A Hard Truth

As Ariana aided Mirabelle in administering, she felt that same kind of surge she felt in the cotton fields and heard that jingle in the back of her mind. She could sense something within the young man. She could almost see it, several flecks of light within his chest. She could sense that they didn’t belong there. She focused on that. She could also feel the transient amounts of natural energies from the medicine. She focused on drawing the energies in towards the flecks of light.

After several minutes of this intense focus, moments away from exhaustion, she felt the flecks of light break free and fade. The young man began to cough intensely. From his labored breath came natural energy… then he was fine. Mirabelle gave his lungs another listen. There was a long silence. “Think that got it. Nice work.” Ariana breathed a sigh of relief. Mirabelle handed her a blue potion and went back to her workstation. “Need to make another dose for him to take, just to be sure.” Ariana drank the potion and spent some time helping her make another dose.

Mirabelle looked at Ariana as they worked. “Never thought I’d be using demon magic for medicine.” Ariana was silent for a moment, then returned Mirabelle’s gaze. “I’ve been curious… what is it that makes demons and humans different?” Mirabelle looked back at her work. “Hm… Indrock is not a great place for humans to live. A long time ago, we were the same, but the people of Indrock adapted to live there. The miasma was deadly, as was the magic concentration. Not to mention the monsters. Demonfolk are the descendants of the people who settled Indrock. They’re stronger, faster, more magical than humans.”

Ariana was still uncertain. “Why do humans and demonfolk hate each other?” Mirabelle shook her head. “It’s not that simple. We’re at war. Demonfolk are the enemy right now, but it could just as easily be the elves or the orcs. You just happened to have the face of our current enemy.”

Ariana again considered the gravity of her being in Loomholm as she was. “I… see… I-in other news, have you… heard anything about my Alex?” Mirabelle shook her head once more. “Sorry, Ariana.” The doctor looks at her, this time with a sad expression. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but… if you’re an Outworlder… he’s probably in the world you left behind.”

Ariana slowed her work to a stop. “But… I was holding him in my arms… He… he has to be here somewhere, he needs me!” Mirabelle sets her tools down. “Ariana, think about this for a moment. You told me yourself, the voice told you he lived, you died. Every Outworlder I’ve ever heard of has claimed to have died. Again, he survived. Do you see what I’m trying to say?”

Ariana bit her lip. Mirabelle gently rested a comforting hand upon her back. “Look at it this way… that means he’s safe. You did your job as his mother, above and beyond.”

Ariana felt a squeezing tightness in her chest and throat. A pain grew and grew in her cheeks and eyes as her vision blurred from welling tears. Mirabelle slowly pulled her into an embrace. She was met with a reality she wasn’t yet ready to face. Maybe Alex was safe, but the idea of never seeing him again was too much to bear. She swallowed as if to bring the emotions back down to no avail. She carefully returned Mirabelle’s embrace and wept. Mirabelle, in turn, cried silently with her.

Some time passed, and she left Mirabelle’s clinic. The sun was setting. She left the village and plodded home. Night had fallen already by the time she returned to her tent. She lay on the ground, broken. She did not sleep. The next day came; she did not eat. She did not sleep again. She lay there for two days and nights without eating or sleeping. She only thought of Alex.

She thought of the time when they practiced calling emergency services with other kids and parents; she told him to act like he’d been hurt. He lay down on the ground and hammed it up; other children played along, saying Call the doctor, call the medic, call an ambulance! It was a treasured memory.

She thought about when he would tie a sheet around his neck like a cape and play hero with his friends. One day, while playing heroes, he found a stick and took it up as a sword. He struck the neighbor’s son with it and was grounded for a week… but even while grounded, that friend came to his window and they still spoke. It’s hard to stay mad at that.

She thought about the time that he tried to save a baby bird. It had fallen from a tree and broken its wing. She was no veterinarian, nor was her husband, but the bird didn’t have long for the world anyway… how he cried when it passed away… he was a gentle soul.

All these thoughts and more swirled in her mind as she reminisced for days. On the third day, she slept, finally too exhausted to stay awake. Even still, her dreams were of Alex. In her dream, she ran through the fields with him, showed him to the town, doted on him, shared the product of her garden with him, and held him so very close.

Late into the night, she finally woke. She sat up and looked at her empty arms for a cold, silent minute.

She stepped out of her tent, removed her dress, and summoned some water to cleanse herself. She worked to clean her dress, then put it back on. She finally realized that she was starving and ate some food. As she ate, a faint red sharpness indicated somewhere in the distance: Danger. She looked up, motionless. Her eyes darted to where the sharpness pointed. It was then that she spotted something large and white moving towards town. It moved quickly.

She remembered what Mirabelle and the hunter shared about a giant white boar. The town was surely in danger. For a moment, she forgot about her woes, rushing to her feet with what little energy remained and running towards Loomholm.