Disclaimer:I do not own Vindictus or any of the characters in it.
He hadn't moved in weeks and continued to sleep in his broken body. Still, quiet, unresponsive. Tieve said there was a chance he might not wake up at all, and that his life would rest on my shoulders. Did the world really not know anything about him? Such a man of strength and talent and yet he remained a ghost; even to me. Perhaps that was the way he wished to leave the world-so insignificant that no one would mind or acknowledge his passing. How could they not? The prodigy, the amazing boy from the wrecked village.
I've been sitting across from him for nearly forty-eight hours now. I need a shower, still having blood from the mission on me, but I feel that as soon as I leave him he'll wake. That someone else who happens to be in the Inn will be nearby. My eyes are swollen from lack of sleep and have shed tears, tears that I will reject if he ever asks. There are several cups of Strawberry Brandy on the side table, and even more used tissue- again I will deny the ownership. If he thought as I was as strong as him, maybe he'd come back to me.
I watched with half lidded eyes as the beginner magician Brynn slowly checked the wounds and removed the wrapping from the head injury. It looked painful, a mixture of purples, greens, and yellows on his usual beautiful face. I lean down to kiss him gently, as if he would break.
As if I would break.
Writing my mission report was slowly losing my interest, and I was slipping into my self-hating depression. If I could have been two steps faster, if only I made him stay behind on that dangerous mission, if only I had acted selflessly, he wouldn't be here right now. Although we both knew the dangers of joining the Mercs, as I look down at my broken near dead lover and partner, I find myself filled with grief and anger.
The sudden flurry of the healers into the room caught me off guard. Tieve and Brynn, so young yet so knowledgeable at what they do, started checking his vitals. I tried asking what had happened, trying to get some sliver of information. Yet every time I moved forward the aging old man, Emnass, my mind reminds me, blocks my way with a slight shake of his wrinkled head.
His brown hair fell forward as he was assisted it sitting- sitting! I heard him cough again as the two teenagers aided him with moving his bandaged limbs. I heard his voice as he rasped for them to stop, for them to leave him be. He still sounded like the partner I knew, he was alive. He was awake.
Finally the healer and Oracle stepped away and I flung myself to his bedside. His head was tilted forward and pale, fingers gripped at his forehead.
My eyes watered.
His head rose.
I braced myself at the sight of those bruised eyelids.
He parted his lips as those orbs met mine.
A smile began to smile across my parched lips, and I couldn't hold back those weakness of tears. All I wanted to hear was his voice directed at me, why wasn't he saying anything? What was wrong? Somehow, in the middle of my sudden glory, a strangeness pinched at the back of my mind, and it stilled the happiness in my heart. I nearly fainted right there.
He doesn't remember me.
Uncharacteristically, he stuttered his words. "D-do I know you?"
The light in my eyes died and my lips trembled. I heard a small gasp from Tieve, and I looked down immediately to stop him from seeing the redness in my face. I bit my lip and tasted the bitter taste of blood to forget the bitterness that rushed into my heart.
Carefully, Marrec looked up with shaky limbs, and with a smile with such fake grander it appeared genuine, said to Keaghan.
"No, we've never met."