The Doubting Man

"Why are you sitting here? I thought you wanted to see His Majesty", Corsen hung over him before he knew it, "Though this is somewhere I expected to find you."

"I didn't come along to see the King", Jack lifted his gaze from the endless garden spread before him.

"You're doing well so I thought it'd be nice to let the King know of your services", Corsen sat beside him on the little stone fence, "Do you miss this place?"

"Aren't you supposed to be in court? I thought the King summoned all his knights", Jack avoided her question.

"His Majesty probably just wanted to see Wolfe. He trusts him so much after all. I doubt he'd notice I sent in a proxy."

"Corsen", Jack paused for a thought, "Are you happy here?"

Corsen looked at him, then moved her eyes back to the endless flowerbeds.

"Yeah", she nodded, closing her eyes, "Now that you're here."

"I don't get it", he replied, looking at his hands that felt fresh and light as they were now unbandaged, "Even if you say we were lovers, I can't remember you at all. Doesn't that bother you?"

Corsen looked deep into his eyes, unable to say anything. She looked like she was deep in some thought. Jack stared back for a while but then looked away as if feeling guilty.

"No", she eventually broke the silence, "You are here now so...it's all good now."

Somehow that answer was uncomforting and Jack felt like he couldn't look at her at all.

Jack had recovered enough in about a month and living with the rest of the Beasts, he had learned quite a bit. He had always relied on his ruthless fighting abilities to obliterate anything and everything that came in his way but now he felt he had calmed down considerably. He had so much to think about. Most importantly, Corsen, who he remembered nothing about, told him she was his lover.

And Wolfe who would always appear chasing after Corsen, had become a significant friend to Jack as well. He was his complete opposite yet Jack yearned to be like him. He found himself drawn to these group of people who had been living so strongly, with such resolve and great reasons. Talking with Wolfe made him want to slow down and search for something in his inner emptiness.

"Even if the world sees us as mere mercs, we are fighting for the King too", Wolfe said once, "We didn't care for recognition, we just wanted to survive. You are like us too, Jack and that's why you are welcomed to stay."

He looked stern as he continued, "But the power you hold in your hands...maybe the world you live in will be too bleak someday for you to be able to find a place for yourself. Maybe more than surviving, you'd be running away from it. But you won't be able to do that. Because the world would have become so easy. If you go on long enough, then you should know, you'd instinctively seek pain over death. Your life would be hell and yet you'd want to be here. Because too great a power can be boring."

Jack felt like every single word of his was a stab at his heart but Wolfe didn't stop from speaking the truth. And Jack was amazed and fearful and more than anything, uncertain, about what he would do from here on.

"That's alright", Corsen had comforted him later on, "Even if you need to run away...you have to keep on going. Just never stop and you'd be fine. Maybe, you'd abandon too much on the way but I...I'll have your back so you can keep on moving. Run away if that's what you want."

Jack couldn't understand her kindness. The more time he spent with the Beasts, with Corsen and with Wolfe, the more he was lost.

His fear led him to fulfill the prophecy made that day by Corsen and Wolfe. And he thought back as he lay in the middle of nowhere, with his mouth full of mud and his vision blurred from his bleeding head, that maybe he could have done everything differently and maybe he should have died that day in Halen. Jack had lost everything.