Created:
2007-01-02 02:44:45
First I need to explain somethings. Naqada and his people are totally brain washed (see my story "To Kill the Wolves"). Naqada, the Halamay prince, has spent his life hating and killing the other races of the north. However, he slowly discovers (complicated, you'll see later) that his mother was a Seprichal and his enemy is his half brother (sounds cliche, I know, but it serves and important purpose). So all his beliefs are being brought into question, life is REALLY sucking right about now, so he runs away to try to find some answers. Unfortunatly, being a prince who has never been alone in his life... he doesn't know hoe to take care of himself. Silly baby.
He was ashamed of his ignorance, his wretched stinking ignorance that plumed around him and stung his eyes. He couldn’t do anything alone. He couldn’t think or act without someone holding his hand! And now he was alone and hunted and dying. Very slowly dying. He had no food, no clean water. He sat and stared horrified at his cracked bleeding hands. A prince’s hand should not shatter with cuts at every flex; scab stiff and leave him helpless. He had a fever. He didn’t know it. He had never gotten a fever before. He thought he was just very hungry, which he was, but that wasn’t what was making him quake and sweat. He would die with no answers. Alone. He had never been alone before. Everything was new to him, especially this fear of death. He felt immortal before, but now he saw the reaper for the first time, cupping handfuls of dirty water into his mouth.
He thought he was going blind, but it was just his fever dulling his senses, pulling him into the ground. Even with no blush to his cheeks, now hallow, battered and sunken, he still looked like a fallen angel when his exhausted form laid twisted on the moss beds, unable to move. He wouldn’t hear the stranger approach him and gasp in pity for such a lovely fallen youth.
His eyes didn’t open right away. But through his pain he could feel a bed, and he could hear a quarrel. He couldn’t understand the language, but he knew what it was. It was the Seprichal tongue. His enemies… or maybe his brethren… he knew nothing now, which is the whole reason he ran away in the first place. But soon he felt death stroking his skin again, and in his panic he croaked out a little, “Help…”
The voices silenced.
“Please… oh please… I don’t want to die…” The salt of his tears stung the scrapes on his face. Something cold and wet padded his forehead. He was too disoriented to understand what it was and where it was coming from. By this time he had forgotten the Seprichals completely, but he still kept pleading to be saved. He was terrified.
He drank something. He ate something soft. He smelled soothing vapors. He slept, for only a little while it seemed, but he had really slept for days.
Naqada woke up chilled, frightened, his eyes wide to see if he was dead. He felt like he had been running for hours without end. But where was this? What was this place he had woken into? Plants hung from the ceiling to dry along with pots and great spoons. The place was wood, and quaint. The beams were carved with twisting lines and creatures that could have been horses. A Seprichal house. Maybe a wealthy farmer’s. Why were they taking care of a Halamay like him? They were at war. Why was he here?
A stout blond woman walked into view with a broom, stirring the dust on the floor into a low-lying mist. Her mind seemed elsewhere as she carelessly twirled the dust about. He debated whether he should talk to her; he feared she might stab him. But he was hungry, even hungrier than before.
“Uh…” his tongue was too limp to spill out a word. She looked up in shock, holding the broom handle to her chest. She let it drop and sped over to him, the dust cloud clinging to the hem of her dress. She looked into his open eyes in shock before letting out a triumphant squeal.
“Ritter!” she cried and ran off, leaving the prince dazed and starving. He rasped out a sigh. Surly he’d die now, and with all this food hanging above him… it was too cruel.
A lanky man slid in through the dust cloud, his bald spot glowing in the murky light surrounded by graying strawberry gold hair. The woman spoke quickly too him, puffing her chest out proudly and waving her hand at the newly awakened corpse. The man ignored her.
“Hello, there,” he said. “I’m, uh, Ritter here and this is my wife, Unna. She’s been nursing you all this time, uh, yes, well, you do speak Drocgugian, do you? I mean, most people do but, well…”
Naqada’s swollen eyes looked at the man blankly.
“It’s not like you should speak anyway. You must be weak. Uhm, Unna! Unna!”
The woman cried something aggressively. He responded, waving her off like a servant. She huffed and sauntered away.
“Well, if you can understand me, wonderful. I found you while hunting, and dear, well, Halamay don’t usually come this far into our territory and you were all alone. I couldn’t imagine you meant to do ill, running up in here by yourself. It’s more suicide than anything, in which case I’m sorry we’re spoiling it for you. It’s just well… you’re so young…”
The woman barked something at him and he drew back and waved his arms at her as if batting her away.
