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“You there! Boy!”
The air here is hot to the point of being stifling. Seliph can see flecks of dust hover in the light that a nearby lamp provides. A lamp that had not been lit mere seconds before. He gawks at the window with wide eyes, blinking hard. It was barely the middle of the day- where had the sun gone?
“Soldier!”
A hand clamps down on his shoulder, spinning him around. A burly man in worn armor bears his teeth at him, and Seliph reaches for his sword. Another mercenary-
“There’s been a breach in the gate. Head to the infirmary and help move the injured!” the man yells in his face before shoving him along and heaving a massive axe over his shoulder. Does he think Seliph is part of the mercenary company?
A loud bang shakes the hall. The broad man swears before jogging past Seliph, calling for soldiers to follow him as he goes. What had he said… the infirmary? But they had just arrived… there was no infirmary set up yet...
He rushes out of the hallway and back into the large foyer of the castle before freezing with a gasp. Where there had once been the living arrangements for Ares’s former company, there is now a makeshift hospital. Soldiers in rags laid out upon tarps cover every inch of the floor as healers rush too and fro throughout the room. A short woman covered in burns shoves her way past him into the room, a staff in one hand and a filthy tome in the other. He doesn’t recognize her, just as he doesn’t recognize everyone else.
One of the healers makes eye contact with him from across the area and starts picking his way through the bodies towards him. Though he looks kind enough, Seliph’s gut twists in apprehension as he realizes that he doesn’t know this man either.
“Are you hurt?” The priest’s voice is soft and gentle as his eyebrows crease with worry.
Seliph swallows dryly, still looking from bed to bed. No one he knows. No one he remembers slaying today. The fortress is now packed with strangers.
“I’m well, thank you…”
“Are you sure? You look awfully confused-”
Another earth-shaking sound rocks the building. Dust falls from the ceiling in clumps.
“ What is that ungodly noise? ” Seliph asks, shaking the particles out of his hair as the priest leans over a patient to better cover their wounds. The man looks up at him with a quizzical expression.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” The healer straightens up, gripping his staff as he side-eyes the prince. “How can you not remember? We’ve been trapped here for months…”
“Months? No- I just got here but an hour ago… We- we just took this castle from the mercenaries-”
“Mercenaries?” The priest steps back. “There- No, there are no mercenaries here. There haven’t been any for a long time… This is the rebellion’s last bastion of relative safety… everyone here is devoted to the cause out of need, not monetary gain.”
“Rebellion?” Seliph steps into the spot that the man had left empty, voice begging for an explanation. “But- no- I’m the one… My army is leading a rebellion… who are all of you? And where are my friends?”
The priest looks afraid and unsure as his eyes roam around the room. Seliph’s closeness is making him uncomfortable, that much is clear, but the prince would be happy to leave the man to his work once he got some straight answers-
The large wooden doors at the end of the hall open with a bang as a group of bloodied bodies stumble through. The first man to separate from the group, a blond fellow with dark clothing and a broken sword hilt clutched in his white-knuckled grip, falls to his knees with a gasp and a clang, blood splattering on the floor as he begins to cough heavily. Two of his companions, a man and a woman, haul him to his feet again, dragging him off to the corner of the room where some empty bedrolls lay. The burned woman from before picks up her skirts and bustles over as the four talk quietly, a staff’s healing light glowing between them.
The priest that Seliph had been interrogating pulls away from their stunted conversation to help the newcomers, and the young prince can’t help but follow; he doesn’t know these people, but it’s clear that whatever situation he’s stumbled into, these people are in dire need of assistance. He runs to the side of one of the stragglers, who drops his blade and nearly collapses on Seliph’s shoulder. The man is much taller than the prince, but the healer takes the man’s other arm, and together they drag him over to an empty spot by the wall.
He’s losing blood, and fast. The priest peels back his white coat to reveal still steaming burns across his abdomen. The skin there has been peeled and burned off, and Seliph can see the ruined outer layer of muscle contract with every twitch of the man’s body. The healer begins their delicate work in the center of the mess, and Seliph looks from the carnage to the man’s face as he groans in pain.
There’s something familiar about him. Perhaps it’s his hair. It’s blue, the same shade as Seliph’s- it hangs in his tightly-shut eyes as the man tenses up again, jaw clenched in pain. In a decision motivated by instinct rather than thought, Seliph grabs onto the man’s slack hand in an attempt at comfort. The smell of charred flesh is thick in the air, and the healer is only half done- It’s a rushed job too, based on what Seliph knows about the holy arts; the new flesh is knotted and scarred, evidence of skin that’s been created, destroyed, and created again many times over. The skin of a soldier without the luxury of rest.
The man’s eyes open slowly as the wound finally shuts, his gaze hazy and pained. Seliph helps him to his feet, steadying him as he wavers slightly.
“I- thank you…” the soldier mumbles, wiping the corner of his mouth with a dirty sleeve. Yes… Seliph knows this man… but from where? He can almost put a name to those blue eyes-
Someone is yelling just out of view, and soon enough a small man with wild green hair skids around the corner and into the hall, the ends of his scarf still smoldering. He rushes between a few of the beds and healers, urging people to their feet and towards the door. He turns on their huddled group once he’s ushered a small number of people out, including the burned woman and the group of soldiers she had been healing.
“Hey- hey. You two-” the man gestures to the healer and the blue haired man. “You need to come with me.”
“I’ve only just healed him, Ced… surely it can wait just a few moments-”
“No, Bragi- you don’t understand- he’s done it!”
Ced? Bragi?
The healer looks confused for a moment before recognition dawns on his face. “He- you don’t mean..?”
Ced beams. Blood from his split lip begins to ooze down his chin. “He’s summoned them. The old coot finally did it. The Gods, Bragi…” he reaches past Seliph to grab the familiar man by the shoulder, pulling him away from the wall and towards the door, “They’re here. ”
The world melts in a haze of color and light then, and Seliph falls to his knees, suddenly feeling very sick. Ced? Bragi? The Gods..?
His hands feel numb. His brain feels as though he’d been touched by lightning.
“....ELIPH!”
The earth shifts back into place with a pop, leaving Seliph on the floor, mouth open and gasping like a fish as Oifey crouches down next to him. The beds are gone, as are the people, leaving behind only the ransacked belongings of the Mercenaries that they’d cleaned out just an hour before. No sign of an infirmary.
“Seliph-” Oifey puts his hands on his shoulders, shaking him slightly. It snaps him out of his thoughts, and the prince takes a deep breath. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?”
“Oifey… I think- I just… Oifey…” He stumbles over his words. He knows what he just saw. He knows the name of the familiar man.
“Oifey… remind me. Remind me. Tell me the story of the Miracle of Darna.”