To Love A Myth - Book 1: Mr. Higgs and the Maid🎩✔️

34

After a week of grueling efforts to remove the charred and nasty skin from Higgs' body, Merida had finally managed to get all the dead skin completely off of one of his arms. His skin was taunt and a different color but it was better than looking like a burnt husk. She had dabbled with a few of the other spots that were charred but tried to focus on one area or small areas. Higgs was still mute from not having a tongue but Merida had worked on his eyes early on so that maybe he would have some success with things happening with that. To Higgs' luck, her preempted hopes came true.

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Higgs had been still and unmoving for at least a week and half. Although he could feel where Merida would soak the skin and then scrape and peel it off as gently as she could, he was still in a lot of pain and unable to really move. Every once in a while, he would try to move something just to see how far he could go or how much he could handle. Today was eye day. Higgs focused on his eyelids and willed them to open up. To his surprise, the darkness parted just a little and he made a noise in excitement. He tried to calm down so that he could focus on the task at hand and continued to focus on his eyes. He thought hard as the darkness kept parting and parting until he could slightly see the light. If his face hadn't been so taut from the tight skin, he would have smiled. Daylight... he said in his head, wishing he could do more to celebrate his return to the light. He heard the door open and moved his head just a little to see if he could see who it was.

Merida walked into Higgs' room and set the basin down in the chair that was behind the door. She moved her hair out of the way with a leather thong and moved her sleeves up to get to work. As she turned around, she looked over at Higgs and gasped.

"Mr. Higgs! Yer eyes..." she said, running over to him.

Without thinking, Higgs smiled at her and it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. Merida smiled back at him.

"It looks like ye are getting back to normal now. Can ye see well?" she asked, waving her hand over his eyes.

He followed the blur and frowned a little, which did hurt him, and he jerked, which also hurt him.

"Now, now, dinnae ye get excited over a minor thing. Can ye see my hand plainly or is it blurry? Blink one for plain and two for blurry." Higgs blinked twice. "Hmm... well, we can have Lucas check yer eyes out. It might be because they've been closed for so long as well as the fact that they melted out of yer face and all."

Higgs gave a small nod and looked around a little. He decided since his face was working properly that maybe he should try some other things. He went to move his fingers and felt them twitch a little. He worked at them for a minute and finally got them to grab onto the sheet. Merida watched him try out his body a little more until he got tired and started to breathe heavily from the exertion.

"Ye willnae be able to move verra far for a while. Although ye best try to do so quickly since the month is almost over. Let me see ye mouth so I can see ye tongue."

Higgs moved his head a little and Merida pulled his chin down so he would open his mouth. He helped her open his mouth and she looked in it, checking his tongue.

"It looks like a little bit of it has grown back since it first turned to ashes on the ground. That's always good."

"Mm." He answered in agreement.

Merida smiled and then held up his hand.

"Ye ken an I massage ye hand a little that it will be easier for ye to move it about?"

Higgs gave the best shrug that he could and Merida set to doing just that. It hurt and stung from the new, taut skin being there as well as the sunburn that was still practically lining the underside of his skin from the sun, but her massaging loosened the skin up to make his hand more flexible.