Short Story: Heroes vs Villains
As published in RRHS literary magazine Whispers 2015-2016: A Darker Shade of Light
Heroes vs Villains
A Short-ish Story by Alyssa Machajewski
I have a birthmark on my right wrist. But that's nothing special, everyone does. There are only two kinds of these marks, and which one you're born with determines your destiny. Or so we were always told. The first mark, the one I have, is the mark of a hero. It's an S-shape, turned on its side, with a dot in the center of the S, and a dot in the center point of each half-circle. The other mark is the mark of a villain. A crescent moon shape, with a line dashed through it. There are two spots on either side of the line, inside the crescent shape, like little stars.
We are told by the government and the elders that a hero cannot be born to a villain family and vice versa. We are told that heroes and villains are too genetically different and that it is impossible for them to even be friends, much less bare a child. Yet, although it has been deemed impossible, both are still written as a crime under the law. We have been told many things about what our marks mean.
They're all wrong.
My name is Roxanne and I'm marked a hero, yet I was born to a family of villains.
My mother did her best with me, but she knew she couldn't give me everything I'd have if I'd been born to heroes. She also had to balance keeping my true identity hidden from the rest of world; if they knew my villain parents had a hero-marked child, they surely would take me away from them… or worse.
So, I stayed in the house a lot, my parents claiming, when asked, that I was busy studying or being sick. When I did leave the house, my parents made sure to cover my wrists.
I was aware from a very young age that my parents treated me differently than my siblings; they felt they had to. While my two sisters and twin brothers were told stories of evil queens, witches, and pirates, I was told stories of the heroes that defeated them; royalty, milkmaids, and ambitious third sons.
I remember insisting once to my mother that I must be a changeling, and that her real daughter was being kept with the fairies. Or I asked if my parents had found me on their doorstep, because surely I must be adopted.
My mother sat down with me sharply and asked, "What would make you think such a thing?"
"Well," I started, glaring down at the black mark on my wrist, "You'd have four children if it weren't for me." Four was a bad luck number, so it appeared in villain-lore as much as three appeared in stories of heroes. Having four children was good fortune for villains. "And I'm so different from them," I continued, "I must be a mistake."
"Roxanne." She took my chin and raised my face so that I was looking straight at her. "You are not a mistake. You're not a changeling, and you are most certainly not adopted. If anything you are special. You were born a hero, but raised with villains. You know both sides of the story and that makes you strong. Does that make sense, kiddo?"
I nodded, feeling a little better.
But as I got older, the divide between my family and I seemed to sharpen. As my siblings grew up and started becoming real villains, learning how to turn a prince into a frog or enact a sleeping curse on a princess, something felt wrong about it to me. I felt that I should stop them, but I knew that was just the hero in me talking, so I never said anything. We learned at home, we all did, my parents knew school was too dangerous for me. I learned all the same things my siblings did, potion making from our father and dark magic from our mother, but I had other lessons, hero lessons. They happened at night usually, sometimes my siblings would watch, but they never seemed interested in learning the skills of heroes, not the same way I was interested in learning villains’ skills. My father taught me swordplay, as best he could, my ability surpassed his quickly, but he didn’t seem to mind as much as I did. My mother tried to apply her knowledge of dark magic to teaching me light magic, which is where we discovered that I could use both kinds. After a while I was left to teaching myself.
My life became nothing but ambivalence. Even still, if I had known, I would’ve clung to it tighter.
I was holed up in my room reading a book no hero would ever be allowed to read, when I heard something crash downstairs. It shouldn’t of necessarily concerned me, Jaz and Eddie were probably dueling again, but I went downstairs anyway. Instinct told me something was wrong, and my mother had told me instinct was a hero thing and that I should follow it where it led me because it was something similar to following your heart. I turned the corner by the stairs and when I saw what was happening in the kitchen, I froze.
My family was being held by armed guards, the leader in the process of interrogating my mother. Jaz and Eddie looked like they were about to burst into tears, my sisters, Lilith and Lorelei, were doing their best to keep the twins quiet. My father stood still next to his wife, glaring at the guards. But what shocked me most was the look on my mother’s face, I had never seen so much enmity in her expression before. Her green eyes seemed to glow.
