Catelyn Winona
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Here and not There (A Chosen One Aftermath Short Story)
🕑 Added 2022-06-04 01:53:49 +0000 UTCSummary: Dulce is a Hero. The people who made her one better hope they never see her again.
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She is a villain when the adventure is over. It creeps up on her slowly. The shortened temper, the unnatural laughter, the darting eyes. She looks up at the corners of rooms for demon bats that don’t exist in this world and claws at her own flesh when she doesn’t find them.
Her companions come find her six months afterwards.
What does it look like, a prince and a knight and a mage walking into a McDonald’s? It’s one am, closing time, when she finds out.
“Dulce!” Prince Amor clanks through the fronts doors. He’s wearing the Royal Armor, the set that seems to glow from within with the Holy Light of his Blessed Ancestors. The crown on his head is as gold as his eyes. Everything about him looks fake under the artificial dining room lights, but he doesn’t notice. His golden eyes are locked on her. “At last, we’ve found you!”
She’s covered in a fine mist of oil, slashes of burns from the heat lamps marching up her arms. Her black pants are grey under a dusting of spilled flour and she knows her short, brown hair is frizzed up after her eight hour shift. She blinks at the three walking into the dining room and can’t find the words.
“I told you I’d find her,” Mage Kira says proudly. Her black dress looks like it belongs in a gothic version of the Nutcracker. She waves her flowering wand over her head. “Dulce’s magic has always been so distinctive, I knew it would be easy to find her in the Mundane World!”
Mundane world, Dulce thinks. That’s what they think of Earth. Mundane. Run-of-the-mill.
Not special.
Not worthy.
Dulce’s stomach cramps so badly that she sways on the spot. Why did she send the other worker home? Things would be so much easier if she had another human here.
Knight Cora frowns, taking everything in. “Friend Dulce. Are you…well?”
“What are you doing here?” Dulce croaks. She feels like she can hear the howling rabbits or the demon wolves she once fought surrounding the building. She taps her ears with the heels of her hands. The percussion of it clears her head better than any mindful meditation. “Alone?”
“Those unfortunate matters you helped us with have been cleared up,” Prince Amor says. He clanks right up to the register and grins down at Dulce. “You saved my kingdom. I thought it a good idea to come share thanks once again.”
Thanks? Thanks? She says, “You couldn’t have gotten permission to come through the portal.” The portal is run by wizards and wizards are notoriously strict about who comes and goes through the Destiny Portal.
“We did,” Knight Cora says. She at least has had the good sense to try and find mundane clothes. Her soft, linen shirt is slightly less offensive to Dulce’s tired eyes than Prince Amor’s gleaming armor. “A lot of things had to align for the timing to be right, but such is the nature of magic.” She leans forward. “Dulce, I’m familiar with these establishments. Do you…work here?”
Mage Kira gasps and her head whips around. “No, surely not! Here? Work? A Hero works here?”
And that grates. Dulce feels her shock like nails down her spine. “Why is that so hard to believe?”
“I’ve seen you skin a hydra with nothing but a fruit knife,” Knight Cora says. She waves a hand around the room. “This is akin to working as a tavern maid.”
Prince Amor rocks back on his heels. “Surely not! Why that’s unacceptable—”
“Why?” Dulce feels disconnected from her body. “Why? Why is this unacceptable?”
Knight Cora waves her hands at Dulce. “You’re a warrior! A Hero! Surely you must know that you deserve better than this?”
Better? Dulce shakes her head. “Leave.” Her throat feels dry. The phantom howls of demons baying for her blood rings in her ears. “Leave, out, get out--!”
The trio exclaim as she rushes around the counter towards them. For a moment, Dulce forgets that she’s in her work uniform, a black apron tied around her waist rather than a sword. She’s so angry that she imagines herself in full armor, her hair bound along the nape of her neck, her hand reaching for her blade—
Knight Cora catches Dulce’s empty hand before she can strike Prince Amor.
