It was an itching in the back of his head that wouldn't go away and kept drawing attention to itself. It ruined everything and dragged him from the safe and hidden depths of his mind to the front, where not only could he see his weaknesses but everyone could recognize his vulnerability.
The worst part was that he caused it.
When he first noticed it, it didn't seem like a big deal, but it had escalated, and it came to encompass all that was a part of him. One moment life was easy, routine, familiar, and the next it was all turned around and what he thought he knew was no longer true. He almost constantly felt sick, and he spent his days wasting away in bed.
It had started so simply too… He would have never expected for it to turn out this way.
"I forgive you… for everything that you have done, for everything you are doing… and for everything you have not done yet. I forgive you, Judal."
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
"Hahahaha, forgiving someone who never apologized in the first place… have you cracked?"
"No, I just think that there is enough room in my heart to accept and forgive you… If it's you…"
"HAHAHA! You really have cracked, haven't you? HAHAHAHAHA! I'm not apologizing! Do you understand?! Why would you forgive someone like me?! Someone who won't even apologize?!"
"It stings, doesn't it?"
Sinbad always knew how to talk to people. He knew what made them understand, he knew how to think along the same line of thought for them. What Judal didn't understand at that moment, was Sinbad thinking of him, or himself? In some ways, it wouldn't make any difference, in others… No, he supposed that it still made no difference.
If he were thinking of Judal or not when he forgave him, it didn't matter, because either way Judal was forgiven and…
"Whatever you do doesn't matter, you can do whatever you desire, I will always forgive you, Judal."
"SHUT UP! WHY WOULD I WANT YOUR FORGIVENESS ANYWAYS?!"
He can't remember if he had really said those things, or if he was too speechless at the time and was only thinking them now, screaming inside his own head.
Everything he does is meaningless, everything he does is forgiven. What shit. He always knew there was a darker side to Sinbad than the pure king appearance he always maintained for others. No person was so pure, it wasn't possible. Was this really even forgiveness then? And what was all that about there being room in his heart for him? It didn't even make sense… doing it to get back at him did though. He clung to that… to that and the disturbing relief he felt. It settled like releasing tension on strings around his heart, knowing there was nothing that would drive Sinbad away… But oddly, he now felt like he needed to do even more, to not be left behind.
"It stings, doesn't it?"
He found his "visits," both politically official and not, to Sindria increasing as of late, despite himself. When there for reasons that could be explained away with paper, he formed the habit of wandering the palace as though he belonged there, and wasting away hours within the beautiful garden where he would hide within shrubbery and build his own solitude. When he had no reason to be there, and no way to explain his presence, he took to the tendency of covering his hair and head with a white scarf he had lifted from a stall there, almost like a cloak, and wandering through the streets no matter if it were day or night, just to experience the rest that the country seemed to spread through his body.
There was just something inherently pleasant about this country. He would never admit it, but it was amazing that Sinbad managed something like this.
While in Sindria, he never once saw black Rukh that was not his own.
For a long while he wondered if unhappiness simply did not exist in this country, but realized the naivety there. It wasn't that there was no unhappiness, but rather that the happiness majorly outweighed it. Sinbad had created a country with so much love and happiness that it was overflowing, no amount of dark Rukh could ever overpower it. It was then that he found some fundamental part of his own logic beginning to weaken.
The black Rukh… He once had adored it. It was more power, it was something he understood. He was becoming less sure of himself though, and in turn the black Rukh were responding to his insecurity… Responding by not responding at all. When he would feel particularly confused, or when he had spent too much time in that pleasant country… the black Rukh would sometimes ignore him. They would still come to him, drift around him, but to order them…
It was unsettling to say the least.
He convinced himself it was nothing though, it was because he was a Magi. The Rukh had always reacted differently to him. He was unlike some lowly magician, they barely had a grasp on their own magic half the time and would end up losing control of the Rukh. He was different, so of course the Rukh would act differently… unlike those magicians, falling into depravity for them was a one way route, for a being like him, he was always loved by the white Rukh, and the black Rukh decided to love him… But they were not unconditional… Not like…
Forgiveness… it wasn't something that he was familiar with… but is this what it did to someone who never apologized? How does it matter whether he was forgiven or not? He doesn't desire forgiveness…
"-there is enough room in my heart to accept and forgive you…"
Like he would care about being accepted into his heart… right? He had too much time to ponder these things while he spent time in that country.
Eventually, those casual ponderings had to come to an end though.
It was during another ritual, one by the followers of Al-Thamen, that he realized how much Sinbad's words really had impacted him.
He hadn't experienced one of these rituals in quite a while, what with constantly going back and forth from Sindria, they tended to like their Magi refreshed and ready for the strain that these rituals would put on him. However, with how much time had passed they grew impatient trying to keep their Magi still, instead they decided to throw him into it regardless of the strain it would put on his body. It was unfortunate that it happened to be on a day he was on more "off" than "on" terms with the black Rukh.
