Mortal Magic: Broken

In the absence of thought and sense I remember the feeling of emptiness. The intense pain I felt before disappeared and even its source eluded me. The only thing with me in this dark abyss was the memory of pain, and the feeling that I was about to die. Honestly I wasn’t even sure if I wasn’t dead already. I never thought about what happened after someone dies. Do they cease to exist? Does some part of them keep on existing like their consciousness or their soul? Do the souls leave the dead body to find a new one and become an entirely different person with no memory of their past life? I wasn’t sure I liked any of those options right now. I wanted to do so much before I died, and if I am to die here and now then everything would have been for nothing. My life would have been for nothing.

With these thoughts driving me madder by the minute I was drowning in this everlasting darkness and it was terrifying. I was never afraid of the dark but if a world without any sign of light existed I was sure that it would be a literal hell. Then, all around me I heard that same melody as then. The same humming song I heard the last time I was unconscious and nearly died, from the same voice as before. The mere sound of the voice was calming and I found myself not caring about what I saw, or rather wasn’t seeing. My mind was only focused on the calming melody and I felt my numb body as I slowly came back from this void.

Ever so slowly I started regaining my senses. The feeling of my numb body was the first to return and my hearing followed right behind. I heard a few birds chirping in the distance and the sound of the leaves on the trees being moved by the blowing wind. Suddenly the smell of the earth and nature hit me, the trees and the fresh soil being carried to me with the wind.

Then I started feeling what was touching my body. The ground as I was lying down on my back and the absence of my clothes from my upper body, a wet cloth on my forehead and something like a blanket covering me to my chest. I tried to open my weary eyes but I kept feeling the sting from the many hours of inactivity and fatigue. It took me a few minutes but I eventually managed to open them and then I had to close them again and repeat the action until I was used to the sudden exposure to the light of the fire. Once that happened I found myself taking in my surroundings and wandering what happened to me. The sun had fallen since the time I almost died, probably hours ago and the only light in the forest was the fire three feet away from me.

I knew that I almost died from that wild boar of insane proportions, and that somebody killed it and then took the tusk form my stomach and then closed the wound. After that everything was a complete blank since I was unconscious. I raised my head to see better in front of me and saw that I was covered with my cloak and I already knew that I wasn’t wearing my shirt. Then something fell from my forehead to my face and I made the move to take it off of me and look at it. While I was at it however I felt my whole body sore and it was painful to move even at the slightest, even breathing would prove to be a challenge if I was sitting up.

I took the piece of cloth in my hand and it was wet and was surprisingly cool to the touch. I also saw that it had a slight red tint in color and the material was familiar. The red color was washed out and I unfolded the material to find out that it was actually my partially torn shirt which must have been soaked in my blood and that of the animal.

As I was examining my shirt I didn’t notice Maia coming towards me with a small cup in her hands. The sudden movement in the background startled me and my immediate reflex was to try to get up and defend myself, but as it was expected my sore body was not going to allow me to do so. In my attempt to protect myself I actually hurt myself by damaging my muscles and letting out a loud scream of pain. Those things made me pause for enough to realize that I wasn’t in any real danger and relax mentally but I was still trying to stiffen my body before lying back down. “Don’t move you will only make things worse. I’m glad to see you awake, I’ve been taking care of you until now but without you waking to tell me how you feel your body I can’t be sure you are completely healed”.

She came closer and put the cup on my mouth and I saw it was filled with water which I drank slowly gratefully. When there was no more she put the cup on the ground and helped me lie down again before she started to examine my body for any obvious injuries. “Seems like you didn’t cause any muscles to tear with your sudden movement and that’s good. How do you feel”? I wasn’t sure if she meant generally or physically but I was going to go on a whim and say physically. “I feel like I was crashed to giant tree by a giant boar twice. My whole body is sore and every movement hurts”.

I was in a literally shitty condition. Of all the times I was injured, even those after I met Yuto, this was clearly the worst of them all. If I was alone back then I would be dead right now. No, even if I had someone with me, without Maia I would be dead either way. She was the one who saved me there was no mistaking it. As I was lost in my thoughts she started feeling my body with her hands and that same warmth seeped in my body like every time. She was the one filling me with all this warmth all along and I was completely and totally oblivious to it from the start. I remember her telling me the nature of her powers was to heal but I was sure there was more than that. As she was touching me light was emitted from her hands and that was the source of this relaxing warmth.

She passed her hands over every inch of my upper body and removed the cloak from around me to have actual contact with my skin. She said it was the best way to heal me effectively and there was no doubt in my mind this was the absolute truth. I trusted her more than I trusted myself at times. She was making me feel safe and her touch was doing so many things to me that I was losing my mind sometimes.

I closed my eyes when she moved to my arms and then to my legs where she stayed a bit longer since my clothing must have been making it harder for her light to heal me. By the time she was finished I was drowsy and relaxed. My muscles felt better and surprisingly good, like someone had been massaging me for hours. Then she pulled away and I opened my eyes to see her smiling before I was made conscious how much warmer I felt. It was happening again and I was unable to cover myself this time around. As if she was reading my mind or saw my bright red face in the light of the fire she made me turn around. “Don’t worry; I just need to do your back too”.

The moment I felt her hands on my back I shivered and stiffened to the foreign sensation; but as she started doing the same thing to my back I relaxed all over again and the drowsy feeling returned. I never realized it when she stopped as I must have dozed off and I woke up to her wiping my face with my shirt still wet and cool as before. We must be close to the river I thought. She smiled again when she noticed I was looking at her and that brought a small smile to my lips as well. She had an influence on me that I couldn’t quite place yet, but the pull was there, as real as the sun and the moon in the sky. “You know you look kind of peaceful when you sleep. It’s nice to see you like that when you are guarded awake”. The smile on my face widened and I saw a sparkle in her eyes that excited me. “Was that supposed to be a compliment”?

