† The Healing

Three years was a long time. She said as much to Alaric.

‘Why would you mind if it is?’ Alaric replied, stroking Nenya’s dainty head absentmindedly.

‘I have not been back to Henesys for three years.’

Alaric’s gaze was sharp as he looked at her, her wistful tone making his eyebrow rise. ‘No, you haven’t.’

‘And you have taught me all you can.’ She looked down at her empty hands. They had the same calluses as Alaric’s, rough patches of dead skin across the flesh where fingers met palm. The friction of the pestle against bare skin had worn them there, from the times she had used it to grind herbs during three years of potion making lessons.

‘Yes, I have.’ Alaric continued to stroke Nenya’s head, his voice wary now.

There was silence, not uncommon ever since her ordeal, but it was gently interrupted as Nenya sang a contented note at Alaric’s touch.

‘It is time that I put what you taught me to good use.’

Alaric did not look at her.

She sighed, thinking that her mentor was forcing her to be more direct in her request. ‘I have to go back.’

‘You still don’t understand.’ Alaric finally said. ‘Three years may be a long time, but it wasn’t enough for you to grow up. I may have taught you all I can, but I could never teach you to accept the fact that what is gone, is forever lost.’ His green eyes locked onto hers now. ‘People don’t change what they think about others, especially if they didn’t think much about you in the first place.’

‘I can change that,’ she insisted.

‘I thought I could too.’ Alaric’s voice was low. ‘I was young and childish, like you, when I made my mistake of loving someone even though my future vocation permitted only celibacy. The elders condemned me when they found out, and punished my love.’ Nenya sang softly, a sorrowful counter-note.

‘My dishonour was no lesser in the eyes of the Holy Order, even after an epidemic broke out amongst their ranks and I was the only Priest capable of concocting an cure to the deadly disease. I single-handedly saved my brethren, and in return, they only banished me further for daring to defy my exile, to this forest to watch for you and to train your talent for the Order’s glory.’ His tone was bitter now, as if his tongue tasted the resentment in his heart. ‘Sometimes I wonder if your people actually had it right about the heathen pagans.’

‘But Priest as you are, you would not have left your brethren to die,’ she spoke quietly. She understood him too well, just as he had came to understand and love her in a fatherly way. He did not want her to hurt, but she had to at least try.

The man sighed. ‘Go, if you so wish.’

As Alaric watched her leave the cottage from where he sat, he murmured to the tiny blue dragon hovering next to his head, ‘Do you think she will succeed, my love?’

Nenya only sang a gentle fluting note in response.

Three years was a long time. Henesys had not changed much in that long time, the simple village still isolated from the rest of the world by the dense forests around it.

But for her, it was too different. The children she had played with, the boys she had dreamt of getting married to, the girls she had shared those dreams with; all these people recognised her as she walked down the dirt path and dared not approach.

She could have teleported straight to her old home, but decided against it, forcing herself to walk. She told herself that it was not because she feared it would advertise her as a magician; it would just be plain rude.

‘Witch. Murderous witch.’ The words from that long time ago came back to haunt her. She could sense the villagers’ fear, their ignorant fear of the unknown and unfamiliar. ‘Witch.’ It hurt her to hear those words, but she forgave them. She now knew that the powers she possessed were not common amongst her people; it was strange, to them, and logically, those who had it were evil.

She lowered her head, letting the wide soft tassels at the side of her black seraphis hide her face, and drew her black cape closer to her, even though the weather was warm, stifling hot even. She recalled how Alaric had appeared to her that night, the wild dangerous heathen to tame a wild dangerous child. Did these people see her like that now?

Finally, she came to stand before her house, the sight of the squat structure making her heart skip a beat. She almost turned away then, but steeled herself, clenching the winged staff in her hand.

Three years. She was here to make up for three years of loss, to reverse three years of estrangement from home.

She was here to heal Ezek.

The door was unlocked. She pushed it open, its hinges voicing a protest that hadn’t been audible three years ago. Her mother sat at the wooden table before the door that lead to the kitchen, the table around which her family had eaten meals in those long lost happy times. She remembered, how her mother would scold her, gently of course, whenever she fought with Ezek for first dibs on the drumstick of the fried chicken, and how her father would make her give way to her brother.

She was always fighting with Ezek, over the most trivial of matters. As boisterous children, their fights would quickly escalate into full brawls that usually ended as abruptly as they began, leaving both of them seriously scared at the other’s violence. Neither could believe that their own sibling could hurt themselves that badly.

As for that day… she could not remember the disagreement that started it all. She only knew that it was Ezek that provoked her; he always knew how to hit all her raw spots, whether it came to stealing her toys or embarrassing her in front of Athena Pierce when the famous huntress came around to look for apprentices. He did it very well too, in the confidence given to him by their parents’ pampering of their only son.

At the sound of footsteps, the woman at the table looked up from the cup of pure water in her hands. She saw a stranger walk in and then closed her eyes. As far as she was concerned, her daughter had died three years ago, lost to the haunted forests of Ellinia; may the damned creatures in there take her wicked soul.

Her father was standing at the door to Ezek’s room. ‘What are you here for?’ he asked harshly. In three years, the lines on his face seemed to have deepened, making him look haggard. She longed to reach out to him and smooth away the lines there with her magic. There was nothing in that face of the stern, strict man who had reprimanded her so firmly whenever she had done something wrong.

