The Lost Secret of the Silver Sea

Chapter 12: Legs are Difficult

            Kaelonne opened his eyes properly at last, taking in the hushed tones outside the door and the soft breathing of his fellow patient. He winces as he sits up, biting his tongue to stop the pain from tight muscles and pressed bruises. Bones let of a soft popping noise as he stretches, a pinch of pain and then relief. He busies himself with this for a few minutes, wanting to ensure that it wouldn’t be an issue in the middle of his escape.

            He eyes the pins on his hand to the tubes and machines that it was attached to, fully aware that if he were to remove them in any way, the noise would be deafening. The young royal ignores it for now, pulling them to the side just enough that they wouldn’t hinder him in the next step to his plan. He lets out a puff of air as he feels a sharp pinch from where the tube connects to his arm, he’d gotten enough stings from seafloor creatures over the years from his unnecessary poking and prodding to build an immunity to it. His face mask is gleefully abandoned, a hand rubbing the dry skin at his mouth and nose in hopes that the dryness would alleviate.

            Kaelonne leans to the side of his bed, swinging his legs over and watching them dangle for a few seconds, shuddering as the skin raises in bumps in the reaction to the cold air. He tries not to scrunch his face as he runs his hands over them, relaxing slightly when he realises that it seems to be a normal reaction happening on his arms as well.

His ears twitches in an effort to hear anything at the door as he braces himself on the side of the bed, the hearing muffled compared to what he was accustomed with as a Mermatian. It was almost a conscious effort to get the pale limbs to move, much unlike his tail, there was simply a lot more joints and muscles to focus on at once. He takes in a breath and pushes himself off the bed.

            And immediately lets out a soft gasp as he’s left sprawled out on the floor instead of standing, face etched with mild surprise and pins tugging in his hand as he stretches his arm above his head to stop himself from accidentally pulling them out. He huffs unhappily at his own mishap, entertaining a passing thought at Eirian, who would be laughing at his pitiful slump while mastering the art of walking in just a few short steps.

            He grips the edge of the bed, pulling up most of his weight with his hands alone. Once his upper body is on the somewhat soft bed, hands shaking as he tries to hold up most of his own weight, he lets himself feel the icy cold floor under his toes, pressing the soft pads and testing its balance. It prickled, enough to spring tears in his eyes, another strange human ability he wasn’t as familiar with or for what it meant but for now, it was a slight hindrance to his sight.

The unfamiliarity, the cold, the stretch of injuries and unknown, untested muscles leaves him feeling quite out of his comfort zone, but he pushes through. Feet under him, Kaelonne tests his balance, grunting softly as it takes him a few attempts to actually rest his entire upper body weight without the joints at the knees buckling.

            It odd, it doesn’t hurt in particular, but it was strange, relying his entire mass on two legs. He pushes off the bed, silently cheering for himself when he only stumbles back a couple steps. It’s not sufficient practice to keep himself on his feet, but it supports him long enough to snag the crutches in a ridiculous waddle of a walk and dump the bag on the bed before he’s forced to lean his entire weight on the bed again lest he fall. Humans had bones at their sides, Kaelonne allows himself to screech in his head as he prods at it with a horrified expression, it made sense for the support, but it just didn’t feel right.

            Kaelonne fights the latches on the bag, pulling them open much rougher than he was certain was necessary, the tips of his clawless fingers soft and difficult to work with. Inside are a change of clothes, just like he’d hoped, along with one of the faux scent bottles, and a handful of other items Kaelonne chose to ignore for the time being. Now, he had to figure out how to get changed into the clothes without disconnecting the pins from his hand.

Before he could, a thought raced through him, his chains, Hartley, and Idris’. His stretches his hands carefully above him to grab them from the placed they’d occupied on the pole holding up the bags attached to his arm for the last few days, sending a small word of thanks for whichever human approved of keeping in close to him as he slipped it over his head.

            Unfortunately, for the next phase of his plan, there was only one thing he could think off. He cursed his lack of knowledge of his surroundings for the first time in his life, something he was certain he’d have to get used to doing in the up and coming days. An open top piece, a jacket, should be enough for now, it could go over him easily. It would make it a little harder for people to identify him as a patient if he looked much more like the ones who visited the sleeping human next to him, at least that was what he hoped. He slips on the side without pins and braces himself for his next job.

            With a large breath and scrunched face, he tugs off the pins and pulls on the jacket as fast as he could, paying no heed to the blood welling on the skin. He had the bag slung across his back and crutches under his armpits by the time the beeping settles into a steady whine, his fellow patient shifting in his bed at the piercing noise. Kaelonne copies the movements he noted from the human on the first day he came in, ignoring the fact that it was a lot less graceful, his legs shaking under the sudden weight.

            He doesn’t stop for breath at the door, opening it in an aborted hand movement, truly entering a world he wasn’t ready to meet.

            The lights are almost blinding compared to the dark room, the background noise of chatting, moving equipment, rustling clothes were a constant hum in the back of his mind. He closes the door as soon as he steps out into the somewhat empty hallway, sighing softly in relief as the noise of the machine and the rustling of the waking patient quiets. Now, he needed to find somewhere to hide, change and get out of there before someone found him.

            No one even gave him a second glance as he limped through the hallway, the clacking of the crutches sounding impossibly loud in his ears. A small, empty room, filled with sticks, buckets, and lots of shelves was just enough for him to duck into. Kaelonne sheds his clothes for a few short seconds to change into his borrowed ones, it felt absolutely uncomfortable and exposing without his scales - no wonder why humans wore so many layers of clothes. He pulls them on, letting his painful back rest on a cold shelf to keep from falling.

            He didn’t have shoes; his patient companion didn’t wear any. It didn’t bother him in the slightest at first, but the underneath of human feet were unnaturally sensitive. The cold pierced the soft skin without breaking it, warmth burned the delicate muscles. Despite being a part of the water and waves for most of his life, having water on the floor touch his feet gave him the strangest idea that crawling out of his skin would be a better option.

            Kaelonne shuddered as he props himself on the borrowed crutches, sticking his head out of the small room and watching out of the corner of his eyes as a human in a uniform rushed into the room he occupied just moments ago, taking an unknown path again to the exit of the building of healing.

He forces himself to stop tugging at the clothes, all pinching uncomfortably at his skin, rubbing against his sensitive neck and sides where gills no longer existed. It was much like when he wore armour that wasn’t built for him. His thigh-length hair, knotted and crusted with dried salt water, pulled and itched from where he hid it under the shirt, no longer holding its natural glossy shine.

            He hasn’t looked in a reflective surface since he woke up, he wasn’t sure what people saw when they glanced at him. He runs a clawless hand over his scale-less nose, hoping that his black scleras were now a shade of white. He had to admit, he was curious to know what colour his eyes were, would they be similar to the warm brown Hartley had or would they be like one of the colours he glimpsed in strangers’ eyes.

For the first time in his life, Kaelonne, a prince among his people, hunches his shoulders, kept his head low and prayed that people ignore him as he headed towards the exit at a steady pace. It seemed he would be experiencing a lot of firsts the longer he spent in the human world.