They’re looking for me, the thought flashed through my mind like fire and anger boiled deep in me before I had a chance to remember that heroes shouldn’t let their anger get the better of them. But just then I didn’t want to be a hero, I didn’t feel like a hero. I felt like a little girl who was afraid to lose her family, a little girl who felt guilt raging through her core, even though I was no longer much of a girl and not very little anymore.
I felt recalcitrant, which was probably more due to my villain heritage than anything else. I stormed angrily into the kitchen, but still I wasn’t sure what I would say when I opened my mouth. I didn’t even know if they would recognize me as the hero they were looking for. Almost everything about my appearance screamed “villain”. My tunic, skirt, and vest were all black and a bit frayed at the edges. My blonde hair, though uncharacteristic for a villain, was partly tied back with dark wires in an intricate way, traditionally a villain hairstyle. I was wearing thick silver bracelets that covered my mark, more because I honestly liked them than their ability to hide my secret. The moonstone pendant swinging from my neck swung from an iron chain; moon imagery is heavy in villain culture, while iron is considered a gritty and dirty metal only suitable for villains.
“What are you doing?” My voice bit through the air and sounded stronger than I felt. I glared at them, hoping my ice blue eyes looked sharp and dangerous while lined with black like they were, instead of heroic.
When my family turned to look at me, I saw fear. Fear for me. For a moment, an aberration to be sure, I felt like I truly belonged to them. They were my family and no one was taking them away from me.
Then the guards saw me. “Who is this?” The leader asked my mother but stared me down.
My mother kept her mouth closed.
“Who are you, girl?” The leader addressed me more like I was potential target practice then a person.
“I might ask you the same thing.” My words were bigger than I was, and I knew it, but I had to put on a brave face for my family, for myself.
The man’s dirt brown eyes narrowed. I noticed the symbol emblazoned on his uniform, on all the guards’ uniforms. It was the villain’s mark, but where the line would cross through the crescent moon, there was a sword. I knew who they were.
Slave Soldiers.
The government had a program that supposedly put villain criminals to work by selling them as mercenaries, but I knew better. Some of them were criminals, that was true, but most of them, a good 70%, were just people in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had known neighbors who would be there one day and were gone the next, the whole family placed in a containment camp while one member was forced into service in order to keep their family safe.
My gut twisted. These soldiers were only trying to keep their families alive, but I could see in their eyes that it was slowly killing them. Still, that didn’t mean they weren’t going to try and take mine away.
“My name is Roxanne Nyx.” My voice sounded stiller than I felt and even then, there was still a slight tremor.
“Is this your family?”
“Yes.” I said with more certainty than I ever had before. I saw pride in my mother’s green eyes and my father’s black ones. I saw hope in the eyes of my siblings, black for Lilith and Jaz, green for Lorelei and Eddie. None of them had blue eyes like me, nor did they have my blonde hair, gifts from my grandmothers, my mother always said. I never believed her. But in that moment, I remembered our similarities, not our differences. Our chins, our noses, the way Lilith bit her lips when she was anxious, the way Lorelei’s eyes looked like fire when she was angry, the stoic looks on my brothers’ faces when they were determined and obstinate and couldn’t be swayed.
“Show me your wrists.” The soldier ordered.
My nerves were suddenly on fire and something in me told me to run. But something deeper in me told me to save my family, to be the hero.
“I will, but only if no harm comes to my family.” I heard myself say.
The man nodded.
That wasn’t enough for me. “Swear to it, on your mark.”
He signed roughly through his nose, but he did as I asked. “I swear, on my mark, that no harm shall come to your family.” The symbol that marked him as a slave soldier glowed a faint green.
I pulled the bracelet off, trying not to look at my mother’s protesting expression and to not see my father try and pull away from the soldiers. I held my wrist up for them to see. A dark, curving S-shape stood out clearly on my skin.
“Blasphemy.” He muttered, vapid, preparing to separate a family like his was separated. He sounded like the word was something he was required to say, which was probably true. “Take them away.”
