Burning Soul

“For years I tried learning Magic and Combat, but I wasn’t good at any!

So I started making clothes and ornaments, like necklaces, bracelets out of rare materials and stones, I was terrible at the beginning! The work appeared very strenuous for me and it started making me feel downhearted. But with the help and support of people around me I was able to learn it, wasting no time.

When I was around 18 years young (Not old), I saw him for the first time!

I still remember it as clearly as it was yesterday!” She showed a smile for the first time, her eyes gleamed a bit and her face flushed as she babbled about him.

“She didn’t talk that much last time!” Catherine with a perforated face pointed it to Merida as she was sitting adjacent to her, who was also listening to all this.

“It wasn’t like any fairytale, nothing magical happened and all, but for some reason, I knew right away! It has to be him!” A tear slipped from her eye, it was enough for others to understand how much she adored the person she was talking about.

“With the help of my father and his influence I managed to get to talk to him, it was like a dream coming true!

After some time we started going out, I couldn’t be happier. At the time he was a trainee in the Sentinel’s programme! A very valuable job one must say!” She said it enchanting her eyebrows and little obliged expressions on her face.

“We started planning our future, about how we will live when he’d be performing his duty! How will I stay alone till he finishes the final field training and stuff like that!

Just thinking about how I’ll manage the house alone while waiting for his return and once he did, how will he reward me! Maybe a hug or kiss, or maybe...”

As she said so, almost everyone but one dense rock understood what followed next just by looking at her,

“That was really very nice, why do you call it a love failure? Wasn’t it a great thing that happened?” Theo a bit elevating from his chair, astonishingly blinking his eyes, folded his hands by his body and asked her as she paused a bit,

“Hmm, because that never happened!”

Her words followed a deep sorrow and a few moments of total silence,

“Why? Wasn’t it all good?

You both loved each other, could support each other and had a plan too! Why did it fail?” Theo was someone who never understood romance well and couldn’t grasp the notion of breaking up!

“Sometimes, we plan for things that are never going to happen, with a smile and hope in our eyes!

A similar thing happened!

After a while we kind of got used to being with each other spending quality time, hand-holding, talking about the future and all….but for him it seemed nothing exciting, maybe he was fed up with it!

He was there but wasn't there by heart!

I could see it in his eyes but I wasn’t ready to crush my hopes yet so I pretended the best girl I could be, hoping one day I’ll see Him looking at me the way he did before.

The days kept passing by and well with that the feeling of being loved kept getting worn off,

a bit by bit,

every day I would wake up scared thinking, ‘Today might be the day!’

And once he started going to Patrolling, he’d meet me less and less, until one day, he didn’t even arrive!

Scared, I asked around when I found out something was off!

After asking around I figured,

He had been engaged to another girl just after he arrived from the camp! Apparently, his parents were against marrying a mere Human!

A poor creature with lesser lifespan, lesser strength and lesser aptitude for both Magic and Combat!

Incapable myself!

He pretended to love me for well over six months with such ease after getting engaged!

The moment I heard it, I felt dead within!

His presence in my life made me fulfilled, but after knowing the fact I was all alone. I felt shattered and broken, I ended up feeling heartbroken, I was scared and sad because I thought I'll never recover from this pain.”

She paused a bit while grinding her teeth, she had swinging emotions, anger, guilt, sadness, pain! Everything!

“Why would someone go as far as pretending!” Theo shook his head with astonished expressions on his face.

“Well, heartbroken I left the city for good! I felt like I had nothing left for me”; saying this she wiped her tears which rolled down her cheeks and nudged her face with her hands and then stroked her hair flicks behind her ears which trembled over her face.

“The only regret I was left with was that I trusted someone among the strangers who denied me and I got betrayed so bad that I lost the ability to trust anyone ever again, even myself. The only way for me to end the misery was to end the path that I had taken right there!

And so I went to the temple of Origins, to sacrifice my soul to the deity!”

Saying so she stretched her slender white hands out and a halo slipped out of her chest and rested on her palm!

“That is?” Aeneas who had a slight idea tried verifying.

“Divinity!” She replied,

“That means you really did!” He replied with a blank expression,

“Yeah!

The soul that failed so miserably, I sacrificed it!”

The halo went back in her as she pulled her arms back.

“Then,

Why the heck are you so sad and gloomy about?

We’ve been hearing you cry for long enough, but isn’t it just a matter of time you forget this crap and move on!” Merida commented while narrowing her eyes and blinking them slowly and her hand stroking her chin!

“As it happens the throwback of the deal made my mental health unstable! My emotions are exploited and I can’t control them! When I feel sad I feel sad and I can’t hold it!” she explained while wiping off another tear off her cheek.

“Is it the same with anger! I think that is why they are scared of her!” Aeneas with an agitated expression on his face whispered in Merida’s ear who sitting beside him,

“There is a reason she’s this sorry today!” A nurse who was walking past them stopped and commented with an angry look,

“After all that happened, that jerk happened to be admitted here!

Under her mercy!

Gosh her heart never learned her lesson! I’d have thrown him out right away and let him rot and would never feel shattered or heartbroken if he had done something like that with me!” She continued in anger.

“That means!” Both Naomi and Nuae replied in a chore, “That injured Sentinel was ‘the guy’?”

Theo stood there stroking his hairs back from his forehead while thinking something, in the process they had forgotten why they were there in the first place!