She blushed at my words and lowered her face a bit but she kept on looking at me the same way as before and I was lost in those blue and green eyes that I liked so much. She kept wiping my face with the wet shirt gently for minutes in silence that was both awkward and somewhat right. And then she stopped and leaned closer to me coming to my ear to whisper with a low voice. “Thank you for saving me. No one ever did something like that for me before”. As she was whispering I shivered lightly and then I felt her lips brush against my ear for a brief moment before she backed a bit and then put her lips on my left cheek. The gesture could be meaningless but it felt like it meant so much that I could not understand at all.

The kiss lasted a mere fleeting moment but that single moment lasted for an eternity in my mind and when she pulled away again I was sure that I had just lost some of my sanity and intelligence. I was looking at her like confused deer with wide eyes and a blank expression with my mouth hanging open, and that made her laugh her lungs out. I took the time she was laughing to regain my composure and then I sat up, this time with relative ease. My muscles were back to how they should be and I could move freely again without expecting pain. “Looks like you should be ready to travel in the morning. Yuto carried you while we traveled a bit more since he was sure you would want to arrive to Starkhaven as soon as possible. We should be out of the forest in a matter of hours and then it’s just a two hour way in a field to Starkhaven”.

I was confused. Yuto carried me on his back and they kept on the road for hours just for this? And now they are taking care of me until I am able to travel on my own? They do realize that I am almost a complete stranger to them right? I mean I told them my story but that was it, Yuto knows me for three weeks and Maia for just one. She saw my conflicted expression and realized that I didn’t know what to make of all of this. “Don’t think of this as something we did for a stranger. Yes you could say we are strangers but that doesn’t mean we are not on the way to being something more. Think about it this way. You fought the bandits on your own while I was scared shitless and Yuto was in no condition to think rationally from his rage”.

As she was talking she was smiling to herself and playing with the hem of her untucked shirt. That innocent smile was getting wider by the second and I could see she was trying to look anywhere but me. “And then, after you spared them and told them to give up this way of living before it’s too late, you saved us from the boar. You pushed us aside to get us out of the way and you took the fall for us. You were smashed against the tree and it was a miracle you survived that without having all your bones break”. When the memory flashed back in her mind I saw the way she cringed to the image. I would too but I was the one who experienced it so I was way past that now. “You did all that, almost lost your life, for two people who are almost strangers to you. From what you told us you never had any friends and no one did something to help you without gain. Tell me, what did you feel when you decided to save us”?

I didn’t think at the time I pushed them away from the boar. I just, didn’t want to see anyone else die. I’ve killed to survive countless times and I’ve lost a part of me that I know I can never have back. But that doesn’t mean that I enjoy seeing people die. On the contrary, I want the exact opposite. I want to make sure that no one has to die when I can do something about it. “I wanted to protect you, so that you wouldn’t die too. I don’t like watching others die and be unable to do anything; it makes me feel useless and pathetic. I’ve killed so many times that you could say that I want to protect others to erase the burden from my conscience”.

She placed her hand on my right cheek and looked at me with the sympathy in her eyes overpowering my senses. She came closer again and stayed an inch away from my face before she spoke again. “You see then why. Not all people do things only if they gain something from doing them. Some of us wish to help simply because we want to see the others happy, or to make sure that no one gets hurt. Yuto is coming with you for his own reasons but I helped you because I couldn’t bear to see you die. Not after seeing who you truly are”. Her voice was a gentle magical whisper in my ears, hypnotizing me and keeping me focused on her and her alone. With a content grin on her lips she kept speaking. “You see wanting to protect someone because you can’t stand the thought of them getting hurt if you can help it, is a beautiful thing. Even if you do it to cleanse you of your sins and the blood you spilled it’s still an act of kindness like no other. And wanting to save your sister is something that I would like to help you do; I want to meet that sweet girl you are so fond of. So stay with us, at the very least until we find her. Alright”?

She laid me down on the ground once again and covered me with the cloak once again. “Now rest; tomorrow we have a long day ahead of us”. I closed my eyes and soon felt tired all of a sudden even though I have been sleeping for hours. That was when I heard the familiar melody and reopened my eyes to see Maia humming in rhythm slowly and lowly. That smile of hers never left her face as she was slowly singing with her eyes closed. All this time I was a fool. She was the only one who could have been humming that melody while I was sleeping, and I couldn’t see the fact that it was her. This girl was surprising me more with everything she does. She was making me feel things that I never thought possible until now.

I felt my mind giving in to those emotions so new to me and it felt like barriers and walls were being brought down by her. Before I knew it the words I was thinking left my mouth in this drugged like state I was in. “You have a beautiful voice”. She opened her eyes then and looked at me startled. She must have thought that I had long fallen to sleep, but here I was admiring her singing. “Please don’t stop. It’s actually pretty relaxing”. I waited expectantly for her to register my words and that toothy grin returned before she closed her mouth and smiling she continued where she had left off.

I was basking in the sounds she was making with her voice. Low moan like sounds that she combined in a relaxing song that had won me from the first time I heard it. I was never one for songs and melodies and lullabies, but this was making me rethink my view of them. Soon after she started I closed my eyes and felt myself drifting away. Everything faded until I was only able to hear the song and that was the last thing that I remember before I was taken back to the realm of dreams for the first time in years without the nightmares.