As the soldiers started roughly leading my family to the door, a hole opened up in my stomach just large enough for my heart to drop through. “Wait. No!” I shouted. “You’re supposed to take me. You swore no harm would come to them.”
The lead soldier turned around, the lines on his face suddenly etched into rock, not skin, “And none will. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault they kidnapped you and raised you like a villain. You’re free to live your own life now.” More words that weren’t his.
“Kidnapped? I wasn’t kidnapped, they’re my family, I was born to them!” I saw something brighten in my mother’s eyes when I said that.
“That’s not my decision to make.” He shook his head slightly and waved for his group to continue taking my family from me.
“I’ll find you! I’ll get you back, don’t worry. I love you!” I shouted, my voice straining and breaking its cords, resisting every crazy urge to try and fight the soldiers; a battle I couldn’t win.
Then the house was empty and silent, like it never had been before. My heart cracked and I broke down.
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“I won’t tolerate this malfeasance, Killian.”
My name always sounded strange coming out of my father’s mouth, which is an interesting observation as he’s the one who named me in the first place. He named me Killian, as I was told since before I could comprehend words, because it meant strife and because he knew, somehow, by looking at his infant second son that I would be the source of that word in his life. I suppose the glaring black villain mark on my wrist had nothing to do with it.
My father, Arthur Fae, my mother, Elinora, and my two brothers, Art being the oldest and Finn the youngest, were all predictably marked as heroes. Myself, in true middle child fashion, wasn’t at all so predictable. While my brothers were both born with the fair blonde hair and light blue eyes of our parents and our parents’ parents and countless other generations of Faes, I made the midwife who delivered me scream when she saw my raven-black hair and poison green eyes. Yeah, you know how babies normally start out with blue eyes? Not villains, they’re all born with green eyes. And they stayed that way too, despite my parents’ wishes for them to change into a nice safe brown. Not really a strong hero color, but less aggressively villain-ish.
The “malfeasance” my father was referring to was me sneaking out of house. I had sort of been expecting it, after all, he had to notice me leaving the house every night at some point.
“I feed you, educate you, give you a roof over your head, and this is how you show your gratitude? The world out there is cruel to your kind, Killian. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you’ll appreciate the gift you’ve been given.” My father continued.
I ran his words through my head while I stood there in front of him, my bag slung over my shoulder, my clothes dark and distinctly villain, my hair messed up, which I knew would only serve to annoy my father. He thought he’d caught me leaving the house, but actually, he’d caught me returning. He’d stormed into my room as soon as I had safety eased myself through the window. But again, I’d been expecting it, it was bound to happen eventually, so it wasn’t the getting caught part that bothered me so much.
Cruel to your kind, Killian. Funny words coming from a father. Not that it wasn’t true, all that stuff he’d said about feeding me and teaching me and letting me live in the house, but he never lorded that over Art or Finn. They were completely entitled to it. I’d been given the scraps out of the supposed goodness of my father’s heart. Which is completely hilarious since I’m just as much his son as the other two.
I was standing there, mulling that all that over in my head, while he dug into me some more. I could feel rage boiling in my stomach, rage I normally tried my best to keep contained, as it only reminded my family of the mark I was born with.
Today was different.
Maybe it was because my father always talked to me like I was some bastard child he found on the street and I had finally had enough of it. Maybe it was just time for me to leave. After all, physiological abuse can get a bit trite after a while.
“I must cause you so much trouble.” I muttered, my Gaelic accent sounding hard in my ears, different from my parents’ and brothers’ voices, yet another reminder of how out of place I was. Then I smiled in a way only a villain knows how and I could tell from the unsettled look on my father’s face that my green eyes, black hair, and mocking expression were making him disquiet in a way only his demon-child of a son could.
“I-I’m glad you understand that at least.” The man stuttered, his righteous blue eyes wide and shivering. “You were always such a petulant child.”
