little Light.” Ghiran smiled, “You're here, and so soon. What happened, my beloved?”
“I got hurt.” Dog said, crawling towards her, “I lost my eye. I can’t fight anymore. I’m useless. I’m sorry, I’m not smart like the others.”
Her smile fell, and his heart ached.
“Oh Éadrom, you are as smart as your siblings. You’ve always been a smart, and sweet boy. Why are you so defeated? What hurts your heart so greatly? It pains me, Éadrom, the light of my stars.”
“I’m tired.” He said, “All I know how to do is fight, and I can’t anymore. Can I stay with you?”
Her perfect face softened, “Come, stay as long as you like.” The centaur pulled him close, laying him against her chest, “You know how to do more than fight, Little Light.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.” She scolded, “Was I a bad mother? It’s all my fault you can only fight, is that it? I raised you badly.”
He panicked, “No, mother! Never! It’s my fault. I just couldn’t figure out anything else.”
“You’re wrong about yourself, Éadrom. You are kind. Your heart is so pure I want to eat it!” She pinched his ear, “But it is not mine to devour, silly boy. Too sweet, and I am too old. You are greater than you know. You are stronger than you know. Life has not been kind to you. Your better half is human, and so you have struggled. But inside your heart is kind and you have survived because you are strong.”
“I’m not.” He cried, “I’m weak. I’m the weakest of us. He’s always right, mother. Always. I lost my will to fight.”
“Oh my boy.” She cooed, pulling him against her chest, and undoing her breastplate. Pressing him against her neck as she rubbed his back, “It’s been so hard, hasn’t it?”
Dog said nothing.
“You forsake who you are, in favor of who they all wish for you to be. In favor of your perceived purpose. In favor of being wanted.”
“This is who I am.”
“You are no Dog.” She pulled him away, grabbing his head so he would meet her eyes, “You are Éadrom, beloved son of Ghiran, the Goddess of War and Destruction. My child of Light. You are beautiful, my son. As beautiful as all your siblings. Do not let him poison you. Do not let her lock you in this cage. You are more than a warrior, just as your mother was before you.”
“I don’t want to go back.” He said, the scent of flowers wafting off her skin, “I want to stay with you. I want to come home. I don't have the strength to fight every day anymore. It hurts.”
“You will.” She promised, “I will find you again, Éadrom, and it will be soon. Your brother will pay for what he’s done to you.”
“I don’t want to feel anymore. It used to be so easy when I couldn’t.”
“You could always feel, silly boy.” She flicked his nose, “Always. You just closed your heart to the sounds of the wind. Do not give up on yourself, Éadrom. Fight. I promise you my boy, I will find you. No matter what, I will come back for you. Then I will hold you close as often as you like just as we did when you were a boy.”
“How long do I have to keep suffering? I don’t want to do this anymore. What's wrong with my head? What's happening to me?"
“I cannot say yet, my beautiful boy. Soon. I’ll be back soon, my child.”
“I’m tired, mother.”
“I know, my boy. My sweet boy. Find your siblings. Protect them for me just for a little while. They need your strong heart.” She wiped tears from her eyes.
“I can’t fight him, he’s stronger than me.”
“For now.” She admitted, “But you my Little Light are the strongest. You may not be the biggest, or the meanest, or summon the winds of the world to your whim. But your heart is ten times the size of the rest. Believe in who you are inside. Be honest about who you are inside. You know who it is. It is the you who saves your enemy, who protects those who look to you for aid, the you who yearns to right the wrongs you’ve committed, the you who yearns to nurture even vermin. I will find you. I swear to you. I’ll find you even if I must cast the Gods from the stars all over again. I’m coming.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“They need you.”
“I can’t fight.”
“You can. You are one of the sons of Ghiran. You are my boy and you are strong, beautiful, and perfect. I will tell you that till the stars die.”
He looked up towards her, her heart shattering in her chest as his tears stained face met hers, snot running down his chin as he struggled. Fighting to stay in control of his facial expressions, his mouth twisted up into a vicious snarl.
“Can you help me?” He rasped, his voice small.
“Of course, my son. Always. Simply call out to me, and I’ll be there.”
He nodded, “Okay. I’ll go.”
“I’m so proud of you.”
“I’ll keep trying, mother.”
“It pains me to ask you to. But it would be a greater dishonor to allow your beautiful soul to languish.” She looked up into the sky of her astral plane, burning the tears from her eyes, “I will help you, my son. Always. Just don’t hide me in your thoughts anymore. The first step to healing what's been done is opening your mind. Follow my instructions, my dear.”