He was chained to the stone pillars, his body being forced to remain in a standing position, but he knew by the end of this he would be limp and suspended from those chains to not fall to the floor. He was used to the exhaustion that would accompany these though, he had already resigned to it as he stared at the stone beneath his feet, old stains that looked almost too dark to be real blood laid around his toes. He didn't wonder for a moment what the ritual was for exactly, he never got an answer in the past anyways so he didn't bother asking anymore.
"Whatever you do doesn't matter, you can do whatever you desire, I will always forgive you, Judal."
Well, it wasn't like he got to choose often.
It was when the chanting started, and the fires were lit, that he realized from the strange weapon laid before him what they were aiming to do. It was a common enough thing, after all, using him to channel the black Rukh and enchant a magic item with them. They had learned a while back that using him to do this was far more efficient than their other methods, and that when using his black Rukh that the item would turn out even more powerful. It was just common sense that they would keep using this method despite how taxing it was on Judal.
By that point it was already too late. They were already drawing the black Rukh from his body, the tiny flecks of black pouring from him and immediately finding their way to the weapon before him. His body was beginning to tremble already, and his skin was turning cold, he knew even before he saw the swarm of black Rukh begin to trickle down that he didn't possess anywhere near as much black Rukh within him as he used to. All too soon he was exhausted and hanging limp from the chains, his body dripping sweat and convulsing, dry heaves echoed in the hall and his ears, muffling the sounds around him.
He was terrified, he realized. He hated that.
He wasn't supposed to be scared, so why was he? He was much more powerful than these magicians around him, these mindless sheep that huddled under the name Al-Thamen. What reason did he have to fear them? But the louder the whispers of their voices grew, the more nervous he became. He began to realize that it wasn't them he feared, but rather their thoughts on him. If he were useless to them, he were useless to Al-Thamen, and if he were useless to Al-Thamen…
He didn't know. It was an unknown what would happen to him if Al-Thamen found him useless. It wasn't that he feared them trying to kill or punish him or anything of that sort, that was almost predictable, in fact he was expecting torture of some sort from this. But it was the idea that if he were useless… he would have nothing to be around for? Would they try to dispose of him? Maybe try and start again with a new Magi? No, he doubted that, not this late into their plans.
The torture came first, predictably. They probably thought he just wasn't feeling enough despair. They weakened his body, starving and beating him. They left him in a reinforced chamber, no light and no sound, hands and feet bound, cold. But this just gave him even more time to ponder, to think, or more like to obsess.
"-for everything that you have done, for everything you are doing… and for everything you have not done yet. I forgive you, Judal."
He heaved, his head was always spinning, his chest couldn't do more than choke out tight breaths. Anything. He could do anything, and that man would forgive him. Maybe it wasn't that important to him if he were forgiven or not, if he never apologized…
"-there is enough room in my heart to accept and forgive you…"
He almost didn't want to admit it to himself, but the thought of it was somehow reassuring. Despite this being all this man's fault, he was also the only thing keeping him together through it. Because as long as… as long as he was forgiven, he would have a place in his heart, and it didn't matter what happened or what he did, that place would be his consistency.
"It stings, doesn't it?"
It does, it really does suck. His enemy, that stupid two-faced king, he was simultaneously destroying and saving him. He couldn't even wrap his head around his own feelings for the man anymore.
The palace in Sindria became the map of his dreams, the garden—a maze for him to hide in. Sinbad's voice echoing inside his skull became a weird tune that always played in the back of his mind, "I forgive you, I forgive you." And in the hours he could only determine he was conscious with pain, he would obsess over Sinbad and the meaning behind his words and the dreams or delusions he was having. It wasn't until so much time had passed, when he could no longer tell dream from delusion and reality from unconsciousness, that he noticed he hadn't been fed in much too long.
His body was used to the hunger pains, that was not the concern so much as the idea that maybe they really did leave him there to die, maybe they had decided to start again. Would he die here? Delirious and alone? Bound and beaten in the dark?
"-there is enough room in my heart to accept and forgive you…"
He wondered briefly if it would be warmer there, like the country Sindria, he wondered if the king's heart was as warm as his country, despite the darkness that was also residing there.
His unconsciousness had returned, lulling him into blissful rest, not even allowing the disturbance of the door slamming open to wake him.
Judal hadn't been conscious at the time of his rescue, he still didn't even call it a rescue himself, but Sinbad and many of the others had been the ones to find him.
Sinbad had called it luck that, despite being in the middle of a war, they had decided to attack that particular Al-Thamen hideout then, to not get more recon on it done and to charge in like they had no time to lose. Many others, namely the ones who had been working with him for months, attacking many known Al-Thamen active bases in the Kou Empire despite the raging battles that were being fought in many other locations being more pressing matters, those that had been dragged along with him (like Hakuryuu and Alibaba and his generals) would call it something more like strategy than luck.