Despite his brave words, the man backed into the nearest corner, trying to avoid the look in my eyes, the way my posture was like a wolf’s, edgy and dangerous and wanting nothing more than to pounce and snap his neck, the way my eyes seemed to glow and flicker in the golden light of the nearby lanterns. I wanted to make him suffer, I could feel the pain writhing in my gut from all the years of his abuse. I wanted him to know how I felt when he told me I couldn’t go to my own mother’s funeral because, heaven forbid, the neighbors might see me. I wanted him to know how it felt when he taught his sons to hate their brother, using me for target practice for my brothers’ magic lessons. I wanted him to feel every scorching summer and biting winter I spent locked away in the attic that was my room. I wanted my pain to be his pain.
I turned away from him and I could feel his release of anxious energy behind me. I shoved the window open with all the anger I had and before I slipped away into the night, I turned my head to the side so that he could see the glint of my teeth and said, “Then take comfort in knowin' that every ounce of beneficent nature in you amounted to no more strife than keepin' a heinous memory of the nightmare you raised instead of a son.”
I jumped out of the window, landed in the street, and felt freedom that came with getting out of that house. I would never have to see that man again.
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I knew I wasn’t going to stay in the house while my family was imprisoned, so I went to the one place I knew a villain-raised hero would be safe, especially if her surname was Nyx.
I went down to the Crossroads.
The Crossroads is basically the city’s underground, home to things like the black market, the red light district, the fugitive camps, and the city’s Gypsy population. Most of it is physically underground and only villains know where the exact entrances are, something that grates on the police forces’ nerves. It was my first time being out in the city in over a year, but I still remembered where the closest entrance was; an old wardrobe in the back of an abandoned antique shop.
It was already dusk when I found the shop and because its door was boarded up, I had to climb through a window. I fell, rather ungracefully, to the floor of the shop, kicking up dust as I did it. The shop was dark and musty inside, but that didn’t bother me so much because it felt a lot like the attic at home. Most of the shop was filled with furniture and potion lab equipment. In the back room, where the more delicate stuff like scrolls and porcelain figures were kept, was the wardrobe. The wardrobe itself wasn’t anything special, if it was, it would get noticed by the wrong people. I unlatched the copper lock on the hardwood doors and pulled them open even when they creaked and protested. The musty smell of the thing hit me harder than I’d expected and I had to step back a bit.
Where the back of the wardrobe should’ve been, there was a door. Or rather, I knew there was a door there, but it didn’t look like one. I stepped into the wardrobe, trying to ignore the smell of what I suspected were long expired mothballs. I felt around the edges of the door, looking for the keyhole. Well, not a keyhole in the normal sense. My fingers ran over a carving in the upper right hand corner. A symbol glowed bright green and I recognized it: Δ. A Greek delta.
This next bit was the part I wasn’t sure about. From what I'd been told about the magic in these doors, I suspected that only someone with a villain mark could open it. But I was raised by villains, so clearly the normal rules didn’t apply here, right?
“What are you doin' 'ere?” I heard someone ask with a lilting accent.
I whirled around, conjuring a sword with my magic as I did, perfectly aware that I was trapped in a box in the back of a store with no exit. There was a guy standing just outside the wardrobe, about my age, carrying a beat up rucksack over one shoulder. He was a villain. I knew, not just because he knew where an entrance to the Crossroads was nor his pitch black hair and sharp green eyes. Not even the beat up leather jacket, combat boots, and disheveled black clothes gave it away. It was the way he held himself, the way he looked tense and on-guard. Like a wolf. Heroes never glanced over their shoulders or scanned a room, analysing who was dangerous, who’d get in the way, and how to get out. They didn’t have to be paranoid because no one was ever out to get them.
The sudden appearance of my sword didn’t seem to faze him, he just continued to look at me as though I confused him. My guess it was the blonde hair and blue eyes mixed with the black clothes and eyeliner that did it.
“Crossroads.” I said, shifting my sword in my hand. “What else?”
He raised an eyebrow, tilting his head slightly to see around me. “Havin' trouble with the door?”
“No.” I said, a little too quickly. I didn’t need him finding out what I was.
The disbelief was evident on his face. “No need to be spurious. Let me look at it.”
