Chapter 2: Memories and Exposure
MERLIN/GRIM POV:
"Grim?" the boy said to me.
How am I still alive? Didn't the effect of using Viajar's eye kill me? I saw my legs and arms turn to ash before everything became black. There's no way I should be alive.
The boy continued, "Grim, say something, please. You're scaring me."
Grim? Who's that? Is he talking about me?
The first thing I needed to do was find out what happened after I killed Yithrus. That takes priority before anything else.
I tried to get up but felt an overwhelming pain in my legs. I fell back onto the ground and my vision blackened once more. The voice of the boy yelling out to me. His voice became distorted, and I soon met silence.
***
I opened my eyes, staring at the ceiling. I sat up on the bed and looked around. I found myself in a room with one window and two beds. Between the two beds was a dresser.
My legs! I thought to myself. I quickly pulled off the bed covers, and I felt sick to my stomach. My legs had shrunken and were that of a child's. It horrified me, the number of years that went into training my body. Gone, just like that.
What did they do to me? Did they have to amputate my legs? Will this issue affect my ability to walk?
I was having a panic attack. I can't become crippled, not like this. King Arthur will find me and then kill me.
Thoughts of worry and despair filled my head. What can I do at this point?
Creak…
I looked toward the source of the sound to see the door to the room open. Standing in the doorway was a girl with blond hair and blue eyes. What stood out to me were the black horns on the sides of her head.
Horns… Yithrus!
It all made sense now. I was taken away by Yithrus's soldiers after the battle. They must have brought me to some remote location. Yet, why bring a child to enter the room?
I yelled angrily, "Hey, what the fuck happened!? What did you guys do to me!?"
The girl didn't answer and looked at me. The only difference was that she looked angry. After a few seconds of her just staring at me, I had to ask, "Aren't you going to say anything?"
The girl's stare lingered on me for a few seconds before she went out of my view. A thought lingered after the interaction with her. "What the fuck was that?"
I tried to get off my bed to follow her, but the sharp pain in my legs reappeared again. I looked at them, but other than the traces of wounds on them, nothing seemed wrong.
It confused me until an answer occurred to me. What if it's something wrong with the bones inside?
I tried moving my right leg a bit, and I met with the same pain. Confirming my idea about what was wrong with my legs. I let out a sigh, knowing it crippled me for the time being, and being in unknown territory only made things meddlesome.
Despite that, I don't feel in danger, considering how she acted. I don't think I'm in Aesis, thank god for that. For the time being, I don't have to worry about King Arthur's knights finding me.
I let out a breath, relieved that the issue was taken off my shoulders temporarily. Regardless, there are more important things to do. First things first, it's time to see if there is anything of use to me here.
I know I can't get up so that only limits me to the dresser. I stretched my hand out towards the dresser, and thankfully, it reached. I opened the first drawer to see its contents and saw bandages.
Ah, the bandages that were supposed to be on my legs are here. I wonder who's the dumbass that fucked that up; I thought to myself, irritated.
I put the bandages on the bed and closed the drawer. I opened the second drawer to find a handheld mirror, a pink hairbrush, and a diary.
"Wow, the second drawer sure had a lot." Merlin thought to himself, "I wonder whose possessions are these? Maybe the girl with the horns?"
I don't see the use of the mirror, though. Actually, though, if they did something to my legs, what would that mean to the rest of my body?
I hesitated, but decided it wouldn't hurt to see if anything changed about me after the battle with Yithrus.
I grabbed the hand-held mirror gently and brought it to my face, hoping it was intact. The mirror fell onto my lap, the reflection from the mirror did not belong to me.
In the reflection, there was a young child with black hair that went to his shoulders with dark yellow eyes. The child bore no scars or marks on his face as I did, nor did he have a relic in his eye.
I looked in the mirror and a memory came back, the memory of before I passed out. The memory of a boy with glasses calling me Grim and asking me if I was alright. It all made sense to me now. I'm no longer me.
"Is this the supposed afterlife those philosophers were talking about? And to think I called them senile. Now it feels like I can hear them laughing at me and dancing in their triumph.
There were so many questions floating in my head. A majority of them summarize into one simple question yet no answer for it. How did this even happen?
Creak…
I snapped out of my thoughts and turned towards the door to see a woman who seemed to be in her mid-thirties come in. She had black hair with green eyes that looked stunning. She wore black pants with a black trench coat that made her look somewhat cool.
I couldn't say the same for her expression however, she looked angry. She walked up to the bed I was lying on and smacked me on the forehead.
"How many times have I told you to not use that language in front of Alice!?" she said while looking at me with a scowl.
The lady then sighed as I rubbed the area on my forehead that was smacked.
"You're lucky it was just your legs. You could have died if the carriage ran over something vital." The lady gasped before I could respond, saying, "Why are there no bandages wrapped around your legs!?"
"Beautiful, aren't they?" I responded happily as I wiggled my toes, hoping to irritate her.
