A Bird Among Serpants

1.9

"Hey.. hey wake up.." I open my eyes to see Percy standing over me looking somewhat worried "Are you alright? No one would let me come in here until now.. it's been a few days."

I pull myself up, body feeling somewhat weak but no pain in sight. Everything feels so fuzzy, "Where am I? What happened?"

He looks shocked as I think more, my memories coming back in a snap as I do. I kind of wish they hadn't. I can't believe he pushed me that far. I feel so tired, I'll shoo Percy away so I can go back to sleep, "Sorry, I'm back now. How long have I been asleep?"

"Um." He thinks for a moment, "4 days my lord. May I ask, what happened? I was quite worried."

I sigh, knowing that I can't tell the truth. I'm just some guy and he things of the emperor in such a high regard. I wonder if he would even believe me if I told him everything that's been done, "The emperor was testing a spell on me and I must've passed out from it. You weren't allowed in the room probably because it was classified."

"I knew there was a reason. Sorry for worrying so much. It's just been making me anxious." He smiles and nods while walking out of the room, "I'll go get Pearl and Tyria."

He walks out of the room and comes back shortly with Pearl and Tyria running in the door, Pearl shortly checking my body over as I look for Percy, "Where'd the kid go?"

"He wasn't supposed to be in here." Pearl tilts my chin up to face her in a panic, "What all did you tell him?"

"Nothing that would damage anything, don't worry-"

She slaps me decently hard and tilts my head back over to her, "WHAT ALL DID YOU TEL HIM?"

I go quiet for moment, deciding to answer quite quickly after recovering from my shock, "I told him that I had been a test subject in a classified spell casting experiment and that was why I fell asleep."

She turns to Tyria, still not loosing the same quickness, "Is he telling the truth?"

"From his heartbeat I assume yes."

I expect her to take her hands off, but instead she grips them around me in a hug, "I thought he broke you.. I thought that was it.."

I bite my lip, "Same here, honestly, though I'm guessing you're talking about something else that happened when I was, 'asleep'."

Tyria looks at me surprised, "My magic was able to penitrate your barrier?"

Pearl pulls away as I smirk, "I guess it was. Good job, Tyria."

She smiles back and blushes while Pearl looks at me as if in disbelief, "What happened?"

Pearl looks down, "The first time you woke up you were completely broken. You didn't care about your country, you didn't care about anything, you just wanted more pleasure. It was like everything that had made you you was washed away. Tyne cast a spell that we all assumed wouldn't work because the way it had seemingly imbedded itself inside your brain, we all thought you were gone.. but.."

"Here I am.." I look down and think for a moment, "What was the emperor's reaction?"

"He spent about 5 minutes in the room with you before exiting and yelling at his mage to fix it, her telling him that she couldn't because of how far gone you were." They both look down, "Tyria cast the saving grace spell that no one assumed would work yesterday and you passed out. Woke up today completely fine. It's like a miracle."

I take a breath, this is a good sign. It means he doesn't want me broken. Since now he knows that those things can and will push a magic user past their limit, they most likely will be switched to being used to torcher people instead of being used on hores for fun. I feel terrible for the prisoners of war now that may have any information, but that's most likely what will happen and I can't stop it. I'm starting to feel even worse for that poor elf now. How much time did he say he left those things on him for? 2 hours.