I stepped out of the wardrobe and crossed my arms as he took my place inside. I watched him push the glowing delta. The back of the wardrobe faded away, revealing a staircase down into a darkness punctuated only by the occasional torch bolted to the wall.
"You comin'?" He asked, turning only his head and raising his eyebrow again.
I nodded and stepped up next to him in the wardrobe, my sword dissolving in my hand. But as soon as his foot moved to cross the threshold, a puff of green smoke erupted in the doorway and a figure stepped out of it.
They looked much more mundane than I would’ve thought. The woman stood there, regarding us, her dark skin the same color as the wardrobe, her green eyes the same as the smoke.
“My name is Jane, daughter of Janus. I am the guardian of this passage. State your name, mark, and intention.” Her voice had a strange, Mediterranean accent to it, which caught me off guard. What was worse was the part about stating names and marks. Somehow I knew I wouldn’t pass that test. But the villain boy standing next to me seemed just as shocked and thrown off guard as I felt, so that made me feel a little better.
“Alright,” The boy muttered, “At least there’s no cryptic riddle. My name is Killian Fae, I’m marked a villain, and I’ve come to the Crossroads to escape my family.”
The guardian nodded solemnly and stepped to the side to let Killian Fae down the stairs, while I wondered where I had heard his last name before. He stopped at about the third step, turned, and crossed his arms, looking at me expectantly.
I swallowed the knot of nervous energy in my throat, that I was pretty sure was fear, and stepped towards the guardian. Something in my gut told me I shouldn't lie.
"My name is Roxanne Nyx. I came to the Crossroads to find a friend of my family because... Because my family was taken from me and I have no where else to go.” I rushed through my words, adding the last part only because I hoped it would grant me passage, even if I wasn't a villain. "And… I am marked a hero." I pushed one of my silver bracelets out of the way so that the guardian could see it.
She didn't even flinch, but Killian Fae looked scared for his life or maybe he was about to throw up, it was hard to tell.
"Heroes are not usually allowed in the Crossroads." The guardian told me.
"I know," I said with more confidence than I actually had. "But I was raised by villains. My parents are villains, my siblings… everyone… except me."
"Can you perform dark magic?"
"Yes."
The guardian tilted her head at me, like she was scanning my soul with her sharp green eyes. Finally, she said, “Very well.” And stepped aside to let me pass.
I stopped on the step Killian Fae was standing on and when I turned to look at him, I remembered why his last name was familiar. The Fae’s were a famous hero family spanning generations back, spawning some of the greatest heroes in history. I could only imagine how Arthur Fae would react to his family line being tainted by a villain marked son.
“You’re a hero.” He said like I’d stabbed him in the back and left him for the wolves. His eyebrows scrunched up and tightened his bright green eyes that reminded me so much of my family. His arms stayed crossed against his chest.
“And you’re a villain. Your point?” I gave him a look that I hoped looked threatening coming from my ice blue eyes.
“You were raised by villains.” He didn’t sound like he believed it.
I shrugged, “You were raised by heroes. We’re more alike than you think.”
He pursed his lips and, slinging his rucksack over his back, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Who took ‘em? Your family.”
“The Slave Soldiers. The government thinks my family kidnapped me and brainwashed me into believing I was born to them, which is ridiculous.”
He nodded vaguely, already lost in his own thoughts. When he didn’t say anything else, I turned away and headed down the stairs. He followed me, jogging slightly down the stairs to catch up with me.
“Where are you goin’… in the Crossroads, I mean.”
“Why do you care?” My words felt sharp in the air.
He gave me a strange look that included his raised eyebrow. “Aren’t you mercurial. What happened to we’re more alike than you think?”
I signed hard through my nose. Curse him for using my words on me. “The Gypsy town.” I huffed.
“Your family friend is a Gypsy?”
I stopped fast on the step and rounded on him. He started when he saw the rageful look on my face. “Why does my family concern you? I’m a hero, why would you even want to talk to me?”
His eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open because I don’t think he expected this decree of anger out of me. Not out of the hero. His eyes flickered in the wavering light of the torches. He was taller than me anyway, but him standing on a higher step made him seem huge.