They had of course noticed the missing Magi during the war, it was just too strange that the war Judal had been pushing for was happening and he was not present for it, it was too unlike him. While others had considered it a chance to advance on the enemy before his arrival, Sinbad had suspected otherwise and had been attacking these Al-Thamen bases for months. For a while, some had wondered if he had lost his better judgment, but with his generals trust, and the trust of Alibaba and Aladdin and the others, he had more than enough power to eventually sniff Judal out.
What he hadn't been expecting to find was a starving nearly hysteric shell of the Magi, who, upon reaching something like consciousness, clung to him with weak fingers whispering "heart" through cracked lips and a papery throat. He had personally carried the too weak form from the room and the remains of the base, leaving the raid on the rest of the base to Masrur and the team they had brought, he knew they would be fine without him. And in the back of his mind he knew that it didn't much matter if they ended up having to retreat anyways, they had what they had been looking for.
The recovery felt endless.
Judal had been unconscious for weeks. Not only exhausted physically and mentally, but his magoi had been exhausted and unable to recover due to the condition of his body. Between Yamraiha and the doctors in Sindria, he knew Judal was under excellent care and the war had his focus for a while. As it began to calm down though, and it turned to more peaceful battles at conference tables instead of battlefields, he found himself able to spend more nights home rather than away. With more nights at home he spent more nights watching over Judal.
At first Judal refused to believe it. Despite Yamraiha insisting that Sinbad spent almost as much time watching over him as the doctor did himself, he couldn't imagine the idiot king actually caring. Forgiveness was one thing, affection and trust was another. Besides, he approved of forcing Judal to wear different bangles around his neck and wrists, magic tools Yamraiha had developed to cut off his endless supply of magoi. That hardly seemed trusting or affectionate. She showed a surprising amount of patience by putting up with his attitude the entire time, and even more so by continuing to insist that Sinbad did harbor affection for him (although probably not trust). He knew that she didn't like him though, so in the end he always felt that anything she was saying that was meant to be positive might be all a trick, something to lull him into a false sense of security…
No one takes in a powerful enemy just because they're "good people."
"-there is enough room in my heart to accept and forgive you…"
The worst parts were his visits, seeing for himself how often the man would come to check on him, like he cared. He nearly snorted whenever he thought that to himself. The visits were always peppered with banter with the man, like they used to, although much less heated than the old days. Occasionally a threat would be made, Judal offhandedly saying he would sneak out and strangle the man in his sleep, Sinbad replying that he could show Judal proof of his affection… although Judal thought that was a weird threat.
Time dragged on though, and with it memories became old and faded. His body healed, and he was only left with a slightly depleted reserve of magoi due to the annoying bangles Yamraiha developed and Sinbad refused to remove from him. For "fear he'll fly away," is what Judal had heard from Yamraiha herself, but it just made him laugh.
He hadn't known at the beginning that he would spend the entire time mulling over everything up until that point, that on that one day in particular it would finally all hit him at once, and that he would be left shaken and lost. He wondered if Sinbad still even remembered those words he had spoken to him, if they were as ingrained into his mind as they were in Judal's.
"It stings, doesn't it?"
He knew that wasn't true. He probably had no idea what impact they had on him, he probably doesn't even remember saying it. That meaningless peace conference over a year ago, when negotiations began to fall apart and what was already a strain between Kou and… well, the rest of the world, when relations began to flare like an infected wound… Sinbad had said something so incredibly inconsiderate to him after such intense arguing, staring at the sun rising on the meeting with the Magi as if it had been natural for them to stand side-by-side in that peaceful way.
"It stings…"
"It stings…"
"It stings…"
It does.
He feels his body curling in on itself involuntarily, his face finding a spot between his now boney knees as his fingers clutch at the cloth over his chest and the skin beneath it. He ignores the feeling of warmth spreading over two spots on his knees, of the way his body is trembling so chaotically, of how the world felt completely foreign and wrong to him. He ignores the sound of the door opening, the sound of his strained breaths and someone baring witness to his weakness in this moment, and accepts much too easily the despair and humiliation it brings him. What he finds he is unable to ignore is the secure weight of arms wrapping around him, of familiar violet hair sliding against his cheek, of warm lips welcoming his own. He has never been held before in his life, and if he had been then he has no memory of it at all, but that night he refused to leave those arms.
"I forgive you… for everything that you have done, for everything you are doing, and for everything you have not done yet. I forgive you, Judal.
"I think that there is enough room in my heart to accept and forgive you… As long as it's you, I feel that I can always forgive you.
"It stings, doesn't it? I don't mean to cause you pain. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me too?
"It doesn't matter, you can do whatever you desire, and know that I will always forgive you, Judal."
He couldn't, he just couldn't.
A warm heart overflowing with love… like a warm country overflowing with happiness, only that heart would be capable of such unconditional forgiveness.
He wasn't physically capable of such a thing, but lying within secure arms, he felt like he was at least strong enough to try.