#37 - Go Away. Leave Me Alone to Quietly Starve to Death

Limyé looked at the breakfast tray, untouched on the desk, and the lunch tray in his hands.  Then he looked over at the lump under the featherbed.

Heylia lay mostly sprawled over the body in the bed, and his hand hung out from underneath to rest on Sure’s head.  When the dog raised her head to look at the Imaryan, Ahrimaz’s hand slid off to hang behind where the dog lay.

“Ahrimaz.”  Limyé called.  There was no answer, no response.  The Imaryan nudged the cell door open with his foot, set the second tray next to the first and went over to check.  Sure scrambled up to greet the healer and Heylia raised her head, her purr heavy and echoing.  Ahrimaz’s pulse beat strong and sure under his fingertips and Limyé tucked it back under the edge of the feather quilt.

“Leave me alone.” Ahrimaz’s voice rustled out from under the quilt and fell on the floor as if it were too heavy.  “Just. Just go away.”

“It is all right that you have no energy,” Limyé said, quietly.  He pushed his hands under Heylia and began slowly massaging Ahrimaz’s shoulders where he lay face down.  “You have no demands on you.”

Again the words dragged out.  “That’s the problem.  I used my pain and my rage to keep going.  I was necessary for the Empire to continue.  Now my ‘oh so beloved half’ has his stinking, ash hands on it and is ‘SAVING’ it.  Ahriminash has been voted in here. I am not useful here. No one would care if I ceased drawing breath. I’m a useless waste of skin and I’m taking up everyone’s time and energy looking after me.  I just want to stop. I just want it to stop hurting.”  But he didn’t throw off Limyé’s gentle hands.

“In the other world you would have run to the end of your rage and your strength and died young to get away from the pain,” the healer said.  “Here you can re-learn how to live without burning hot or burning out.  You are allowed to live without the fire that has been harrowing you your entire life.”

“There’s nothing but ashes left anyway.  I’ve got no fuel left.”

Limyé nodded and didn’t answer, letting his hands work down Ahrimaz’s ribs and up along his shoulderblades.  “Your ‘stabbed in the back’ spots aren’t so tight anymore,” he said.

“Eh?”  It was just an inquiring grunt.

“Right between your shoulder blades, where your spine is not protected by anything but muscle.  When warriors train or fight, they tighten up there.  Not just warriors, though.  Most people.  Whenever they are in a conflict of any kind.  Between partners, between parents and children, between working partners… everyone tightens up there, raises the shoulders, harden all around the torso as if preparing for a physical assault.  Stabbed in the back spots.”

“Ah.”

Heylia stretched up to her paws, arched her back and kneeded all down Ahrimaz’s back, below where Limyé’s hands worked, stomped down Ahri’s legs before hopping off onto the floor, nose raised toward the congealed bacon on the breakfast tray.  “No, cat, that is Ahrimaz’s food to give or eat as he chooses,” the healer chided.

“She can have it.  I don’t want it.”  But Ahrimaz finally stirred away from lying on his belly and Limyé let him up. He rolled around and sat, curled into the hollow he’d worked into the feather mattress, rope supports creaking.  “Give her and Sure the bacon.  Sure will want the egg too since it is cold.”

“You still care for things,” Limyé said as he shared out the ruins of breakfast.  When he came back there was a steaming cup of malik in his hand and he held it out.  Ahrimaz hesitated but took it almost more automatically than with any forethought.

“No.  I don’t.  I’m a monster, remember?”

“We disagree with you.” Limyé said mildly and settled onto the chair by the bed.

Ahrimaz drained the cup, shuddered and set it down on the table with a sharp ‘crack’.  “There.  I’ve consumed something.  Are you happy?” He put his head down on his knees.

“I’m glad that you have consumed something.  There was a bit of cream in that.  And it is a stimulant so you might find a bit of energy there.  Maybe enough to disagree with me, when I tell you that you have been taught to be a monster and no longer need to be one.”

Ahrimaz turned his head sideways to stare at Limyé.  “Why don’t you just leave me alone to starve to death quietly.”

“Because I’m your healer and you are my patient.  And I’m getting an amazing amount of information for my book… perhaps books on the difference between nature and nurture in nearly identical subjects.”

Ahri snorted a laugh and turned his head back down so his forehead was on his knees.  “Of course, it’s all self interest.  Not concern or care for me at all!” The sarcasm was thick enough to cut.  This time it was Sure who bounced up on the bed and flung herself into Ahrimaz’s knees.  “Go away, dog,” he said, but there was no heat behind it at all.  “Just all of you, go away.”

There was a tap at the door and one of the house pages peeked in.  “Limyé?  Sir?” Since the guards had gone away, the pages had taken over serving Ahrimaz but they only called him by the honourific, since they couldn’t apparently make themselves call him Ahrimaz.

“Yes, Daryl?” Limyé answered him.

“There’s a bunch of raconteurs to see the sir, Limyé.  The three owners of the Coalition News.”

Limyé nodded and Ahrimaz just melted back down under the feather bed, moaning. “Oh, Aeono, scorch no. No. No!”

“I take it you sent your wad of papers down to the newspapers?” Limyé wasn’t so crass as to smile at Ahrimaz but there was some amusement in his voice.

“I did.  Just tell them all to go away!” Ahrimaz groaned.

“Sir, they say they can wait until you’re ready to speak to them.  And your honourable almost father said he would come to be with you when you speak to them.”

“Almost father.  Almost mother.  And raconteurs.  Scorch me up the anus with a red-hot, hooked climbing pole.”  He rolled over and Sure rode the wave of his motion, grunting, then wiggled up to where he wrapped his arms around the dog, clutching her to his chest.  His eyes looked lost and tired.  “Limyé… please.  Please.”

“I will speak to them.  We can arrange for their visit another day, when you are stronger.”