The Sword’s Vow

the weird things they were talking about; mermaids? werewolves? druids? None of those things were real. They simply didn exist. Then again, I was the guy having prophetic dreams and wed been pushed through a mirror-portal just a few hours ago. I guess I didn really get a say in what was real anymore and what wasn .

We followed Eumaeus out of the cellars. There were guards just outside and some in the hallways, they all nodded and smiled at Eumaeus. We passed some other people, one woman whose hair was changing colour every second, and a man wearing a red tunic, who had a fish for a head.

I knew better than to stare but I hadn seen Rory this excited since theyd announced a new adaptation of his favourite book series. It was nice, in a way, to get away from all the stress involved with school. Our college admissions or points didn matter here. I wasn sure there were any sort of colleges here. Maybe I should just enjoy it. Although if I let myself relax there would be no one stopping Rory from getting himself killed.

After a few long hallways and two staircases, we got to, what I assumed was, Eumaeus room. It was impeccably tidy. There was a four poster bed pushed towards the wall on the left and a huge semi-circular window that stretched from the floor almost to the ceiling. Apart from the desk in the middle of the room, along with some armchairs and a chest of drawers there wasn much else to the room. There were tall bookshelves that lined the wall on the right and when I turned around, I realised that they also covered the wall with the door. Only a small gap was left for the entrance to the room.

Eumaeus brought us over to the desk. It was messier than anything Id ever seen and Id seen the inside of Rorys room. There were papers and books everywhere, a ballpoint pen lay beside an ink bottle containing a quill. There were cups and bowls thrown around the place too. Eumaeus said something in a language I didn understand and hastily began cleaning up.

”Sorry about this, ” They said as they grabbed a wicker basket and slid everything from the desk into it. ”I swear Im usually more tidy but I spent all this time just trying to convince my father to let me do this and then I never actually cleaned up. ”

I edged closer to Rory, for the sake of comfort if anything else and linked our pinkies. All of this was making my head swirl. I just wanted to go home and get some dinner. In response, I could feel Rorys pinky squeeze mine just a little. Out of everyone I knew, I was glad it was him I was stuck with in this strange world.

”Okay, just… sit up here Rory, ” Eumaeus patted the desk and walked around to the other side.

Rory did as he was told and sat down, facing them. I walked over to stand beside them, if something was going to happen I could at least try to intervene.

Eumaeus rummaged through some of the drawers in the desk, before taking out a blank sheet of paper and another ballpoint pen. They scribbled something down in a language I didn understand, Rory was looking at it too with scrunched up eyebrows.

”Okay so you were punched in the stomach and the left side of the face, ” Eumaeus said, suddenly slipping into a doctor type persona. ”Plus a small

cut on the right cheek, correct? ”

”Yeah, I think the swelling went down more or less, ” Rory shrugged. It was always insane to me how nonchalantly he took his injuries. ”No biggie. ”

Eumaeus hummed something under their breath and pulled on a glove. They held Rorys face between their thumb and pointer, while using the other one to gently touch the bruised region of his face. I could see Rorys nose scrunching up a little in pain, he was clearly trying to play it off as no big deal.

Suddenly I felt a surge of a feeling I wasn proud of; a slight pang of jealousy was settling in my stomach. I was clearly going insane, there was no reason for feeling jealous. All that was going on was Rory getting a check up. It was silly so I pushed the feeling away and decided to repress it instead.

”Human skin is so fragile, ” Eumaeus said before turning Rorys face with his hand. ”The cut seems to be taking a long time to heal and its… red, you guys have red blood? ”

”What colour do you guys have? ” I asked in response before Rory could start talking about blood clotting and wound healing.

Eumaeus let go of Rorys face and picked through the wicker basket again. ”Dark green, druids have gold but most other species have some sort of shade of either blue or violet- Ive never seen red before. ” They said and produced a clean test tube from the basket. Then they picked up a pair of tweezers and picked open Rorys scar.

”Ah, that hurt, ” Rorys hand flew to his face. ”What dyou do that for? ”

”Samples, ” Eumaeus said simply. ”Don get upset, I get samples from every species I can manage- they
e all downstairs in my lab. ”

”You
e not taking anything else off him, ” I warned, although I wasn sure how threatening I came across.

Clearly, it was threatening enough for Eumaeus to nod and pick up a plaster stick over Rorys newly open wound. ”No more samples, thats all I wanted, ” they reassured. ”Now, I want to take a look at the bruising, take off your shirt. ”

Rory began to loosen his tie but I stopped him by placing a hand on his arm. ”That seems a bit invasive, ” I reasoned. ”You got to look at the bruising on his face, its the exact same. ”

Eumaeus opened their mouth to respond but were interrupted by someone bursting in the door. ”I came as soon as I could, ” she said, hands on her thighs and panting heavily. ”Whats going on? ”