She ignored me and turned towards the doorway to yell, "Fay! Come upstairs please!"
For the first few seconds, nothing happened. Then, the stairs creaked as steps hastened fast up the stairs. Once the noise stopped, the boy from my earlier memory appeared at the doorway.
Fay, what a nice name, I thought to myself, certainly better than Grim.
Fay looked at the lady and nervously responded, "Yes, Ms. Shiva, is there something wrong?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that Grim's legs are broken and there are no bandages applied to them." the lady clicked her foot onto the floor, waiting for Fay to answer back.
Fay looked prideful at the lady's observation and confidently said, "That's because I did it on purpose. My hypothesis was that if I left his legs without the bandages, then they would heal faster because of the sunlight. Sunlight is very important for bone growth, ya know?"
Even without looking at "Ms. Shiva's" face, I could feel in the atmosphere that she was disappointed. She turned back facing me and grabbed the bandages off the bed.
Without looking at Fay, she told him, "You may leave now, Fay."
Fay looked at me for a second with a hint of anger on his face before leaving the room. What's his problem? I pondered until Ms. Shiva asked me, "Can you straighten your legs, so I can apply the bandages?"
I looked down, realizing I was still sitting up, and said, "Yeah, sure."
I straightened my legs out, and she got to work. I watched as she carefully tended to my legs with care and tenderness.
It felt nice for a change to let someone else take care of my burdens. When was the last time I didn't worry about myself? I thought to myself. As she tended my wounds, I didn't know if it was physical or mental exhaustion, but my eyes closed and all I saw was black.
***
??? POV:
Merlin found himself with a sword in his hands on a fighting platform. Surrounding the platform was a stadium full of people. Through a room's window on top of the stadium was King Uther, Prince Arthur, and Merlin's father, Falen, watching.
"C'mon! You can do better than this Merlin, your blood serves the King! Hit him harder!"
"Yeah! Hit him harder! You're better than this!"
Chants that were supposed to encourage Merlin only added to the pressure he was currently facing.
I have to win… I have to win… I have to win…
Merlin's mind was set on winning this match. The next ruler of Lavin's knight is chosen from a competition that is held every time a new successor to the throne is picked. The competition is a brutal form of choosing a knight to serve the next king because one's loss meant death from the opposition.
Merlin steadied his breathing and charged forward. The knight at the other end of the platform charged forward as well. Their swords clashed, letting sparks fly off from the bind between them. Merlin ducked and let the knight's sword slash continue to move.
The knight tried to step back, but Merlin stabbed his sword into the knight's chest. The top half of Merlin's sword was now dripping blood onto the ground from its edges. Merlin put his foot onto the knight's torso and kicked him.
The knight fell to the ground as chants of excitement broke out and chants of hate and sorrow filled the stadium. The knight was slowly dying as Merlin walked closer to him. The crowd watched as Merlin hovered his sword over the dying knight's head.
Some gasped, and some cussed him out, but one voice stood out from the crowd. Though Merlin didn't look toward the source, he could distinguish the voice expressing grief, not as a spectator but more than a father.
"Please, you don't have to do this. It's the final match. You know that my son would have value in Lavin's military. Please, let him live, and make use of him elsewhere. You've already won, please."
Merlin didn't feel guilt for what he was about to do. He had already lost his mother and his innocence long ago. After all, wasn't this tradition? It's usually in the finals that the victor gives the fallen a brutal death. If that's the case, why should he care about the father's proposal?
Merlin lifted his sword from the knight's head and for a second, half of the crowd seemed disappointed while the other half saw humanity in Merlin and felt his mercy. The crowd was wrong. Merlin's thrusting his sword into the knight's skull and hoisting him up with his sword as if he were a trophy proved that.
Merlin aimed the sword toward the room above the stadium that contained the king with his son and his father. The crowd that had been disappointed was cheering and yelling while it pissed the other side of the crowd that they lost. The people cheering for him turned out the father's cries of grief.
Merlin made eye contact with the prince and held up the knight higher, almost as if he was offering it to him. The prince gave Merlin a grin. A grin of approval, something Merlin had been wanting from his father since childhood. With the loud cheering, Merlin didn't notice that the father of the knight had pulled out a crossbow.
An arrow pierced Merlin's neck, causing Merlin to drop his sword. He put his hand on the arrow, realizing he had been shot. Merlin fell onto the floor as his vision started failing him. From the corner of his eyes, he saw knights pulling the man out of the stands to put him into custody.
The world around him blackened to where it was no longer necessary to keep his eyes open. For a moment, he felt something that felt like a towel touching him.
***
I stood up, panting heavily while trying to recompose myself. I saw the girl from earlier next to my bedside with a towel in her hands.
So she's the one that wiped the sweat off me. I noticed the sweat on my hands, but none on my face. It still left some trace of sweat on my face, so that explains it.
She looked at me carefully. Inspecting me before asking, "You're not, Grim, are you?"
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