The End of Enmity

Ch 4: Love

When I regained consciousness, the first thing I felt was a warm and soft blanket. I slowly opened my eyes to find myself in a small room made of wood. I sat up and saw that there was
only a bed and a bedside table on which a small mirror and my sword were lying. The sun's rays were coming out of a tiny window on the wall in front of me. Although I didn’t see any flowers in the room, it definitely smelled like them. I picked up the mirror and saw a bandage wrapped around my head. I also noticed that I was wearing different clothes. I had a plain blue t-shirt on and a pair of white jeans.

Suddenly, I heard muffled voices of two people arguing coming from the other side of the room. I acted like I was still asleep to know what was going on. The door of the room opened, and the voices became clearer. But they felt oddly familiar. It was Aren and Finn! But why the heck are they fighting?

'You're the one who doesn't deserve her!' Finn shouted.

'ME!' Aren scoffed. 'I am the one who fought beside her, it was me who saved her and took her to the lake before it was too late. You didn’t even try to help but instead climbed a tree like a monkey. You are an absolute coward. Even a rat is braver than you,' he fought back.

Lake? What lake? How long has it been since I fainted? What happened?

'You didn't give me a chance to do anything after she fainted,' Finn countered. 'You clung to her like your life depended on her.'

'That’s because you can't even protect yourself. How will you protect her? If it wasn’t for Daphne and me you would have become a sandwich between the tree and earth.'

Are these guys fighting over… me? Why?

'Like you were any help! She still got seriously injured,' Finn’s voice became a little louder and I felt a hand brush on my face that instantly jerked away.

'Don’t touch her!' Aren yelled.

'Or what?' Finn challenged.

Unexpectedly, I heard a crashing sound. I immediately sat up and gasped when I saw Aren and Finn fighting, rolling on the ground. I got down from the bed and ran towards them to stop the fight. I tried pushing Aren away from Finn as he sat on top of him, punching his face. I pushed Aren so hard that he fell on the ground. Both Finn and Aren looked at me in shock. Maybe they were so distracted in the fight that they didn't notice me.

‘Daphne, you're awake?’

‘When did you wake up?’

‘Just before you two came in arguing!’ I exclaimed in anger while looking at both of them.

‘What are you guys even fighting about?’ I squatted next to Finn, looking at his face, which was covered with blue and purple bruises. ‘Aren, how can you punch Finn like that? You know that he is not strong enough to fight. He could have got seriously injured.’ Aren frowned and looked away, taking deep breaths.

I helped Finn get up and made him sit on the bed. His face had become swollen. There was a medical kit on the bedside table beside my sword. I used some ointment and bandaged his
face. Although Finn kept saying that he was fine, I wasn't satisfied. After I was finished, I told him to rest while he told me what happened when I was unconscious.

Finn told me that we were in a village which was fortunately near the forest. After I was injured, they brought me here and the villagers treated me, but I had lost too much blood so my chances of surviving were less. That’s when Aren suggested the lake of blood which was said to contain the blood of previous kings of Develdion and that it could be used for people who had lost too much blood because of an injury or have anemia. So they took me near the lake and made me drink its blood, which sounded disgusting.