140 Broken Part 2

Doevm let out a hollow laugh. "You know, you remind me of a friend I once had, someone just like you."

"There is no one like me," Elero said as she glanced down at her braces, which lay to the side of her deformed legs. "And I hope for everyone else's sakes that there never will be."

"There are many like you," Doevm said. "Just not in the way you think. My friend, he was perfectly fit, monstrously so." He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. "We would often fight on how to deal with situations. He always had friends behind him and always had something good to say." He dipped his quill in ink again. Having just completed the basic outline of the braces, he moved onto their coloration and the order in which the various metal pieces came out. While his hands were shaking, he practically had a quill in his hands for centuries. His skill at writing was unaffected.

"OK," Elero said. "so far this person sounds nothing like me."

"Just be patient," Doevm said as he nearly knocked over the ink container. "I saw him once a week. He had friends, but not many that lasted. Sometimes, none of his party would change. Other times faces vanished. He would come to our sparring sessions covered in fresh blood and bruises, yet he always smiled." A quick snap sounded. He glanced at his quill, the broken pieces of which fell out of his shaking hand. He pulled out another.

"I hated that damn smile from the bottom of my black heart, his laugh too." Elero remained quiet throughout the story, closing her eyes and imagining it. "Because the more he smiled and laughed, the more I knew he was hurting, the more his blue eyes drifted to the floor during our sparring sessions. That truthful idiot could never hide anything from me." He took out some measuring tapes and rulers. "And that's why I realized you were so familiar." He smiled as he measured the dimensions of her legs. "You've got that damned smile too."

"It's just a habit," she said. "Because I'm tired of telling people that I'm ok. If I smile, I don't have to do the whole dance around the "Are you ok?" empty question. What the hell am I supposed to say?" She grabbed the pillow under her and put in front of her face.

"Of course I'm not ok." Her muffled voice drifted from under the pillow. "Look at me. My legs look like a construction project. I can feel each nail hammering into my shins and muscles each time I take a step." Her voice shook like Doevm's hands. "One would think that after all this time, I would have gotten used to the pain, but that isn't true, no matter how much I want it to be." She replaced the pillow behind her head and took a shaky breath before wiping a tear away. "I'm sure your friend says the same thing right, that he's ok?"

He compared his drawing to the one in the healing book. "I wanted to ask him something before I left, but I never got the chance." He made little notes on the differences. 'This is good. I'm steadily gaining her trust. I just need to act busy and ask where she learned how to fight.'

"What was the question?" she absently asked.

'Finally,' Doevm internally sighed as he got the chance to ask again. "How do you deal with it, all the pain?"

'What?' he thought. 'Ask her about where she learned how to fight again! I'm not sure how she countered my soul magic, but she surely did not learn to fight on her own. That has to be a lie. I coaxed her for so long in order to squeeze out the answer, so why did I just throw all that effort away?'

He looked up and his gaze connected to hers as if being sucked in. From under his mask, he felt his eyes drying up as water left them. Pain exploded in his chest, although he was physically fine. It caught him off guard. Before he knew it, his throat had dried up. "How do you deal with the pain?" he repeated as his body shook. "I tried burying it down where I can't see it, but it always comes back more painful than ever. No matter how much I try, it just won't go away. I can't even sleep anymore." It all gushed out of him against his will. "How do you live with yourself when everything just keeps falling apart? How do you keep going?"

Elero looked at him not with pity, which even Doevm held towards himself, not with disdain, which even Thomas held towards Doevm, not with a sense of alienation, which even Doevm's squad members had looked at him with, but an understanding, a connection. "It never goes away," she said. "The more you try not to think about it, the more you do. I'd like to say that you just keep pushing, just smile and laugh and everything will be ok, but that just makes it a little easier. The only thing I do, is never give up, because if I stop, I don't think I'll ever be able to pick myself back up. There is no one else but me that I can rely on." She wiped a tear away. "Wow, I just met you and I'm already spilling my guts," she laughed.

Doevm lowered his head. 'I guess I'm just weak,' he thought. 'I'm doing everything that worked as a Lich, so why isn't it working as a human? Why can't I handle it? I blew up at Frey, I killed random people and put myself at risk for no foreseeable benefit at Scrap City, I even yelled at Thomas. I am so weak.'

"But," Elero continued. "You said you could see straight through your friend, right? I can kind of understand that because, I feel like I can see straight through you." She let out a sad smile, her lips quivering. "Because right now, you're looking at me like how I look at myself in the mirror." Her grip tightened around her skirt and her knuckles whitened. "Please stop. I'm not someone who can give you a straight answer. I'm not your friend. I'm just a freak with metal legs." She looked up at the ceiling as she said all of this, not daring to look him in the face.

"I'm sorry," Doevm said as he stood up, spilling the many drawings still wet with ink. "I've just been through a lot recently."

"It's ok," Elero said as she took deep breaths and smiled. "It's not," she sobbed. "but it's ok."

Time seemed to slow for the two in the room as they regained their composure. Doevm held his head, which began throbbing again. 'Maybe it is time to give up. I've tried and failed. I'll go seek him down and fight him. Win or lose, I need to go take down those gods by turning myself back into a Lich. It seems that, no matter what I try, I can never be a human, just as Maker said.'

"Now that I think about it though," Elero said, taking him out of his thoughts. "I can think of one thing to get me through everything when there was no one else to help me: I practice fighting with my rapier. I go over techniques and ways to fly through any terrain."

"Oh," Doevm cocked his head to the side. "How does swinging your sword help get you through everything? That is just an action. It has no effect on emotions, unless your blade is somehow enchanted with something."

"It's just a normal sword," she said as she pulled a heavily worn wooden training sword out of her spatial ring. "It's a distraction, but it helps a lot. When everything just gets too…overwhelming, I just go to a secluded place and practice. It sets my mind at ease and gives me something to do. It isn't the most exciting thing, and I'm sure that given time, I will move on to something else, but the excitement isn't the point. It gives me a break and suddenly, not everything is so bad. My thoughts just slip right of my head. It's quiet. I can turn off my mind and swing my sword. It might be an action, but it does something to the pain."

"That's it?" Doevm asked.

"That's it," She said.

"That's it!" Doevm stood up, letting the drawings fall to the floor. "I'm an idiot. Of all the species and individuals in the world, I am the biggest idiot who ever lived. I can't believe I forgot something so simple."

"That's good," Elero said, lifting an eyebrow. "What did you realize?"

"I'm not an Undead, I'm a human!" Doevm laughed, which turned into a coughing fit as his expanding chest pulled on his stitches. "So I have to deal with emotions in a human way, not an Undead way. Magicians must have calm minds, so I just need to calm down."

"Um," Elero blinked twice. "Ok…so what does that mean?"

"I need to clean some books!"