Blackened Heart

She walks over to toe boy as she had laid a cold rag on his head, hoping that he would wake up soon, wanting to asure his safety and to know where he came from and why that man was after him.

Zander stood, rubbing his neck. "But... it is getting late, and I dare not stay until your father came home." He bowed, removing his hat. "Evening, my lady." He put the hat back on his head, turning to walk out.

She looks at him as he walks out, she didn't want him to leave since he was already there, he might as well stay. "Wait! My father won't mind trust me, I don't know how we will explain this all to him, but he wll understand., please stay, your already here, no point in traveling so late at night back to the inn."

"Are you sure? I do not wish to intrude..." But of course, yes he did. He was hoping she would stop him, and was glad she did. He smiled, though kept facing the door, so she wouldn't see.

She nods as she gets up, and starts to get blankets out of the small storage closet. "Yes, I'm sure, allow me to show you, the guest room, I just have to make up the bed." She walks up stairs as she also starts to light the hallway with candles that were handing by the walls as she shows him to the guest room.

"Please, miss, I can handle this. You must be tired from healing the boys wounds. I think you should rest, and I'll worry about taking care of myself." He held his and out for the blankets. As much as he enjoyed others doing him favors, he was not in any way lazy. He could take care of himself.

She shakes her head as she refuses to let his hands touch the quilts that were not yet resting on his soon to be made bed. "I shall be cross with myself if I let a guest in my home make their own bed, truly when you have spent more energy saving all our lives rather then just one. You really are a hero like I have been told, please my hands were made me be calloused with work, I am more then a simple hand maiden in some terms."

She walks into the guest bed room as she starts to pat out the bed and starts to put the sheets over it as she pats them down as flat as she could do they could be perfect, as if she was preparing a nobles bed, he could tell this girl has never had a day to relax a day in her life, but if didn't really look like she mind, most women who work themselves to the bone would look rather homely and unappealing, but this girl was different, she had beauty as if she had not worked a day in her life until you have gotten to know her.
Her hair shined with luster, and was as smooth as silk moving at even the slight head turn, her side bangs had fallen to the left side of her eye as she was making the bed, but it didn't seem to bother her much. She had finally finished and smiled as she was pretty proud of herself for the job that she had done. She turned to him and bowed to him before saying. "There you are Sire, please don't be a stranger, if you need anything at all my room is right down the hall on the left side, just knock and I will do all I can to assist you alright?" She smiles with much humble.

He could have frowned, though he kept the expression inward, instead of letting it come across his features. He really didn't want her to work so much just for him. That was new. He never really cared to be pampered by beautiful women before? Then again, they had all seemed so fake, as if they wanted something from him, where as she did not. She was doing it out of kindness.

An odd quality. Especially from one who seemed to work all day long.

"Yes, I'll do that." He wouldn't. "Please, don't worry about me. That little show of force back there wasn't much, any mage or swordsman with half a mind to could have taken mere shadows." Were they not too shaken with fear to strike.

She smiles as she had walked to the doorway of the room and turned to him. "Well then, sleep tight sire, remember even though you say my assistance will not be required for you, I'm right down that hall still just in case." She had bowed for the last time before walking out and closing the door, she had walked back down stairs to check up on the boy as she stated to prepare the couch for him, for she could not risk carrying him up the stairs without knowing if his wounds were fare yet, she had carried him to the couch, she was pretty strong for a girl standing at only 5'3, her body was slender, but being a girl working out in a farm all her life, tends to giver her some inner muscles they may not show, but they were there.

She had then started to change the rags that were on his head and replace them with warm rags to keep his body tempture normal, she had knew a bit about medical needs, but still learning about the healing arts of mana. She looks at him and lays her hand lightly on his stomach, his wound seemed to have healed up nicely and his breathing was getting back on track, that was seeming to be a good sign, she smiled as her studies getting put active have paid off after all. Now she can only wait until he a wakes from his tired slumber.

Darkness surrounded him. Suffocated him. Trapped him. He couldn't move, couldn't breath, couldn't see. And worst of all, he was alone. Lasche hated being alone, and yet he found himself more often than not just that. He felt the icy cold of death's fingers wrapping aroud his neck.

Was this his fate? To die alone, an outcast, a failure? He had never aspired to be much, but this? Perhaps it was better this way... she couldn't expect him to save her if he was dead, right? No, she couldn't...

He felt himself convulsing, being strangled. No. She couldn't, but if not him, who? He was becoming colder, could feel the life draining from his body. This was the end.

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On the outside, the boy shuffled in his sleep, opening his mouth slightly, as if trying to speak, but no words came out.

She had leaned over to his side as she held his hand softly wanting to hear his words, she had leaned her ear to his dry trembled lips, but only to hear the shallowed gasps for hair blowing into her hear as if it was a noisy wind blowing threw the trees before a storm. She looked at the boy getting more worried, all she could do was hope that the boy will make it, and she made a self pledge to herself not to leave his side until his eyes would break open.

"The end?" Laughed a voice, so strange to his ears that he was surprised just how familier it was. As if he had heard it before. "No, foolish child... this is only the begining. You have so much more to suffer..."

What did it mean, this voice that came from nowhere? Why was it doing this?

It laughed, this time high pitched, screeching, tearing at his ear drums that he so desperately wished to hold and protect, but could not even twitch his finger, much less move it up to his head. He he to wait through the noise, in silent agony.

