//------------------------------// // 5: Dominion of Kindness // Story: The Humiliation of Quirk // by Achaian //------------------------------// Dominion of Kindness Gentle rays of sunlight cascading through an unseen ceiling contrasted harshly with the rough wounds concentrated on Quirk’s torso, which was bound by bandages but brutally beaten nonetheless. The inarticulate and gradual process of comprehending the waking world around him was nearly a trial beyond the means of his tired soul, yet by some act of forgotten mercy he was able to cognize the softly illuminated room he occupied. It had no place in his memory, not the one he had recently created and not the one he had left behind. He could not react to the golden light and the streams of warm air through the open window, for he was weakened to the point where any movement was a mountain and any thought a paradox. All he could handle were his open eyes and the visions they gave him. There was a table next to the bed bound by the rays of the sun-shrined window, with soft and ephemeral curtains billowing slowly into the room refracted with the morning’s glory. There was a door shut across the length of the small space, delicately raveling with finite patterns slightly blurring with the waking of his mind. There was a wood-boarded floor, but it was precisely and intensely secured against any variety of movement; it would not bend nor shiver under any pressure. Deeply rendered air gave the room a sense of weight and solidity yet also of the incomprehensible smooth gentleness that it carried; the atmosphere was thick and rich with a singular vibrancy he could not identify. The totality of the scene could not be perceived merely from his eyes, however. Under a warm series of sheets, he was much more scarred than the room could imply, with many deep and damaging bruises and cuts as results of his night under the constricting log in addition to the destructive mentality that he knew so well. He felt every second pass, with wonder and with pain, for he had not yet remembered himself despite the pointed pricks and dull varying thuds heightening his nerves to raw stimulation. He looked dazed; he was not clearly in the present, even onto the moment that the door swung open the world retained vagueness. Fluttershy entered with a pitcher of water and a roll of bone-white gauze in hoof, and by quick and unfortunate degrees his expression changed from blankness to a grim and wincing visage at memory’s return. She took interest in his mood change- at least, she did not take offense or confusion- and instead she looked on with great compassion. “I’m sorry, Quirk, but I didn’t feel safe moving you all the way to the hospital. You slept nearly a whole day. Are you in a lot of pain?” “What do you know about pain?” The rough and rasping yet quiet and unconventional answer caused a deliberation on Fluttershy’s part, but she did nothing untoward. To the contrary, she moved forward on the matter, getting at the heart of her feelings. She confessed to him, an honest and complete outpouring of her worry. “It’s my fault that this happened to you. If I hadn’t of been so shy, then you wouldn’t have tried to chase me. Can you forgive me?” “No.” The blunt and rather final answer did not offend Fluttershy, but caused her eyes to swell with tragic emotion and imminent moisture. She lowered her face in shame, whispered “If that’s what you think is fair.” and left the room swiftly. He had no way of knowing that she had fled back to her own room, or that she had collapsed onto her bed and was weeping violently, releasing bitter and painfully passionate tears at her own undeniable guiltiness in his suffering, or that for the possibility of his well-being she would sacrifice a great deal of her own. For she had wondered and feared for the longest day if he would be alright when he woke up, if he woke up, and the terrible conclusion that the blame was hers had come to her swiftly and had taken residence as if it was a morbid skeleton in her mind. She had even gone as far to make a resolution to herself to allay her own fears and shyness out of fear of hurting him, yet some inevitably remained. Quirk had had the chance to arrest any of her suffering before it took a stricter hold, yet he had chosen deliberately to prolong it. Fluttershy had worried and cared for him all the night, to her great emotional detriment without an ounce of regret. If he had known, his feelings and his decision would not have been different. He was consumed by an atrocious menagerie of malicious feelings himself, but his actions were nonetheless inexcusable in any case. Soon, she returned with bleary eyes and a face that she would wish to hide from Quirk, but was unable to do so regardless of his weakened state. It was necessary that she change the bandages, and despite the hurts she now possessed she found the idea of shirking her responsibilities to him for her own sake to be abhorrent. She choked on unspoken words and intense regretful guiltiness; the sickness inside herself was a malady that originated in a profound mercy, yet they were not the same and one was not a necessary product of the other. There was yet a split to be made, a solution to be found, something gone that had not been thought of. Slowly, softly, murmuring kind apologies she went as she unwound and rebound the tight strips with delicate care. Regardless of the maximum gentleness she achieved, it was nevertheless the unfortunate fact of life that he would suffer as one result of the healing. But he shouldn’t have to… It was my fault… She was thinking now of things in that line of reasoning as she closed the wounds and left the room. Must he experience pain? Some spiteful individuals hurt by his disgraceful abandonment of the emotional consideration of others would say yes. They would postulate that only through suffering could he understand why he should not inspire it. No doubt he deserves consequences, and no light ones, for his actions. Through agony, they were really saying, lies the path to redemption. It is, after all, an understanding that brings about the desire to not advance pain, is it not? It is harsh, but does it not work? Troubled by the remembered rhetoric that seemed insecure in a dreadful way, Fluttershy found herself heading into the midday forest to seek the solvency of a moral solution.