The old, familiar pain and anger that always washed over him whenever he remembered the time his leg got injured, halted as he looked down. Kael could not understand what he saw. His thoughts fell apart just as they formed and it took him almost ten seconds to realize that he had also stopped breathing.
Like a fish out of water, his body shook, muscles contracting, and took a labored, big breath. Heaving for a while, his eyes never left his leg. He had just gotten to this part of town when one of the thugs that called this part of townhome took offense to him and decided to teach him to stay away from their turf. Already weak and exhausted from living on the streets for so long, there was nothing he could do to defend himself.
His short escape was cut short by a wall and what followed was one of the worst beatings of his life. That should have been it. But the thug seemed to be in a bad mood and with such a convenient punching bag available... One of the kicks, aimed at his center, hit his leg instead. The angle was strange and his knee had simply snapped. Kael did not remember much of that night after that, only that someone else had arrived at the scene later and he was taken somewhere with a soft bed.
He had only understood the entire story the next morning when a young woman had explained it to him. Sammy, one of the newly appointed leaders of the local gang, had been the one that had saved him that night and brought him back here. One of their doctors had looked at his injury and told him that it had been fixed, but there was little else he could do. For real help, Kael would have to visit a hospital, though everyone present knew how unlikely that was.
At the end of the day, he had a lame leg and made an acquaintance in the local gang that helped keep him out of trouble with them ever since. She also always shared something to eat with him whenever they chanced upon each other. Aside from her being a gangster, she was a nice and positive woman.
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The events of that night keep playing in Kael's mind as he sat in the damp, dark alley, staring at his straight leg. Something seemed to be blocking him from understanding why his leg was not resting at a painful angle. Sometime later his brain seemed to have had enough time to process and started to respond to requests again.
Leaning down, Kael patted his leg down, trying to find anything wrong with it. Moving it came second, and with the fascination of a kid at Christmas opening his presents, he tried all kinds of positions. Once he was satisfied that nothing was hindering him from moving his leg, he tried to put pressure on it. Expecting his weak knee to give out, he was careful to avoid the pain he knew would follow.
Nothing. No problems at all. How was that possible? Slowly he stood up and put more and more of his weight on his leg, trying to find its limits. Not finding any, he was soon jumping on one leg, still not feeling any discomfort. The cocktail of emotion that had driven him out here in the first place was drowned in his excitement for the discovery, helping him indirectly deal with the events of last night. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kael knew that he would have to ultimately face them later, but this was good enough for now.
Everything else was pushed into the background as Kael tested his leg, concluding that it was at least back to normal. With how little training he had been able to do, his leg should be weak even if it was magically healed, but that appeared to not be the case. Instead, he felt better than he had when he was still doing track and field back in school. While his muscles felt tired from his earlier run, they felt strong.
Kael tried to test himself by doing a terrible rendition of what little parkour moves he had learned back in the day. He was certainly strong and nimble enough to perform the tricks, but not eating or drinking for more than a day in combination with his panicked run had already exhausted him to a point that his endurance simply could not keep up.
The way back to his hideout was long. Not only had he seemingly run quite far, but he also had no idea where he was. In the end, it took him over an hour to make his way back to familiar territory. By the time he had reached the Markroff-Rainer street, the sun was already turning orange on its way down the horizon. Exhausted as he was, Kael decided to spend the rest of this day resting, before going out training tomorrow.
Snacking on some jerky and drinking water he had taken from his limited rainy day fund, his mind wandered back to last night. “I don't know what is going to happen from now on but... Old man, thank you for giving me my life back. If there is ever anything I can do to pay back your gift, I swear that I will do anything in my power to help. Rest peacefully Archmage Myerscough.”