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The boy began to sweat, clenching his teeth and fists. It was as if he were in pain.

She started to panic more as she already had to change his clothe on his forehead as it was warm, then she had to switch back to cold again as he was starting to to sweat, she wanted him to live, she started to shed tears from fear and fustraition, trying so much as she could for the boy to live, she didn't want to see him like this for much longer, but she had to try, her persistence to give up on things were very low, she tried and tried until the very end.

The boys eyes shot open, and he rolled off the couch, falling hard on his stomach. "Ack!" Where am I? Who did this to me? He blinked rapidly, trying to gather his senses. He was in a house, a well lit one at that. But who... or what had brought him here?

He tried to push himself up, but his arms seemed reluctant to work. "Wh-What...?" He could barely move at all... was... this just more to his dream?

She gasps as she tries to help him up as she had try to set him up properly on the couch. "Please don't move, your safe now, your in my home. "She looks at the boy with much concern in her eyes. "My name is Melina Garcia, I bid you into my home for temperary shelter until your wounds healed, what I was doing was healing you, I am learning the magic arts of the healing hands, to become a doctor, I was hoping that my studies did not go in vein on you, I'm glad you are up." She smiles, wanting to ask him so many things, but wanted him to gain his mind at ease and let him know he is in a safe place.

He looked at her, unable to escape form her hands as she put him back on the couch. He hadn't expected anything short of leaving him there on the road to die from someone like her. Her innocent look meant nothing... they all hid a more sinister side.

"Why did you help me...?" He asked, whispering. They weren't supposed to be nice to him... that just wasn't how things worked... they all hated his kind. She must be up to something, he thought grimly.

She looks at him as she then lets out a soft sigh. "Is it not thy word of god that wants us to help man in need when he called upon it, no matter what...?" She changes his cloth once more, as she dries the other used once by the fire. "You needed our help, you cried out for it, and we responded to your call, here...drink this." She had handed him some water that was in a wooden cup, that water was slightly warm, but only because it was setting 3 feet by the fire place. "You should feel better again in a few days, that wound was pretty tough to heal, you're attacker has vanished, I'm not sure if he will return or not, but for now rest up as much as you can. Please, what is your name...?"

"Lasche..." He said simply. "And the God you speak of is long dead." The bitterness in his words was apparent, and he made no effort to hide it. He took a sip from the cup, before spitting it back out in the same motion. He couldn't trust what she gave him, no matter how good her intentions might appear.

Cunning was in thier nature.

What he had spit out some had gotten on her as she had simply just wiped it off with a cloth and sighed. " I don't blame you for not trusting me so easily, you must be frightned to what they put you threw, and I only speak the words of god for a humane way, an act of kindness, but it seems that you have not had much of that in your life, please forgive me for my forward humbleness, I should have not thought that you would trust me so easily, I want to prove my intentions were for good, and not for my own personal needs, you have nothing to offer to me except your well being. It is nice to meet you Lasche."

She had seemed not to mind the boys features, or what he was, she had just smiled even though he had spit out luke warm water in her face. She stood before him and then picked up the bowel she had used for the cloths that she put on his head and she had walked over to the window and poured it onto some out door plants. "I will go get some more water, I will be back shortly." She walked outside to the side of the east wall of the house to get more water from a well pump.

Lasche still didn't like it. Her, this place, the dream, anything. She can't keep me here... I won't let her. He tried to stand, before falling back on the couch. "Dammit..." He cursed, he was sweating by ever such a small act of exertion.

Get up you damned fool! His mind screamed, compelling him to stand, willing him to run. But his body would not, could not respond. He burried his face into the couch, closing his eyes. Now was not the time for weakness... then why was that all he had?

She had came back inside with another bowel of water, she had seen his face buried in the couch as she walked over to him and nudged him as she put the bowel down. "Hey come now, you'll sufficate if you hold your head face down like that, and your stomach is still recopuerating you must lay on her back, come on now." She pushes him onto his backside, then she grabs a blanket and tucks it under him as he puts cold rag on his forehead. " It's like I have to keep you warm for the weather, but your head cool from your body heat." She chuckles. "A tricky job indeed, please, just rest, your in no condition to leave right now."

He closed his eyes, almost wishing he were dead. It was preferable to this. "I have to go... you don't understand..." Of course she didn't. And she wouldn't. Marivae had no souls, couldn't have feelings for another other than mimicked ones. It was useless to tell her anything, because what help would she be when he did?

He knew that. It was easy to answer. None at all.

Later, the fire was slowly going out and she had fallen sleep on the wooden floors 2 feet away from where the boy was sleeping, it was becoming dawn her father and brother had come home long time ago with out a word to wake them all, knowing that she would give an explination to them when she had woken up until then, they were out working in the fields and the barn harvesting and planting crops and goods.

Zander found her there, that next morning, asleep on the wood floor. He moved over to her, picking her up gently. It seemed that instead of being in her room as she said, she had fallen asleep watching over the miravae. She sure was worked up easily.

Zander held her, one arm under her knees, and one under her back, carrying her towards her room. He looked at her, smiling slightly. Not many like her, that was for sure.

She was beat tired thats for sure, he had noticed that her hands hand bandaged wrapped around them, showing she was very hard at work, she was in a deep slumber, but if she had woken up by now she might have panicked that she wasn't up before dawn to do more work, her brother had seen him carry her off into her room, he slowly followed them not making a sound, but to know who was in their home.