PeaceMaker

NOVEMBER 3

"Ugmh…" Dominic muttered, a soft hum going off in his head.

His eyes refused to move and his fingers barely twitched when he commanded them to move.

He took a deep breath in, swallowing as much air as his sore throat could manage and nearly choked. The air was so filled with medicine that he could taste the bitter-mintiness of it.

"Your majesty!" A voice called out.

Dominic flinched, realizing he wasn't the only one in the room. He tried to get up, but his body refused to move and instead returned his effort with strong hits of pain.

"DON'T MOVE!" The voice commanded.

"I.. would if I..ugh.. Could," Dominic stuttered.

The voice let out a deep breath of relief, "thank god you're alive."

"E-excuse me?" Dominic muttered, turning to the voice in surprise. He wished he could look at the face of the person talking but his eyelids wouldn't budge so he had to talk, hoping he was looking in the correct direction of the voice since all he could see was black. "W-what do you mean 't-thank god?' was I on the edge of death or something?"

The voice paused and Dominic could feel the hesitancy even without seeing it, "the anesthetic wore off. I didn't realize that I may have given you an overdose… I never gave your body the chance to slowly get used to the pain so when your anesthetics wore off without a back-up, your body couldn't handle it and started to break."

Dominic relaxed his throbbing muscles and laid on the bed silently for a moment. "You must be Axel."

Under the ringing in his head, Dominic could hear the 'whish' of a movement coming from the direction the voice was in. "You didn't know it was me this entire time? Can you not recognize my voice?"

Dominic painfully let out a brief and weak laugh, "haha… not really… I feel kinda disconnected because I relied on my sight a lot to recognize people… I should work on that a-after this..haha."

"Hmph," the voice huffed pettily.

They stopped talking for a few seconds while Dominic listened to the soft shuffling of the Axel's movements. He paused for a moment before continuing with his next question, "T-then why didn't I feel the pain slowly washing over me? I-it's not like the medicine had an off and on button, I should've slowly f-felt the pain instead of it h-hitting me all at once."

"Your sleep," Axel replied.

"W-what?" Dominic asked, prompting for a more detailed answer.

"While you were sleeping, your anesthetics wore off, that's why you didn't feel anything until you woke up… but… why that sudden attack?" Axel explained, pondering, "Was there some trigger when you woke up or something?"

"I-i don't t-think so… the pain started after I lifted my head quickly to look at someone who was calling me. My spine felt like someone stepped on it," Dominic explained, wincing from the memory.

"That must have been the triggering point," Axel sighed.

"I-i guess?" Dominic stuttered, not really sure how to react.

There was another moment of silence as both people thought about how to continue the conversation.

"Desilva," Axel commented.

"S-sigh...can you stop just mentioning their names and actually g-give context," Dominic groaned.

Axel turned to Dominic and rolled his eyes, "at least you're well enough to make snarky remarks."

"A-and well enough to sentence you to a d-death sentence," Dominic added, doing a short and pain-filled movement that resembled a shrug.

Axel took a moment to mentally reconstruct his sentences. He must have forgotten who he was talking to, a mistake that would cost him his head in the palace and a mistake he'll never make again… maybe. "Desilva was one of the people who rushed in after Litian yelled for help, she seemed surprised at the fact that we called you 'his highness' but still decided to help," he continued, "it seems like picking them to come here wasn't a bad idea afterall… well... Based on the fact that if one of the traditional doctors there hadn't helped you probably wouldn't be awake until 3 days later."

"Ah," Dominic muttered. He hadn't told Desilva or her mother, Memoline, of his real identity in case whatever hate they had left-over wouldn't be used on him and he would be able to watch them without putting them on edge. It seemed like that idea was a bust now. "I'll make sure to thank them."

"I'm actually heading over to their main tent to thank them for helping you," Axel smiled, "and maybe learn some of their traditional treatings."

"That won't be necessary," a voice interrupted, "since I'm already here."

"Mrs. Milti," Axel announced, a bright smile forming on his face, "Thank you so much for your help!"

"No problem," Memoline replied. Dominic listened carefully, her voice with a slight happy ring to it, which suggested she was smiling so he gave a small sigh of relief.

Memoline turned and glanced at Dominic before turning back to Axel, "if you don't mind, I'd like to speak to 'his highness,'" she asked, emphasizing on the 'his highness.'

Axel looked at Dominic and them back to Memoline, "of course," he permitted, promptly placing down the medicine he was working on and stepping aside, gesturing Memoline to continue to his bedside, "I'll be right outside the tent if you need me."

"Thank you," Memoline thanked Axel.

"No problem, I'll be leaving now," Axel chuckled before leaving the tent.

'This man is trying to get me killed,' Dominic thought to himself, 'leaving me unguarded in a room when I can't move my muscles or even see the person who's talking to me. At least I know why he was never cut out to be a guard now.'

They stayed in silence again. Moments like this were so frequent now but Dominic could never get used to it, especially when he couldn't see and didn't know if she had a knife in her hand at the moment and could stab him to death as she wished.

"You lied," Mrs. Milti began, breaking the silence

"I-I know," Dominic replied as he listened to the little sounds of shuffling that came from her feet, suggesting she was doing her usual stroll of examination of the room, "I'm sorry if I ruined your trust but-"

"That's one strike," Memoline interrupted.

"What?" Dominic asked.