REPEL | Baldwin IV

Prologue: Kyrie Eleison

warnings and disclaimers: this story will be dark, though not always and not constantly. But it inherently carries horrible themes, and it won't be as idealized as my other Baldwin IV stories.
It is, after all, partly styled as a Greek tragedy and inspired by memento mori. And there is romance, of course. But it is not my intention to romanticize leprosy and their suffering, rather to portray the acceptance of oneself, despite any conditions or flaws, and in this case, the development of their inexorable detriment. The title is meant to be an emordnilap; repel backwards spells leper.

There will be graphic descriptions of disfigurement, wounds, and scars.

You will be able to read the full story on my new account baudouinette
For free btw, don't misunderstand as me promoting a paid story (I wish I got paid for writing!) It's only that I decided to organize my original novels in a separate account as this one is very old and sort of hidden. I needed a fresh start.

KYRIE ELEISON
LORD HAVE MERCY

As I hear them speak of me with sudden repudiation I question what made me the exemplary and lovable daughter they considered me to be not so long ago. Was it my good manners? The eloquence that charmed all of father's possible rivals in his favor? Could it be as simple as their unconditional parental appreciation?

Do my ears perhaps deceive me? Am I still in fact loved despite these dour whispers? Is their distance making me fabricate preconceptions while I sit here in my bedchambers?

Fear drives the appalled to conjure protection by any means. Be it in many cases with the show of swords and shields, or in the current case of my dear parents, with words that illusively ward off my pending but inevitable sentence. And in mine; the constant sway between denial and acceptance.

I have just been almost incessantly prodded and questioned. But no answers are to come my way yet. I will be the last to be told of my own condition. As I was the last to learn of Petra's departure for Konstantinoupolis.

There will be no closure for my concerns yet, just like for the relatively small cut on my waist that never closed and healed. Its yellowish and greenish oozing is continuous around hard reddish bumps. Thibault apologized over and over again for the blow he dealt to me, but it was I who insisted on learning swordplay. One must accept the consequences, grim as they may be.

I cannot remember how painful it was. Or if I only thought it was and procured a response by power of instinct. Either way, the sight makes it look worse than it is. The blade not only left a cut, but the force of the impact spread as a wine colored stain under the skin, reaching the belly button and small of my back. The resulting blemish left a shape that would make an imaginative mind like mine think that a giant's hand squeezed my waist hoping to break me in half like a dastardly stick.

And dastardly I seem to be as well. I am aware that it is not normal that this wound has not healed yet, or that it otherwise did not get infected and ended my life days ago already. Still, the world has taken a different aspect. In some way, I am no longer a part of it. I know it. I know it.

MEDIC
It is worse than we thought.

MAGALI
Worse? I thought you said she is not in pain.

MEDIC
That is what concerned me in my last visit, and the wound has not healed since then. I feared something far more ruinous was lurking inside of her. Something beyond an imbalance of her humors.

There was no reaction, no pain, when the needle pricked her toes. Neither was there one when a small blade drew blood from her palm. This is the worst one could expect.

TASARIOS
You are offering only dread and trepidation with no explanation. Do us the kindness of giving clarifications, and reach your verdict.

The air seems to pause in order to let the physician's unnaturally cold breath pass, now that he has lowered his cloth mask under his chin.

MEDIC
Your daughter is a leper.

Magali brings her hand up to her mouth and along with her husband, she enunciates in Greek a lament to the blessed heavens.

Lord have mercy