Shika

Voices grumbled either too high or too low to hear clearly. Everyone’s faces are blurred beyond recognition. Beyond the people was fuzzy, like when a Television show suddenly went to fuzz. A fight broke out between two faceless people, both males. One pushed the other and was pushed back. A punch was thrown. Then a knife was pulled out.

Redden with cold eye lids, crystal jade eyes slowly went from one corner to the other of the eye lid before the lids closed again. Almost frozen arms wrapped tighter around the sore, groaning torso. He felt something that may been liquid at one point but now have frozen to the side of his face. It burned a little as he tried to poke his tongue at it from the inside of his mouth.

/Shika/ A ghost whispered in his cold ear.

“Shika.” A cracked whispered repeated through his purple chapped lips.

There was something in his fist. He could feel the cold metal on the skin of the palm and string against his wrist. He groaned as he forced the arm to move, cried out when it shot great pain back to his brain, opening the fist at his eyes as eyes open again.

They blinked a few times, blinking the vision back into focus. There it was a piece of metal, cut in a circle with some kind of design etched in. A star with an extra line above two rows of waves. He closed his eyes, trying to remember where he had seen this design before.

It was all in grey. The desk, the pens and papers, anything beyond that was blurred and fuzzed. He focused in on the corner of the paper and the star with the extra line above two rows of waves was beacon, shining bright while the words were blurred.

Outside voices interrupted the memory, causing it to fade. Soon many hands, too many hands grabbed at him. He cried out his discomfort and tried to wiggle out their grasps. Two hands belong to a father, firm but soft, hard but caring, brushed at his cheeks and forehead, a deep but gentle shushing him and coaxing him into letting the other hands pick him off the ground. Then the young man was wrapped over and over in warmth and fur.

“Be careful and keep him warm.” The fatherly voice ordered the many hands as they carried him to somewhere he did not know.
He lost conscious once again not soon after.

*************************************

Doctors and healers of the royal grand palace of Shankala filled up the grand room. It was a simple guest room to those with noble blood flowing in their veins. They tended to the young man’s many injuries, stitching flesh back together and rubbed healing salve over them before wrapping white clean bandages over them. They forced the unresponsive body to take in food and water and medicine and washed ice over his forehead to bring down the fever that came from the already infected wounds.

“He has no name, nothing that tells us who he is.” The old general spoke to his sultan, his old boyhood friend.

“You find me a broken nameless man instead of my son.” The old man spoke in a clear voice that was laced with hidden rage. His dark old eyes burned as perfect, groomed, bejeweled fingers tapped at the golden arm of the grand throne.

The graying general shook his head with a heavy sigh. The winter storms made it hard to find any signs of the runaway prince. It was amazing and nothing in short of miracle that he had found the broken man when he did. The young one wasn’t even that far out of his adolescence years. And yet, his body has been out through more then most of his own solders have been through.

“It would be cruel to leave this man out in this weather. Prince Armand knows these lands better then anyone, if he doesn’t want to be found, then he won’t be found.”

“You tell a father this?!” Redai angrily stood up from his grand throne, ready to attack his old friend like an angry jungle cat.

“I tell a father that his son only wishes some time to himself and I will tell a king that his prince needs time to know what he can be as king when time is right.” He stood still and claim, knowing how terrible that the king was feeling.

Only his own son would never come home ever again.

A tired doctor cleared his throat from the doorway. Both men turned to look at him. “The young man is sleeping soundly. He’s in the Grand Mother’s hands now.”

*****************************************

“This is Armand that I see.” The king whispered as he lightly wrapped around a small curl of soft burgundy hair. The general now saw the likeness between the runaway prince and this stranger.

“He will have some scars.” The head doctor spoke near the door.

“Hunting trip. We will say that he got into a tremble with Wrath-hog while out hunting.” General stared at his king like he suddenly spouted four more heads.

“You can’t be serious. What if he knows who he is or how about when-“

The king held up a hand to silence him. “We will say that his memory has gotten rattled and what if he never comes home! It’s been three months!” He hissed out the last words, turning his head away in shame of what caused the prince to leave in the first place.

“You can’t replace your son just like that. You have to wait-“

“The throne needs a heir, the people need a prince!” The old king spoke and gave a look that the matter was close.

Then he turned his dark eyes towards the doctor. “You.” The old man jumped. “As soon as possible, you will give him the royal markings.” The doctor quickly nodded and left to fetch the required tools for the job.

Then the dark glance turned onto a servant. “Go, tell everyone that Prince Armand has returned and prepare to move him into the prince’s rooms. Clean and groom to look like the crown prince. And anyone says different about this man being prince, they will be cast down into the lowest part of the dungeons.” The servant jumped into action and left to gather up a team of servants.

The whit-haired sultan turned his eyes back on his old friend, whose head was bowed. “That goes for you, too General.”

He shook his head in response and sighed heavily. “You’re making a big mistake and I’ll be here to make sure that it doesn’t get any bigger.” He laid his wary hand on the sleeping man’s head and gave a silent prayer for his recovery. Then with one last glance at his sultan, he left the room and the king to his own thoughts.
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A/n: you. review. now.