NOVEL NEXT 188: F20, Helper
I almost throw the thing away. It’s weird. It’s wrong. Don’t ask me for that. I can’t save you—I can’t save anyone. Please stop expecting things from me that I can’t give you.
But I can’t bring myself to drop him. I can’t even bring myself to behead him like I was going to.
Instead, I just grumble a couple of curses a child really shouldn’t hear, and lean in closer to his face, or, more specifically, to his eye. “Keep still,” I growl at him. Painfully enough, he does actually keep still, exerting a clear effort to keep himself from trembling. He thinks I can save him. He thinks I can fix this—this… eye. I’m looking at it. It’s purple, and smells like grape. It feels oddly familiar, almost magnetic, and not just because I’ve seen people with eyes like this before. The inside is kind of muddy, so I can see my own reflection. My face is just one big mass of RED and BLACK, all surrounding a single yellow eye.
I lean back out. Yeah, no, there’s no way of fixing this. None that I can think of, at least. There’s just no way. It’s like the goddess of children said—all there is to be done is to put him out of his misery.
“Am I…” he looks up at me, trying so hard not to shiver, “going to be okay…?”
I look away from him. Down there, away from the burning church, is a ledge. A cliff. Still holding him, I walk towards the ledge. As I approach, I find that it overlooks a massive drop, easily several hundred meters high. From this height, he’ll die instantly. No pain. Gone before he even has time to be afraid.
Turning my face back to the apprentice, I see him looking out over the ledge, across the nearby mountaintops and the carpet of trees, through the snaking rivers and all the way to where the sun is still setting, painting the clouds in yellow and pink. Normally, goblins like him wouldn’t dare remove their eyes from me. Like they think I’m a tiger of some sort, waiting for them to turn their heads so I can attack unseen. But this kid… I wonder if that thought even crossed his mind for a second? That I might be here to kill him, and not to save him?
Nobody can save him now. I don’t know how long it'll take until he becomes a full herald, but…
If you look at it from a logical perspective, I’ll get more purple goop from a fully-formed herald than a half-transformed one, right? Yeah. So, there’s no hurry.
I sit down, dangling my feet over the ledge, keeping the apprentice on my lap. This way, the second he transforms fully, I can kill him, or drop him, or anything else like that.
For now, though, I guess we’ll just watch the sunset a bit longer.
The apprentice trembles in my arms. “I’m scared, mister,” he says quietly. I pat his back. “My eye feels cold, and—and my chest, too.” He pauses for a moment. With my eyes on the sunset, I can’t see his face. “Master is dead, isn’t he?... And—and Luvid, and Gyem, too.” His back shivers. “I killed them.” That last part comes out like a whisper, still holding all the emotion of a mourning cry. “They’re dead because of me, because I trusted the crown man, because I wanted to show that I could do magic, too. All because of me, the village…!”
“Hey,” I say, lightly smacking the kid on the head. “Shut up, man. What the heck are you even talking about?”
He rubs his head. “S—sorry, mister. I just…”
“If you’re going to be angry, be angry at the right person—ergo, the dumb idiot god who decided that a tiny kid like you would be best for making a herald out of. I mean, why not grab an actual adult? So dumb,” I grumble.
For a few seconds, he just stares at me, eyes wide and glittering. Then he looks back at the twilight. “...Thanks, mister. And thanks for being here, too. I’m scared, but…” It’s faint, but I’m pretty sure I can hear the way his small mouth quirks into a smile. “Now that you’re here, I feel calm. I can just tell that everything’s going to be okay.”
I almost tell him. I want to tell him, if only because not telling him makes my heart ache like I’m about to have a cardiac arrest. But I can’t. The aching in my heart has made my throat thick and stuffy and now nothing will come out. Trying to keep my eyes on the sunset and nothing else, I press him closer to my chest, his face squeezing against my bare breast.
Thump. Thump thump.
…Something’s weird.
Something feels very, very off.
I push him away a little, and it’s gone. That oddly magnetic feeling is gone, replaced by his vaguely confused face. But his right eye, the purple one… It’s no longer as foggy. That… that has to be a hallucination or something. It can’t be that—
A sudden desperation claws hold of me and I press the apprentice against my chest again, squeezing him as close to my heart as I can without hurting him.
Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump.
I can feel my heart, beating rhythmically through the both of us. Gently, as gently as I can, I take a hold of his right hand, the cracked one. With eyes as wide as saucers, I watch as the purple retreats from within the cracks, slowly leaving his hand fully. I put my hand on his back again, keeping him pressed close. My breathing is quick, chest rising and falling against him.
What is this? What is happening?
I hug him close to me. As close as I possibly can. Closer than I’ve ever hugged anyone.
Across the horizon, the sun finally breathes its last, falling below the equator, leaving the light to scatter endlessly before fading away.
The instant I receive the message I grab him, pushing him away from my chest. His eye is normal. He’s looking at me. He smiles at me. But his neck—
<[Thank you.]>
A hand reaches out from right next to me. I want to scramble away in fear—it would be the most normal reaction—but I can’t. If I move hastily now, we’ll both go tumbling off the cliff. Instead, I simply turn, only now seeing the person beside me. No, goblin.
…If that’s what she is.
She smiles at me, the edges of her eyes wrinkling in joy and mirth. She looks old. Adult. Motherly. But she’s also crying. She’s smiling in bottomless relief, but she’s crying. I don’t understand what I’m looking at. She doesn’t smell like anything, but she looks perfectly ordinary. I’ve met countless goblin women who look like this.
Her aged hands reach out towards the apprentice.
<[May I hold him?]>
My gaze hops restlessly between the message and her face. Too stunned to do anything else, I hand the apprentice to her. She takes him in both arms, and I watch perplexed as even more arms appear, inexplicably normal-looking, and take a gentle hold of his head and neck. And with a little tinkering, and a tiny crack…
His eyes open again. His neck is okay. He’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with him anymore. He’s alive, and he’s fine, and…
And I saved him.
His eyes are wide and surprised, but with the way she’s holding him and looking at him… Any fear instantly melts from his form. He knows that he’s in the arms of someone who loves him, and so, he has no need to be scared. Looking up at her, he says, “I—”
She shushes him, one finger to his lips.
<[You’re alright now, My child.
Rest in My arms.]>
He doesn’t question it for a single second. With that simple command, his eyes flutter shut, and he slips into a deep but easy sleep.
She turns to me, smile unwavering, eyes like beams of sunlight.
“Is—is he…?”
<[Thanks to you, he is saved.
He will be okay, eventually.
But, for now, he needs to rest.]>
Her smile widens an inch, and, still holding him in her arms, she bows.
<[You have done Me a favor
I cannot repay.
From the bottom of My Soul,
I thank you.]>
I, well, uh… Really, I only did what I promised, so…
Righting again, she speaks once more, her face set in a grave but gentle expression.
<[I doubt you will forgive Me
as you have every right not to,
however, I will still extend My apologies.
For what you have done today,
henceforth, I will support you
to the best of My abilities.]>
That’s really not necessary, I’ve been doing perfectly fine on my own, there’s truly no reason to—
She smiles again. What is it with gods and enigmatic smiling? Don’t they have any better ways to use their faces?
<[I wish you luck in your
future endeavors, Kitty.]>
<[I will not forget My debt to you.]>
And just like that, she’s gone, bringing the apprentice with her.