‘Are you here to finish what you started?’

Was she? In a way, ‘Yes, I am. I must see him.’

‘Get out, witch! You have caused enough grief. Begone from this house!’ The man tried to block her way as she walked up to him. She wavered for a second, the words harsh against her ears, but forced herself to look at the man that was her father. She must finish what she came here for; once she healed him, it will all be alright. Everything always boiled down to Ezek.

In the end, he let her pass. Whether it was fear for the evil wings she held with authority in her hands, or one last shred of love for his daughter that made him do so, she did not let herself wonder about it for long. She had to calm her thoughts and empty her mind of all the painful memories that this familiar house had stirred up, to enter the state of meditation necessary for spellwork.

Ezek’s room was dark, a thick curtain across the window not allowing the bright sunlight to fall onto the pale, emaciated figure on the bed. ‘Zekkie.’ Her old nickname for him felt foreign on her tongue. At the sound of her cracking voice, Ezek’s eyes flew open and stared right her, full of silent hatred and blame.

‘Zekkie,’ she tried again, kneeling down at his bedside. He continued to stare at her. ‘I am here to heal you. I’m really sorry for what I did to you, I can’t even begin to say how much. Maybe you will find it somewhere in you to forgive me when I have made my amends.’

She gently pulled off the woollen blankets covering his lower body, revealing stick-thin crippled legs that were twisted worse than she remembered. How could she have been so cruel to visit such hurt on her own brother? True, he had provoked her first, and had continued to push her beyond her limits. Frustrated and maddened, she had unconsciously struck out with her then-untamed powers. She had not known the consequences.

How she wished that the hands of time could be reversed! But now, it was useless to even say that it was too late for regrets. Setting aside her staff, she laid hands on Ezek’s gnarled legs. A soft green glow infused her hands as she drew on her reserve of mana, green sparks flowing from her fingers and disappearing into Ezek’s scarred flesh. In her mind, she held the image of his legs whole and straight again, and her memories of the times they had played together, him running fast and swiftly on strong legs across the green fields that laid in the midst of the village, taunting his younger sister who always ran behind, trying her best to keep up.

She let her mana seep past atrophied muscles, and reached crooked bones, encouraging them to restructure and repair themselves with the extra energy. She rearranged twisted ligaments, smoothened out damaged tissues and willed dead nerve cells to regenerate themselves.

By the time the green glow faded from both her hands and Ezek’s legs, the sunlight no longer fought to reach past the heavy curtain as twilight settled over Henesys. She felt drained as she leaned back on her heels, but it was normal. Healing always took a lot out of her.

She waited a while to find her voice. ‘Zekkie, stand. Walk.’

He had been watching the entire process with a mixture of fascination and apprehension, watching the hands that had crippled him heal him now. With trembling hands, he forced himself to sit upright. With his hands, he carried one leg, then the other to the side of the bed and pushed himself into a standing position. She reached out to support him, but he refused her help. He wobbled a little, unused to the position, but his legs held.

She smiled at his success.

‘Balrog take you, damned witch.’ The next thing she knew, she was lying on her back on the floor, her jaw first numb, then smarting hard enough to make her gasp, from the vicious punch that Ezek threw at her. He fell upon her now, still trying to hit her, but she instantly sketched a shield that warded off his blows, the spell coming to her automatically despite her confusion.

‘What are you doing, Zekkie, I was trying to help!’

‘You should never have come back! What did you want to get out of this? Using your filthy pagan magic to heal me so that I’ll feel forever indebted and grateful to you? Witch.’ His voice shook as he still tried to thrash at the magic guard around her. Her father only watched from the doorway where he had been standing since the beginning, and she saw him smile.

‘I thought you would forgive me.’ She refused to let the tears at the back of her eyes fall. Alaric had warned her, and she had no t listened, again.

‘Do you think I can forgive you just like that? Three years I was useless. I couldn’t walk or even stand. Three years! Even if I killed you now, you could never give me back what you stole from me!’

Tired as she was from the healing, she knew she couldn’t hold up against the barrage any longer. The discipline that Alaric forced on her allowed her to focus for a crucial moment, and then she cast the spell. A whirl of teleportal energies appeared and swallowed her up, sweeping her away from beneath the raging Ezek.

The last thing she saw of her family was her mother rushing into the room to embrace Ezek, her hands running all over him to check that the stranger had not hurt her only child.

Why did it hurt so much to lose them, when she knew that all this would happen?

She appeared at the edge of Ellinia Forest, the teleportal energies setting her lightly on her feet. Momentarily disorientated, her head still reeling from the physical and emotional pain, she staggered. A strong hand caught her elbow immediately, steadying her.

It was Alaric, who had been waiting for her exactly like he had three long years ago. One look into her eyes and he knew. ‘Dear foolish child,’ he whispered, enfolding her into an embrace as they both cried, shedding tears over their own losses for one last time.

Nenya danced overhead, singing that low bittersweet note once again.

Fin

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Links to earlier parts:
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Author’s Note (1): Alaric’s past is my own creation. The main character’s mentor in the original story did not have a dragon, nor a past. So I gave Alaric both. 😀
Author’s Note (2): Yes, this is the end. 😀 See, I can finish a story under five parts.

For all of you that have read this from part one till now: Cookies~!