heda had slept well, and now, renewed, dipped her head inside the mouth of the cave where she had put
@Aquillius.
"i brought you food," she said gently, dropping down to carry her bundle inside, placing it on a narrow stone shelf.
"i was fishing and god sent an entire albacore my way!" what a struggle!
she had brought part of the fresh fish today, wrapped in wet leaves. heda's eyes searched for the boy.
He was there.
He had tried, earlier, to leave, but even with rest, he was weak. Aquillius was starting to believe he would always be weak, the bleak future ahead of him nothing like what he wanted for himself.
He was blind in one eye. The leg that had been clawed burned with thousands of little pincers. He thought, half hysterically for a moment, about wound crabs that crawled into his wounds to pinch him, and that got him laughing, at least.
Damn wound crabs.
The voice made his ear on his blind side turn, trying to adjust for not having his sight, and the boy ever so slowly picked his head up. He squinted in the dark, before using his front leg and his back ones to shuffle forward in an army crawl.
…albacore?
He managed to rasp out, sounding marginally better than the day before. At least he was more alert today. His eyes found the part of the fish and went wide.
They come that big?
He’d only ever seen small fish, like bass. This thing was a monster compared to all he knew.
Aquillius was beginning to realize he knew nothing at all.
"bigger, even." heda said, coming over. she touched his chin and cheeks, she listened to his chest and breath. he was getting stronger, or so she hoped. the young advisor brought the fish closer to aquillius. "i'll be back with water."
when she returned, a shell of freshwater held carefully in her teeth, she hoped to find the boy eating. recovery would be long if he couldn't even stand.
He recognized the gentle touches as those of a caring adult, something deeply appreciated in the fractured soul of the boy. He sat there for a time after she had left him, before hauling his aching body to its feet and laying beside the hunk of fish, tearing into it’s flesh.
When she came back, his eyes flashed from the fish to her, and he watched as she brought water close. He coughed a brief note that could have been a word, and spent a few minutes coughing and clearing his throat before he managed to speak.
Where…am I? And..I don’t remember your name.
If she’d given it to him at all. Aquillius hadn’t exactly been able to hang on to most of the events of the previous day.
he ate and she was relieved. "i don't think i told you." she couldn't remember. "it's heda. and this island is sweetharbor. i found you on the shore."
the girl pushed the shell of water closer. "do you remember where you came from, aquillius?" the boy's name felt distinguished.
maybe he was a prince.
perish the foolhardy thought!
Did he remember?
The thought haunted him with every single breath he drew. He was an abandoner of duty.
(Father abandoned his duty as husband to mother first, hissed the angry, bitter boy in his head)
He shook off the miasma.
I was a soldier. Of Mereo. My father is Imperator.
He hoped Germanicus was still on his untouchable mountain, surrounded by those that followed him, happy with his woman. Not worrying over the son who was gone.
I…do not know if I will be welcomed home. If I was…
He swallowed the words.
I don’t know if I want to return.
mereo. duty. another title.
the young wolf was unsure if there was a welcome. heda pulled moisture-rich cavemoss from the den walls and brought a strip over to soothe his brow.
"did you do something there, aquillius?" heda's voice was soft and without judgement. "something bad?"
He shivered as the moss was laid over his head.
Abandoned my duty.
He whispered with his eyes closed, one squeezed shut and the other’s lid barely falling over it.
All to seek stupid glory.
As if him killing the cat would bring home his mother, would drive his father from the woman he married in her stead, would knit his family together piece by piece until they could fill the heart shaped hole in his chest.
He felt the hitch in his breath.
He would not cry. No matter how much he wanted to, or how much of a boy he was, he would not cry.
heda hummed to herself. "i don't think those things are bad, aquillius." she continued to wipe his forehead, leaning over the boy and tending him as she might a younger brother. "maybe you have a new mission," she said softly, hearing the intake of breath. "no one is brought to this place for no reason, you know."
did he?
Heda continued to speak, and the boy opened his eyes again, one still clenched shut. He looked up at the older girl, ears wilting back. Gold went back to the fish.
What mission? Do you have need of someone to do something?
He latched onto the idea with a vengeance, breath hitching higher. This was how he could be useful! How his failure could be remedied! His breathing grew harsher as he tried to haul himself up.
I-I can do it!
The desperate want to be useful to someone curled in his veins, despite his bruised body.
heda pressed him back, paw to his shoulder. "right now, you need to rest and heal." her voice was kind and yet insistent, firm. "when you can stand and walk again, you will be given a task."
it simply might not be of the nature he expected. "you don't have to move so fast here, aquillius. not in sweetharbor."
He went down without much forcing, pain searing through his shoulder in amounts he was not used to feeling.
He laid his head upon the ground, and pondered just how useless he’d become.
I..I don’t know how to wait.
He whispered. The words ghosted through the air like the faintest hint of cigarette smoke, there and gone again.
"god will teach you. we will show you."
heda touched his forehead and then straightened. "for now i need you to rest. please." her smile was gentle. "that's the first part."
she would not move to go away until aquillius had agreed to settle back into the nest. he been forced to fly too soon.
Aquillius’s eye lifted to look at the red topped woman, his ears slowly folding back against his head. He licked his snout, the picture of a dejected child, before he nodded.
Okay.
Just as quiet as he had been moments before. He tucked his gangly front limbs beneath him, eyes falling away from Heda and towards the light.