Sigvor steeled himself.
“Listen, Shaula, I’ll… I’ll hear you out. I’ll make you a promise. Whatever is in that bag… whoever’s head is in it, I promise that I won’t say anything to anyone. You don’t need to convince me of your healing factor or your powers or anything. I won’t mention any of this to Dzan, I won’t mention it to Jelli, no one will know. Is that… Is that enough?”
“...I feel like you’re having some sort of misunderstanding here, but… honestly, that’s all I really wanted to hear from you. Confidentiality. You’re not going to go back on your word, are you? I’m going to hold you to it.”
“What kind of honorless bastard do you take me for!? I keep the promises I make, I never make them lightly nor do I make them often. Don’t underestimate me!” Sigvor crosses her arms in annoyance. She doesn’t like having her integrity being questioned, even by a young girl going through something difficult right now.
“Ok. Alright, I believe you. I know that you’re going to keep your promise. I’m… Honestly, I’m still feeling kinda weird about sharing any of this. Because Ajax is really not going to like that I showed you what I’m about to show you. He wouldn’t want you to see this. Well, at least everything will be cleared up a lot faster now.”
Shaula smiles. She loosens the cloth of the bag in order to fully open it. She reaches her hand into the bag to bring out her prize while softly mumbling to herself.
“You know, I’ve seen a lot of tv shows about how characters reveal to other characters their secret identities, or superpowers, or whatever. Why didn’t this go that easily? All of this talking back and forth… I guess that’s why I feel most at ease when I'm with the person who knows me the best.” Shaula shook her head.
Of course, Sigvor didn’t understand what Shaula had mumbled because she spoke her words in English. Shaula sighs while Sigvor wears a confused expression, having heard a language that no one else in this world speaks.
“Well, it’ll be easier if I just bring out the treasure in this bag and let the chips fall where they may…”
“Chips? Like gambling chips? I’ve never heard that expression bef–”
Shaula pulls out something from her bag, the only object in the bag. Sigvor’s expression froze immediately.
That’s… not…
“That’s… not a terrorist’s head.”
“No… No, it isn’t. It’s… You can see it for yourself, right? I don’t have to be the one to say it, do I?” Shaula smiles bitterly.
“It’s Ajax. It’s Ajax. Ajax… His h-head.” Sigvor looks at it carefully and is… unsure about what he sees. Ajax’s eyes are closed. He isn’t covered in blood. His neck wound is… covered over by skin?
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“I… I… That’s Ajax. That’s… Ajax. But–”
“Yes, it’s Ajax. He… This is what happened to him in that building. The terrorists he faced got the best of him. He got rid of them all, but… I was too late to stop this…” Shaula grimaces, gritting her teeth in frustration. Sigvor can tell that it is anger directed only at herself.
“You… were too late. He… was killed by those terrorists?” Sigvor’s head spins.
She feels tears welling up. After all that Ajax had done earlier today, even after he had gotten Dzan and Sigvor involved. She didn’t want to say it out loud, she just couldn’t voice it, but she knew that Ajax was… a hero. A hero like no other, and he had sacrificed even his own life so that no innocent person would die.
Shaula had mentioned that Ajax was tired when Sigvor and Dzan had asked her about him. She didn’t explicitly say in their conversations that he was dead.
Why didn’t she just come out and say it!?
However, before Sigvor’s tears flow, the frustrating and confusing conversation she just had with Shaula clicks into place. Why had Shaula all of a sudden brought up healing factors? It has to do with the fact that Ajax’s neck isn’t fully open and bleeding, right? Could she really believe it?
Shaula was talking about… this, wasn’t she?
“Shaula, all that stuff about healing factors and… being able to regenerate any–”
“He’s alive, Sigvor. He’s alive and… I can prove it to you.”
This is the point at which all talk is paused while Shaula carefully shows Sigvor Ajax’s head.
It is clear to Sigvor that the wound where his severed neck should be is no longer there, instead replaced by grown over skin. Shaula demonstrates the tautness of this skin, to prove that it is real. She even pinches parts of his neck which blush before returning to their proper complexion.
As she continues her demonstration, Shaula wonders if all her earlier words trying to preface her revelation of Ajax’s head were a waste of time.
Yet, at least she had spoken enough to make Sigvor really listen to Shaula’s explanation of Ajax’s current state. The chestnut haired woman shows Ajax’s living state in the easiest ways she can. She raises her right hand and generates a bright light from her palm. Sigvor winces at the suddenness of the bright light, so easily generated at the speed of thought alone.
Shaula explains calmly to Sigvor about how Ajax’s face is not at all pale and how his facial muscles are not rigid via rigor mortis. His facial muscles are still soft and malleable, even though they are somewhat unresponsive. She opens his jaw and Sigvor sees that it is still fully capable of opening and closing, his jaw muscles not rigid in the slightest.
Sigvor has seen dead bodies enough to know. If Ajax was decapitated hours ago, which is around the time when Shaula had run to check where he was, then enough time should have passed for his face to pale and his facial and jaw muscles to harden in place.
Not to mention the incontrovertible fact that his neck would not have closed over with skin the way it had. It is so obviously impossible for a fatal decapitation to take this shape. Of course, Shaula has one last piece of evidence to show, the most clear sign of life.
“Sigvor, look at Ajax’s eyes. Look at them closely.”
Shaula first demonstrates Ajax’s eyelid. She opens one of them and lets go. Sigvor gasps. His eyelid closes normally as if the head in Shaula’s hands were just sleeping. It still seems so unbelievable to her.
Sensing Sigvor’s disbelief, Shaula cradles Ajax’s head. She opens his left eye. She lifts an index finger to his open eye while cycling through various intensities. As the light she emits grows brighter, Ajax’s pupil contracts. As the light grows dimmer, it dilates. Sigvor stares in horror and shock at the impossible sight.
Ajax is alive. Somehow, he is alive, even now. It is a reality that fills Sigvor with both wonder, optimism and horror.