When he finally did speak, his voice was softer than before. “Probably because you’re the first hero who hasn’t tried to manipulate me or treated me like I’m not human.”
I stopped stewing in my own stormclouds and looked back at him. His shoulders were hunched and he looked smaller now. The sad, defeated look on his face just served to prove how deleterious his family was. I made a decision then, to trust him, even if most people would tell me that I shouldn't. My point still stood, I probably had more in common with him than I did any hero. After all, those of us considered impossible by the government have to stick together, right?
"Do you want to come with me?" I heard the words tumble out of my mouth before I could stop them.
He blinked like I’d hit him between his eyes. "What?"
"To the Gypsy town. My friend won't mind and I think I'm right in saying you don't have a place to go, do you?"
Again, I'd caught him off guard. I don't think he expected a hero to offer such a thing. He nodded, but couldn’t seem to find his words.
At the end of the staircase there was a door, an opulent door as I had never seen. The whole thing was made out of silver. Emerald and onyx were embedded in the metal in intricate swirling patterns. Hundreds of small moonstones placed in the center of the door formed a symbol, the villain mark. As if I needed another reason to think I didn’t belong down here.
Killian ran a hand over the door without hesitation, even though I stayed well back from it. Something about it made me uneasy.
“I guess the builders of this place were anythin’ but penurious, ay?” He turned, smiling at me, but the smile faded when he saw the look on my face. “You okay?”
I shook my head, “Something… evil is on the other side of that door.”
He shot me a questioning look. “Really. I wonder why that is, hero? Couldn’t be the Crossroads on the other side, could it?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Not like that. Someone on the other side is waiting for us, and I don’t think they’re very friendly.”
He looked at me like he thought I was crazy, but he stepped back from the door anyway. “And how do you know that?” He asked, shoving his hands back into his pockets.
“My mother used to tell me that heroes have this instinct, that they can sense when something’s wrong.” I explained. “It’s never led me astray before, so I don’t see why I should stop listening to it now.”
“I’ve never heard of anythin’ like that,” He scoffed. “And I’ve lived with heroes for most of my life. You sure you’re not just having second thoughts about walkin’ into a villain infested underground city with a hero-mark on your wrist?”
“You wanna prove me wrong, Iago? Be my guest.” I snapped.
He raised his eyebrow again and shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever you say, Kathrine.”
While I stood there trying to put a cap on my annoyance, Killian stepped up to the door, turned the emerald-encrusted handle, and pushed it open. The Gypsy town lay in front of us, tiny, colorful houses on wheels spread out for miles, people and children and animals milling about. Far above, giant balls of light bounced across the rock ceiling, providing something like sunlight.
“See?” He gestured to the doorway. “Nothin’ evil waitin’ for us on the other side. Now, are we goin’ or not?” He stepped across the threshold and, although the feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong hadn’t left my stomach, I followed him, closing the door behind me.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind me, soldiers appeared from out behind houses and rock outcroppings and had us surrounded before I could tell Killian ‘I told you so’. My sword was in my hands a second before Killian channeled his own magic and lit his hands up with green flames. It was the Slave Soldiers, although I didn’t know what they wanted and didn’t care at this point. Their leader walked up to me, though not close enough for my sword to reach him, I noticed.
“What are you doing here?” He asked, he actually sounded surprised.
Even though I knew he was only doing all this because he was ordered to, I didn’t care, rage burned through my gut anyway. It just wasn’t enough for them was it?
“I had no other choice when you TOOK MY FAMILY FROM ME!” My voice felt raw and that made me scared of what I might do, but I still stepped closer with my sword.
“Then I suggest you go now while you’re not involved. We’re not here for you.”
“What?” I gasped the word. I glanced at Killian, whose anger was bleeding out from every pore. Then it made sense. Arthur Fae was rich. He must’ve bought out the Slave Soldiers.
“My father hired you to find me.” Killian growled and his eyes flashed dangerously at the lead soldier. “Why?”
“He believes having you out in the world is a danger to his reputation.” The soldier explained, remaining as still as a statue.
“He wants you to lock me up again. Well, good luck with that!” Killian shouted, his voice ringing in the air.