“Unna was against helping you, as you can probably understand. But she did a fine job, I mean… you’re not dead!” he laughed but soon Naqada’s blank stare bit him.
“Well… could you at least try to speak, maybe? Would you like anything? Unna’s making you some soup now…”
“Yes…” Naqada squeezed out of his mouth.
“Yes, you want something or yes, soup?”
“Soup…”
“Wonderful!” Ritter cried something over to Unna and she just sighed. He looked back over and smiled foolishly then nodded at Naqada’s covers.
“The children have been helping too,” he said with a smile. Naqada’s eyes rolled down to observe the length of his body where he saw little piles of wild flowers.
“They’re quite taken with you. They would’ve been a wreck had you died,” Ritter smiled. Naqada looked back up. What was this? Why were they doing this? He had killed people like this, but here they were, for no reason at all, making him soup and sprinkling him with flowers. These people were barbarians… but… the reason he ran flooded back to him. The image of his Seprichal mother hidden from him for years. What was he? What was anybody?
His face looked pained.
“A-a-are you alright?” asked Ritter leaning closer to examine him.
“Why?...” Naqada croaked.
“Why? Why help you, you mean? I told you… you’re just so young.”
The soup could have tasted like anything. He would have eaten it like a swine if he was strong enough. Ritter talked to him incessantly, and Naqada’s fevered mind could only take in parts of it. It took him a day or two to really get any sense back, and still things were shaky. Apparently he was awake the whole time, but he remembered hardly anything. Once he could sit up things became easier though. His eyes stung because allegedly, during some of the time he had forgotten, he was crying constantly.
One day it was raining, and the elusive children were trapped indoors. Everyday they brought him flowers and sometimes when he was too sick to move they would take their little girl combs and comb his hair.
He sat up in his little corner, leaning against the wall and watched them, the entire family, and in a fevered flurry he saw them dead. He saw they burning. He saw his blades, his rage, he saw their house ablaze, their father, in armor dead on the ground. The mother grasping her babies, the three of them littered in arrows. He had seen this before, a hundred times before… this was the man behind the helmet, these were the screams from the collapsing house. These were the barbarians he killed, spilled the insides of, hated, menaced, destroyed. He saw now what it was he was killing.
Unna handed him a cup, and he dropped it.
“I’m sorry…” he choked as his throat began to sob.
“Oh no, don’t worry, we have plenty more cups. You’re sick…” Ritter babbled diving onto the floor with a cloth.
“I’m sorry…” Naqada wept. “I’m sorry…”
“It’s not a problem, calm yourself or you’ll faint again.”
“I’ve killed people like you…” Naqada gasped. “Just like you… I’ve killed you…”
“You’re a Halamay, it’s a war. Of course- ”
“I’ve killed you! I’ve killed you! I didn’t know! I didn’t know what you were! I didn’t know! I’m sorry!” he screamed. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
The girls’ bodies were twisted black in the ash, and Naqada looked down with a sneer.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Ritter grabbed Naqada’s shoulder to hold him steady.
“Sh! Calm down! We’re alive, you’ve done nothing! Sh!”
An armored man desperately threw himself at Naqada’s swords, and as he fell his helmet flew off. Ritter lay dead and Naqada stepped over him like he was a pile of dung.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Naqada cried before his sobs overthrew his voice and his head dangled, lurching with cries.
“You’ll make yourself sick! Try to control yourself!” Ritter ordered. Nadaqa weakly shook his head as his body twitched with his weeping.
His head spun with confusion. Whys and hows stabbed at his mind. How was it he could have so easily hated everyone? How could he be so ignorant? He was so ignorant!
One of the girls crawled up onto the bed and began wiping Naqada’s tears with her skirt. She must have been about 4, and was copying what her mother always did for her. Naqada’s sobs became rattling breaths and the little girl kissed his cheek.
Naqada sniffed and put his head on her little shoulder. The other girl hopped up and embraced him, full of smiles that the pretty person was letting them touch him. He was like a fragile doll their mom didn’t let them play with.
Unna stepped forwards, uneasy that her girls were so close to a hysterical Halamay soldier, but Ritter eased off and held her back.
“He’s not dangerous,” he assured her in his language. “They’ll be fine.”