“I killed people for you,” Dulce says. The warmth of Knight Cora’s hand against her wrist is more shocking than the strength behind her grip. Dulce’s adventure left her changed forever in more ways than one. The strength that world blessed her with is another reason she no longer fits in here. “Is killing a more noble profession? Is murder better than serving food?”
“They were demons!” Prince Amor looks at Dulce’s fist caught in Knight Cora’s grip and frowns. “Friend Dulce, are you unwell?”
“Maybe she’s possessed,” Mage Kira says. She raises her wand and the flowers tied to the tip glow. “A simple diagnostic spell should—”
Dulce rips away from Knight Cora with a snarl. “Do not cast magic on me. I do not give you permission.”
Prince Amor raises his hands. “It is only to ascertain your state—”
“I’m not possessed!” Dulce laughs and it’s a bitter sound. She looks between these three, these three who guided her through their world and put her into battle again and again. She looks at them and is back there, sword dropping from her hand as the demons screamed. “I want you to leave. It was supposed to be over when I killed the Demon King for you. It was supposed to be over.”
It's so unfair. The person she’s become—she became this person for them. Because of them. They told her their fight was just. They told her she was saving them. They told her so many things. She believed them.
Damn her, she believed them.
“You…didn’t want to see us again?” Knight Cora asks. Her face is pale and her eyes wide. She stretches out a hand to Dulce and then retracts it, hurt. “After all we went through, after the adventures we shared, after—” She wavers, unable to speak for a moment. When she recovers, she whispers, “Dulce, we’re family.”
“We’re not family,” Dulce spits. She’s shaking. With rage? With fear? With the memory of the Demon King’s blood hot on her hands? “The worst thing I’ve ever done, I did for you three. The blood on my hands—I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have done it.”
And there it is. The awful truth. She lets the words shake her to her bones. I shouldn’t have done it. It wasn’t her world, her fight, her place. She took a weapon into her hands and she didn’t get all the facts before she acted. She was threatened, yes. They were her only way back home. But she still acted.
And now the blood is on her hands.
“I will never be the same,” Dulce says. She means that she is less than. That she is broken. That she is an abomination. “I feel as though I can’t live with what I’ve done.”
“The burdens we all bear from our battle—” Mage Kira starts to say only to fall silent as Dulce laughs.
“It wasn’t my world!” Dulce doesn’t know how to describe the horror of that. “I don’t know who I am anymore. A Hero? No, because I didn’t save anyone, did I? I just filled your country’s pockets with money and destroyed homes. I—I am a monster because of it. Because of you.”
“You saved my kingdom,” Prince Amor says. His jaw clenches and unclenches. “You claim to carry evils, but that is not true. You did what was right. You saved—”
“The children cried when I killed their king,” Dulce says. That moment is as clear to her now as the day it happened. The skies so clear and blue overhead. A sword in her hand. A body at her feet. The howls – no, the wails – of a people devastated by the death of their ruler. “The magic crumbled. The castle fell apart around their ears.” She turns on the Prince. “Your kingdom was saved? But what of theirs?”
“They were demons. We told you, the demonic are parasites—"
“Where could the dryads go when you burned their forests?” She advances on them again and, this time, Knight Cora does not stop her. She steps forward. They step back. “Where could the nymphs go when you siphoned their lakes? Where could the dwarves go when you stole their mines?”
“It was for the prosperity of the kingdom—”
“IT WAS FOR NOTHING!” Dulce doesn’t flinch when a light shatters above their heads. Her power claws at her skin, desperate to be used. The magic suppressor around her ankle heats in warning. “You made me a monster for nothing. For greed and disgusting self-indulgence. You falsified a prophecy for sportand then dare show up here and call me a Hero?”
Mage Kira steps in front of the other two, her eyes alight with power. “Dulce, I don’t know who has corrupted you, but we’re your friends! Stop this magic at once.”
“I can’t use magic here,” Dulce says. She lifts the leg of her khakis to show the anklet. “The Magic Tower bound me.” She bares her teeth as the remaining lights tremble under the weight of her aura. “No need to be afraid.”