“No.” The soldier corrected. “He wants us to take you out.”
The soldiers launched at us like they shared the same mind, firing energy bolts and balls of fire at Killian. I stood at his back and deflected a lot of them toward their creators with my sword, taking out four of the soldiers. There were still a lot of them left and they were all staying too far from my sword for me to do much. Killian was shooting fireballs back towards the soldiers, but I think he knew that wasn’t going to be enough.
I felt an energy surge behind me that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I stole a glance behind me. Instead of Killian, there was a wolf at my back, big and black and snarling, launching itself at soldiers, their shouts drowned out by the creature’s growling. I made a mental note that I would make Killian teach me higher level magic like that later, since my own education was sorely lacking. Then I took a page out of the wolf’s book and charged the remaining soldiers with my sword. Within minutes, the soldiers were either groaning on the ground or escaping while they could.
Killian was still a wolf.
He was standing protectively in front of me, growling, making sure the soldiers kept running. His claws and teeth glinted, standing out like stars in his black coat. He turned his head slightly toward me, ears pricked, muscles tensed. He threw back his head and howled, and the primal sound of it shook my heart and caught my breath. But what unsettled me more was his eyes, they were bright green. When his howl faded from the air, I expected rage or hunger or some kind of aggressive animalistic expression in those green eyes, but I didn’t see any of that. I saw fear.
“Killian.” I whispered, dissolving my sword and holding up my hands. I knelt down in front of him as I spoke, “It’s okay, they’re gone now, they can’t hurt you.”
He whined, a mournful sound, and turned so I could see. There were large gashes along his shoulders, must’ve been from the energy bolts. He whined again, louder, lower pitched, and I understood.
He was hurt and his adrenaline was high. He couldn’t change form, his wolf instincts were too focused on his injuries and he couldn’t calm down.
I took a step toward him and he tensed but didn’t launch himself at me, so that was a start. I held my hand out in front of me and slowly brought it closer to him. The one time he growled briefly, I paused, but after his teeth disappeared back into his mouth, I finally set my hand on his snout. His fur was softer than I thought it’d be and his nose was cold. His bright un-canine eyes closed, and the wolf sighed.
The black fur melted into clothes and Killian’s shape morphed back into a human one. Then Killian was kneeling in front of me with his busted leather jacket and his rucksack still on his back and my hand still awkwardly placed on his nose. I pulled it away and Killian opened his bright green eyes. I saw tears swimming in them, from pain or fear, I wasn’t sure.
“Killian?” I spoke softly, trying not to startle him.
His sharp eyes flicked up to look at me and I still saw a little of the wolf in him. He grunted vaguely in pain and I knew the gashes were still in his back.
“Here.” I told him. “Get your jacket off and let me look at those gashes.”
He looked like he was about to protest or insist that he was fine, but I pulled his jacket and his rucksack off before he could get the words out. His shirt was ripped and his skin was bleeding, which made my stomach drop somewhere near my feet.
“Stay still.” I ordered, so Killian sat with his legs crossed while I worked.
I drew on my magic and my hands lit up with bright white light. When I pressed my palms into Killian’s back, he winced, but didn’t shout or cry out. I traced the gashes with my glowing fingers and they vanished slowly under my light magic. When I was done I handed Killian’s jacket back to him.
He swallowed hard before asking, “What was that?”
“Light magic.”
He glanced back at the gashes that were no longer there. “You didn’t have to save me.” He told me, “But you did anyway. Why? You didn’t have anythin' to gain from it.”
I shrugged. "It was the right thing to do."
He smirked at me, "That sounds like a hero line."
I couldn't really argue with that. "Besides," I said, trying to find words to fill up space. "I would've lost my first real friend and that would've sucked."
He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time just then, and I think the hero had managed to surprise him yet again. “Yeah. I guess so.” He managed.
I stood up and held out my hand. He stared at it for a moment, like he couldn’t quite believe it, then he smiled in a way that lit up the world and took my hand. I hauled him to his feet and we walked off. Despite the fact that mark on his wrist was different than the mark on mine, for once, I felt understood.
The End
HvV