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It’s one thing to see an entirely different side to a person who you thought you reasonably knew and find yourself thrown off your sense of anything by the complete and total disparity. It’s another thing to look at them and struggle to even recognize a single facet of the person you knew… the person I know.

When the darkness ebbed and slink into the skies, the objects, the expansive scene of another memory, I stifled the whispers, shrunk the fraction, and tried my absolute best to find an inkling of familiarity in this total stranger before my eyes.

Unlike the previous three, this memory was a fleeting one, barely long enough to have left a lasting impression – but it did.

Through violent tremors, quick blinding flashes, pandemonium pounding on every bone in my body. I could hear the sound of swords clashing, and feel the invisible ripples of magic coursing, exploding.

A giant mass of shadows surrounded Adalia’s murky shade, encircling an expansive field in a rowdy swarm kept only at bay by a barrier of armed guards, and set in the very heart of the beating, exhilarating commotion – there was a fight happening.

Ten against one. Faint outlines weaving in barely discernible flickers. Swords once again clashed, Barrages of magic flared in instant succession. It was a thrilling spectacle of valor and skill watched by a countless dozen, hundreds even… with Adalia having a front-row view of it all.

Yet since she wasn’t focusing on the fight, and so in turn, as much I tried, neither could I.

.....

Again, it was just a brief memory, so quick to pass, to fade, I don’t even know she was showing it to me. It was only at the very last instant, the very moment all the shapes and sounds everywhere lost form that I finally noticed what I was supposed to see.

Adalia had been groping herself.

Subtle, yet in that frantic kind of subtle. The way her hands writhed across her body, as if she had been rummaging for something in her pockets, feeling for something… but just couldn’t. Like she had just lost something very important.

“It’s nothing,” I heard her unease ringing in the void. “Absolutely nothing.”

Another memory sprung up from the darkness, it was the same scene, the same commotion, only a little later, with an Adalia visibly ruffled yet distracting herself from her own distress by immersing herself into something else.

Finally, the clash of might came into clearer view, every other sound, every other sight blending into nothingness as the eleven combatants scattered across the now fissured, ruined field were brought into prominence.

From the look of things, the fight appeared to be reaching a futile, weary end. The ten that stood opposed seemed to be at their wits’ end. Those armed rushed ahead once more, weapons in battle-worn grips raised high and poised to strike, while those that hung back mustered the last of their focus, channeling their magic forward.

An onslaught of coordinated strikes, swords blurring, magic flowing, in motions of split seconds all to take down this one single foe.

A singular foe that did not even come close, not even for an instant, to exerting an equal effort back. It moved – this large, imposing figure in black – dodging, deflecting, never once retaliating, I’m sure I’ve seen that nimbleness before.

The way it came to an instant halt. How it stood tall yet a little hunched, head slanted slightly. Even the way its arms relaxed, drooped down with a little sway. I even predicted the swell in its chest – the breathy, heavy sigh – an entire lifetime ago and it seems old habits just never die.

Dad’s voice soared high over the fervor of the crowd.

“One, two, three, four – away with you,” He briskly addressed each with the point of a finger. “Five, six, seven, eight, and nine, you will depart with me on tomorrow’s convoy. Ten, I am not done evaluating you. Join the next batch, I want to see your mettle pitted against me once more.”

The four that were disregarded left the battlefield in a wake of humiliation, lambasted and shamed by the crowd for their failures, whilst the latter five departed into the embrace and cheers of everyone else. Number ten took a step back, falling among the ranks of another group of warriors eager to prove their worth to the fabled hero of legend himself.

Then there was me, memories and preconceptions torn between two separate yet equally true realities. The pill just never gets any easier to swallow, even more so, when you’re being shown instead of told. I knew Dad was Leonardo, I knew he actively fought against the pure evil of his world, and I knew people looked at him with reverence and admiration.

Like Divinity made manifest.

I wonder if he knew here… already thought about it by this point, or perhaps he was just beginning to. All these people, all the trust and faith they had in, that he would ultimately spit it back in their faces.

All the lives that surrounded him at this moment. Now, no longer.

I blinked, noticing something was amiss and before I realized what was happening, the once tumultuous swarm of bystanders suddenly fell into a silence.

“Sir Leonardo.”

A lone figure slowly entered the battlefield. A dull scrunch in the shriveled grass with every quivering march forward. I saw the quiver of a wooden cane, the empty sleeve billowing in a stray gust of wind, then close by, with a cross of her arms and obscenely loud, Adalia’s shadow sounded a derisive snort.

“I would also like to fight,” with a final lumbering step, the frail shadow came to a stop. “If you would permit it. I hope you would permit it.”

At once, whispers and mutters broke out everywhere from everybody in an unintelligible unison, but as far as I could tell, they weren’t ones of high praise.

“And you are?” Dad turned, his voice in a startlingly unfamiliar politeness.

“Liamel, sir,” He bowed down, or at least attempted to do so. “I… I am aware that I may not be of much use to you, exactly.”

“You don’t say,” Dad replied, his tone in a faint hint of a smile.

“But I… I don’t care what it is you’ll have me do. Just please take me with you. Have me do anything, assign me any order. Just find some use of me, I beg of you.”

For a long few seconds, Dad just stared at him. A silence and a stare that was all too familiar with, whenever I caught him deeply pondering.

“Are you a resident of Gron, Liamel? Born and raised? If so, then it will really explain a lot. I understand all of you are brought up understanding that the hardship of battle is the only means to validate one’s existence. And you’re unfit to hold a sword, unfit to even fit the soles of your boots. Hmm, yes, that would explain a lot about why you’re doing this, won’t it?”

He spoke with such a surge of sympathy, it felt a little unnerving to me. I’ve never heard him this expressive before, this animated, this… this heroic, I guess.

To everyone else, though, clearly… this was all par for the course for the gallant hero.

“The people you called away, do you believe they’ll live the rest of their lives content? Satisfied?” Liamel asked. “They have spent their entire lives awaiting this moment. Every waking moment spent – for this. They with their able bodies, and you turned them away. Do you believe them to think their lives will be any worth after this? And me, the way I am… Do you think I have been content all this time living mine?”

Leonardo, Dad… slowly, he rested a firm hand on the shadow’s shoulder, “So is that really it then? Your entire life’s purpose… just to be of meager use to me?”

“Any use to anyone. To you, to my village, to myself. Anyone,” Liamel clarified, the harsher quiver of his cane nearly toppling him of his balance. “I am tired of being useless.”

Then that’s when it happened. Adalia slowly arms slowly fell back to her sides, and now she couldn’t help but stare, the scene before her suddenly given more emphasis, and the shadow of Liamel had turned vivid, a darkness almost vibrant.

Everything else became a faded blur, as she, as the memory, had found its focal focus. The brittle shake of a cane, the limp fall of an empty sleeve as the wind died away.

Liamel heaved with a quiver, a pleading, wanting expression almost showing in the empty void of his face. I couldn’t see it, of course, but through the memory, through her, almost as if looking into the reflection of a mirror… I could feel it.

“Please,” He begged again. “Just let me be of use to someone.”