“Why would they do that?” Mage Kira asks. She seems to forget the situation entirely, the horror of bound magic overwhelming her. “You’re a Chosen One, a Hero—”
“I wasn’t supposed to ever see you again,” Dulce says. She barely recognizes her own voice. Before when she said these words, she sounded wounded. Scared. Now she sounds mocking. Contemptuous. “They promised me it was over. That you would never come through the Portal of Destiny again.” Her lip curls. “And neither would I.”
What does it look like when a prince, a mage, and a knight walk into a McDonalds? What does it look like when they meet a sister, a comrade, a Hero? What does it look like when they realize not everyone believes their narrative, their lies, their convenient untruths?
Prince Amor lays a hand on his sword. “I consider you a friend, Dulce. We traveled together and fought together. I know not who has poisoned your mind against us, but we shall save you.” He glances at the other two through his peripherals. “We must take her back to our world. Our healers can—”
“I can’t go with you.”
Knight Cora reaches out a hand towards her as if offering salvation. “Dulce, the prince is right. The feelings you’re having are unnatural. You may feel that you can’t come with us, but you must.”
“Not won’t.” Dulce jabs a finger to her anklet. “Can’t.”
“The wizards have barred you from the Destiny Portal?” Mage Kira is the first to realize what she means. “But they must have known that you’ve been corrupted—”
“I tried to go back to kill you,” she tells Prince Amor. She lets the confession ring in the silence for a long, long moment. “That’s why they prevented me from returning. Because once I realized what you had done to me, to those poor people, I tried to go back to slit your throats like I should have when you first called me Hero.”
The three of them stare at her, unable or unwilling to understand. She feels her magic swirling faster and faster inside of her chest. Outside the restaurant, a car alarm blares. The air trembles. A table behind Knight Cora tips over, causing all three of them to jump.
Dulce grits her teeth and wills her magic to behave.
“You Chose me,” Dulce says. She sneers the word. Chose. “You used me for evil. You destroyed me with it. I came back from your world broken. So I decided to atone with your deaths. The wizards stopped me. They promised me that it was over. They promised me that I didn’t need to atone for what the Prophecy made me do. Then, when they realized I didn’t believe them, they bound me. To protect you.”
She hears the demons screaming louder and louder. There’s pressure building in her head. The worst thing she’s ever done, she did for them. She did it on a sunny day. She did it in the time it takes her to flip a burger. And they dare come here and tell her she deserves better.
Thunder rumbles in the distance.
“Dulce,” Prince Amor finally says. No longer Friend Dulce. Only her name and a growing horror in his eyes. “Dulce, no. Someone has whispered these evils in your ear. You—surely not—”
“Leave,” Dulce says. This time her voice rings with magic. A command. “The laws in my mundane world are different than you know. The wizards have stopped me from harming you in your world. Mine won’t stop me.”
Knight Cora opens her mouth just as lightning crashes outside. She casts a fearful look out the windows and back to Dulce. She says, “We did nothing to you.”
“You did everything to me,” Dulce says. She points to the door. “Leave.”
Thunder shakes the building.
“I’ll save you,” Prince Amor blurts out. The two women pull and push him towards the door. He twists as he shouts, “Whatever sorcery this is, we will save you from it!”
The wind howls through the doors when Knight Cora throws them open. Rain pounds down, slamming into the street with real force. Mage Kira throws a magical shield over them all, but it doesn’t keep them dry. The rain falls through the shield as if it’s not even there.
Stay safe, Dulce mouths at her. Mage Kira is the only one who looks truly afraid before they dart away into the night.
Dulce stands in the same spot and breathes. She stares at the walls and the tables and the chairs until she forgets what it looks like when a knight, a prince, and a mage walk into a McDonalds. She’s here. She’s not there.
With any luck, they might make it back through the Portal of Destiny before she remembers that they’re here too.
Dulce goes to get a broom. The glass from the shattered light won’t sweep itself.
Comments
Oh my goodness. I do enjoy stories like this one! Realizing that the narrative you've been given isn't so black and white and just *chef's kiss*.
i the poor girl has a therapist
Hel M
Oh, *ow*
