VII — Still

“Hey Senpai!”

A voice broke through Sam’s trance. He had been thinking too much of something. He failed to recall what that thing was, but when he snapped back to reality, he saw songs sung slurred like a chorus gone wrong and very merry and jolly people all around.

He was at a pub.

Normally he would have been too busy with his work but Sam had enough time to spend, apparently.

The other guy, sporting jet black hair slicked back like he was a mage model in a magazine, velvety-rose colored suit: tie included, and black pants was holding a rather huge jug of ale. Sam heard around he’d been slurring his words and thought he knew what he was going to say because he knew him.

“Hey Senpaiiii! Are ye listnin to meeehh…?”

Sam chuckled. “Go home, Byleck. You’re drunk.”

Byleck, the name Sam had given him, looked confused. “Whaaaaat…” he continued to warp words near him.

Sam sat Byleck down to where he had been thinking, settling down across him, and studied his awkward and drunken mannerisms all at the same time. This would have been too much of a drag for someone like Sam, but they’ve been having a merry time for a while that Sam had learned to gradually let go of his worries.

But then he woke up.

He was in a different room. A single lantern swayed lightly above him. Sam could tell it was dangling on top but still secured, just like the dream he had. He looked to the side of the blinding lights of the lantern, the blank canvas of the tent’s roof still more illuminating than his present with regards to Byleck.

And then he remembered. Of the wolves. The taunting. Everything rushed back to him like mana crystals casting clairvoyance. Empath magicians would be more delighted to have felt this rush themselves, Sam had thought after.

But the image couldn’t be washed off his head. It had become a permanent imprint of what had transpired.

Byleck was gone, but Sam couldn’t cry.

He had shaken, trembled, and even possibly cowered in fear. Sam feared the day he couldn’t feel anything from an untimely demise of someone who considered him as someone special, and likewise, he considered a friend.

But he was gone, and he didn’t feel anything: the one thing he feared the most.

The sudden rush of emotions burned his temple, so out of reflex he moved his arm to rest his hand on his temple. However, just as he reached for it, another gentle hand placed it away and rested their hand on his temple. Sam had originally thought he was running a fever, but that didn’t seem to be the case. When his temples stopped beating like his heart was, the gentle hand left him a soothing departure that allowed Sam’s mind to breathe.

He ached all over. He was covered around his waist and other injured parts with bandages. He became a little more disheveled than before, and it started to weigh on him even only just slightly.

Sam looked up and over to find the gentle hand that had soothed his temple.

Instead, he found another young lad in the other bed, his mind peaceful in his slumber as his body rose and fell in a motion that could pass as stable.

Roger.

He was alive.

Sam breathed a huge sigh of relief, the weight of which lifted a hefty ton from himself, as he felt the bed feel much lighter, or rather, he felt himself a lot lighter than several long nights gone past. The rush of sudden duty had made him forget that he wasn’t invincible; although he knew that, he was still reckless enough to dash through using whatever was left of his vantage skills, despite a plea from a certain young woman to stay and stop becoming reckless.

The young woman sat in the center overlooking both him and Roger. She was looking concerned over Roger’s physical state, but Sam felt a grip tightening on his left hand coming from hers.

She had been shaking.

Sam felt every tremor.

He felt every tremble. He felt every pain she had been bottling up, perhaps ever since he was brought there.

He thought of Byleck, and wondered if Byleck would be there for him had he saved him from his inner darkness.

And then he thought of Diana.

His sister, who had cared for her when Sam himself ran with sweat and was weak, who had taught him how to be a protector, who had told him to breathe steadily and focus.

He saw some of her in the young woman, Ellen.

She glanced toward his direction as soon as she noticed his left hand move. She placed her free hand that had been clinging onto Roger for a while on top of her hand that clasped onto Sam’s left. Sam felt a tug, and eventually let loose a smile from the small gesture, even if he had been worried then that she was worrying about him way too much.

The clinging onto a lifeline part he had seen more often than what he had bargained for was starting to pay off especially since now he felt like someone cared beyond Diana.

And for the first time, he felt like he was seen.

—————————————

This was the second time Sam had nearly died.

Ellen clutched onto Sam’s left hand as soon as he had awoken. This was the second time Sam had faced the one who brought deliverance to life-forfeited souls. It was the second time that he had seen its face inching closer toward him, but it was the second time it decided to bring him back to a life he had nearly forfeited.

But this second time, things felt different. Something had stirred within Ellen as soon as she saw Sam stumble after he had shot Byleck through the chest; the shot itself Ellen saw was clean and appearing effortless. She had been mesmerized by the arrow’s trajectory, piercing through the breeze of the cold air and striking down onto Byleck, all occurring within a flash. She knew then that once she blinked, she would have missed it.

And the one who had made all of that happen lay on her left, the one she had cradled lay on her right. Two men with fierce determination, she felt, now laid down on two beds like pearls or precious stones, broken yet still remained: themselves Ellen had likened to some mineral or crystal more unbreakable than diamonds.

They had been fighting for the town, and the town had paid them back.

Ellen remembered Sam at that time. Precious like the stones Ellen likened him to, he was carried by the surviving townsmen who brought him to a larger infirmary tent. Ellen herself brought Roger to the other bed. Every nurse that was available started to pour their mana into them both, coursing through the nook and cranny of each wound, the mana coming from the nurses as blessings of the Great Mother, a natural force that wasn’t revered like a god, but acknowledged as a mighty spiritual being.

She also took part in the mass healing that everyone did, so did Kat. All their offerings to the Great Mother are not for naught because a week later, Sam had awoken to the squeeze of Ellen’s hand.

He noticed her face, which once had struck with tears that overflowed through her face. She felt the tears well up again as she moved towards Sam’s side.

“I thought I lost you,” she said softly, silently sweeping slowly sliding tears from herself using her other overlayed hand.

Sam slowly got up and, seeing her struggle from her flowing tears that never seemed to stop, he caressed her cheek with his calloused hand, the gesture making Ellen flinch slightly.

“Don’t worry,” Sam replied, his own tone matching hers. “We’re still here.”

Ellen used Sam’s caressing hand to cup her own cheek, the tears silently subsiding as she felt the weight of something emerge out of her system. For the first time in a very long time, Ellen allowed herself to melt into the gentle warmth of the one who had saved her. Sam, in turn, didn’t think of anything else. To him, he had simply returned the favor for saving him all those days ago.

And for the sleeping Roger, his slumber looking more peaceful as he gradually returned to his natural state, unmaking the disheveled one he has and reverting towards the one both Ellen and Sam are familiar with.

They sat there for a while, both cherishing each other’s warmth as the last of the carried baggage of that week slowly lifted from them.

They both glanced at Roger, and giggled at them thinking he looked cuter when he was asleep. They turned and smiled at each other, more genuine than any smiles they had shown before.

For once in both their lives, they felt lighter.