Of Gods and Games ✅ (#ONC2019)

*Five*

If he hadn't known for certain that the wall in front of him was a mirror, he would've believed that the figure he now set his eyes on was merely a stranger facing him.

The stranger was sitting on a bed with three pale-skinned vampires surrounding him. When Theoddar gingerly reached up with his right hand to touch his hair, the person opposite him did the same.

Only...it couldn't be a person, because humans did not look like that. Humans did not have stark contrasts in their features the way faeries did. They did not have white-blond hair and bottle-green eyes. Theoddar blinked. The green eyes blinked back at him.

Of course it was a reflection. He felt like he was a breath away from going absolutely insane. Of course that was him in the mirror. It wasn't as if he'd expected to look the same after the vampires were done working on him. Hadn't he been told that they would render him unrecognisable even to himself?

He detested how he looked. Like he wasn't a Byrne or a human or someone who had duelled in a tavern not so long ago.

He looked down at his left shoulder, still tingling from the tremendous agony it had experienced a few minutes earlier. An intricate swirling pattern ran down his neck and entire arm, a tidal wave of elaborate dark hooks and curving lines. Theoddar felt bile climb up his throat. He was going to be sick any second now; he knew it. And those stupid vampires were still looking at him in the mirror, those ghastly, blood-sucking vermin-

"What the hell did you do to me?" he yelled, promptly doubling over as he gagged, but his stomach too empty to produce anything. He clutched his stomach, feeling it rise and fall as though it were a ship assaulted by a tempest. His fingers were trembling and goosebumps rose on his arms. 

"We only did our duty, Theoddar Byrne," the female in the red dress said to him. She placed a white hand on his shoulder, cold against his burning skin. Pale against the dark ink engraved there. He could not stop shaking. She ran her finger down his entire arm, tracing the whorls there, and he did not have the energy to tell her to take her hands off him. He turned to the mirror again, squeezing his eyes shut and praying that the eyes meeting him would not be green.

His stomach plummeted further when he glanced out from underneath his half-closed eyelids, heart racing, and did not see the familiar brown of his irises.

"Drink this," the male said, and a mug was placed into his hands. The clear liquid inside was slightly viscous as he tilted the mug experimentally to the side, sloshing against the ceramic. It smelt sweet, with the faint hint of spice: anise, perhaps, and nutmeg. Theoddar bent his head over it and inhaled deeply. He dipped a forefinger into the liquid and rubbed it against his thumb.

"You'll feel better if you drink it, young boy," the second girl said to him. She was near the mirror, adjusting the silver necklace around her neck studded with crimson rubies. She turned to look at him with a smile. "Trust me."

Theoddar snorted. "Nice try, you leech," he said bitterly. As though trust was a word to be associated with them. But still, the scent of the drink was irresistibly enticing, reminiscent of his mother's baking and fair food; of rolls baked with dried fruits and covered with sticky glaze. He clutched the mug in both hands and lifted it to his lips. It tasted just as he thought it would: heady and warm. He had intended to only take a sip, but the urge was overwhelming, and he tipped his head further back, drinking the liquid until the cup was empty save from one last drop clinging to the bottom of the mug.

The vampire in the red dress took the mug away from him and gazed almost contemplatively at Theoddar's reflection in the mirror. "The look suits you better, I think. More..." she made a gesture with her hand. "Exotic."

"I don't want to be exotic," Theoddar snarled.

Or tried to.

What really came out was the first syllable; or not even the first syllable. All that escaped his lips was the very first breath of the word I because the very moment the sound was made, Theoddar clapped his hands over his mouth.

He gave it a second attempt.

"I don't-" he stopped. 

He sounded different. His voice was lower and harsher. Even for a man of the South, where native tongues lacked the soft vowels of the North, this was a completely foreign sound. Associated more with the nomadic huntsmen who spoke in deep and almost guttural voices.

He turned to face the male. The one who had given him the drink. He could feel himself shaking so hard that even his words trembled with rage. "You don't get to decide who I am," he screamed, and his scream was low in pitch, making him more furious. "I never-" he wildly kicked at the bed, flailing his arms in frustration. "I never told you that I wanted to look like some stupid faerie with a voice like this! I never told you to make my hair like this, with eyes like..." he choked on his anger. "Like acid. And I don't even sound like me. It's like I've lost who I am! I'm not even a Byrne anymore. No Byrne looks like this. You tricked me into drinking that poison and-"

"It won't kill you, Theoddar Byrne," he replies. "It was a potion, not poison. There is nothing lethal in what you drank. That will not be what kills you."

"I don't care whether it kills me or not! What matters is that you changed me." His whole body felt as though it was on fire. He lifted a hand up, not even knowing fully what he was going to do with it- tackle the vampire? Slap him?

The vampire hissed, and his long canines were suddenly in full view.

Theoddar retreated his hand, recoiling as though he had been struck. He buried his head into his knees, his breaths coming in short gasps.

Who am I? He thought to himself. Now that they have taken away the colour of my hair and the hue of my eyes; now that they have branded me with dark ink and stolen my voice, what is left of me?

What remains of Theoddar Byrne?