(Day 22 of @thewatchau‘s annual prompts. This one’s going to go a bit into Ivy’s mum’s backstory)
She didn’t want to answer. It was such an innocuous question, and the boy asking it was, honestly so sweet. With big brown eyes the colour of hazelnuts peering over a pair of glasses.
“Where are you from?” he had asked.
Fasithe, was the answer. The other side of the Forest from here.
Helen shook her head in the end, clutching the soft bedsheets that piled around her. Her wrist, ankle and head still hurt, and she still felt a bit wobbly, but otherwise, she was fine.
“You don’t remember?” the boy, Cyril, asked again, and Helen just shrugged. She didn’t like lying to him, but she didn’t know him!
“Okay,” the doctor’s son and apprentice leaned back in his seat. “I mean, you hit your head, maybe that’s why you don’t remember?”
She had to say something!
She really should have said more than that.
“Oh, well, er, let us know if you do remember!” Cyril had an adorable smile., and some part of Helen wanted to protect that smile, because the moment this boy left home this world was going to crush him.
Maybe Duilintinn was different. Most of Fasithe was different from that, but still.
The smile dropped as he remembered something. “Oh! Wait here, for a minute…” he trailed off when he realised that she wasn’t going anyway, and there was a flash of a sheepish smile before he hurried off.
Helen relaxed a little when he left, running her good hand over her face.
The room she was in was warm, a fireplace crackled and there were two other beds, with small tables next to them. Each bed had curtains that could be pulled around them for privacy, although since Helen was the only one the curtains stayed open.
Cyril came back with a steaming mug of tea, that he placed onto the table by the bed.
“There you go! That should keep you warm, and help with the pain.”
Helen sank awkwardly into the bed. “I can’t pay you.”
“We guessed that already,” Cyril shrugged, unconcerned. “My father is making an exception for you admittedly. He says he wants you to pay us back as soon as you can, but…” Cyril ran out of words and just shrugged instead.
“…You have my gratitude, for your kindness.”
Cyril’s smile didn’t fade, even though he looks confused by what she said. “Don’t, worry about it? Just, drink the tea. I need to make note of how much I used…”
The two settled into comfortable silence, Helen drinking the bitter tea, and Cyril going over some notes and marking things off.
“Any memories yet?” asked Dr Paris, unwrapping the bandages from her head.
“I remember the Forest,” Helen was determined to be as vague as possible. “And I wanted to go to the sea.”
Dr Paris nodded and stood up to examine Helen’s temple. “It is possible then that you are a Changeling.”
A Changeling? Oh she definitely wasn’t a Changeling. She half wished she was, so she didn’t share blood with, them.
She refused to call them her parents. Parents did more than give birth to you.
All that ran through her head, and all that came out of her mouth was;
“It won’t make a lot of difference,” the doctor said matter-of-factly. “I don’t much about how Changelings come about, but I do know that they don’t always look completely human. That said, one, it doesn’t matter if that’s the case, and two, you look normal so no one’s even going to guess unless you told them.”
“I’ve overwhelmed you, sorry,” as he spoke Dr Paris had a look at her wrist. “Can you move that?”
Helen tried. It was stiff and painful. She didn’t even need to say anything as it was wrapped up again.
“The folks here are good people,” Dr Paris continued. “We’ll get you on your feet, don’t worry.”
(this is 1576, Helen is 16 is Cyril is 14. The Paris’s like to make sure always a Dr Paris in Loburn, hence why Cyril is his father’s apprentice)
