always and forever is forever young
your shadow on the pavement, the dark side of the sun
“So how long can we expect this sleep-state to last?” The head healer asked, frowning down at her record book. She had a stern, strong front which few were able to see past, but a deeply caring and empathic centre. Zed, the patron deity of Brazil, looked at her as if he had no idea how to address a doctor… which, being a god, he probably didn’t.

“Well… indefinitely,” he replied, with a definite note of sadness. “If we don’t defeat the ancient creature and restore all magic, there’s a good chance this could be permanent.”

There was a long, dark pause. The head healer stared at him for a moment, then indicated to a chair to her left. He sat down with a grateful sigh.

“When divine beings disintegrate, divinity will eventually restore them - but it takes time.” He explained. “Their minds and bodies are restored over the course of several weeks, sometimes months. We didn’t have time to wait for that to happen, because if we had, Mallos’ divinity would have been taken from him before he could regenerate, and then he would have been dead permanently. So we restored him artificially.” The head healer quirked an eyebrow and Zed rubbed his head, clearly casting around for a way to simplify. “Khasekhemwy created a new body for him and reassembled his soul, but he was under severe time pressure. He had to do a quick job, not a good job.”

The healer nodded. She understood something about that.

“We have no way of knowing when he’ll wake up, or even if he ever will,” Zed concluded. “In fact, it would probably be better for everyone if he didn’t wake up before we have a chance to get divinity back and heal him fully, because, well… the odds of him being mentally sound after that are not great.”

The healer made a note in her record book. Silence ticked away the minutes, until she eventually put her pen down and looked up again.

“Thank you for taking the time to speak with me,” she stood up, indicating that the interview was over. “I will pass this information on to his family.”

Shortly thereafter Zed left, pausing only to smile sadly at the inexperienced healer who had been hovering outside the door. He had barely left the ward when she stuck her head cautiously into her boss’s office.

“Do we need to move Mallos and Sperantia to the long-term ward?” She asked boldly. The head healer sighed.

“Yes, Fearne, I believe so.”

--

Twenty-three days passed without incident. Nobody was really assigned to look after the Spanish god and his cat, since they didn’t require a great deal of looking after, but Fearne the healer took it upon herself to visit them once a day. She remembered from her medical training that coma patients could sometimes hear, and she made a point of nattering to them, telling them stories or just talking about her day. Sometimes she would sit down on the floor and brush the sleeping cat’s fur while she talked. Mallos had visitors, but not many, and visitation dropped sharply after the first few weeks - really, once the novelty wore off. There was only so much sitting around and staring at a sleeping man anyone could take.

Fearne took charge of arranging contacts with the other deities and the royal family, too, keeping them updated on the situation. Not that there was much to update them about. Mallos was dead to the world.

On the twenty-fourth day, exciting word reached the castle. Lorraine’s familiar, the nameless white dove, had woken from its coma and was flapping around the pantheon. For the first time, hope for the three comatose deities was ignited. Interest in the long-term ward peaked again, but only for a few days. Most people had already lost interest when, on the thirty-ninth day, Fearne walked into the ward to find Sperantia sat upright and alert in her little basket at the foot of Mallos’ bed. She was blinking around the room suspiciously with her bright blue eyes, which subsequently settled on the inexperienced healer.

“Sperantia!” Fearne smiled warmly, relieved, and glanced at Mallos’ bed. He hadn’t so much as stirred. Sperantia stood up and stepped cautiously out of her basket. “My name is Fearne, I’m a healer here at the castle. How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” the cat replied stiffly. She glanced at the bed and narrowed her eyes. “Castle?”

“The castle where you and Mallos live.”

“Who?”

Alarm bells started going off in Fearne’s head. “Your… your fairy?”

Sperantia scoffed. “My fairy?”

Fearne was speechless. While she tried to get her head around what the cat was saying, the little animal leapt lightly onto the bed and stared critically down at the man lying there… without a trace of recognition. Fearne could see it in her face: she didn’t know her own fairy.

“Sperantia,” she began gently, smoothing down a section of the bed and taking a seat on the edge. “You’re a familiar. His familiar.” She gestured to him. “Remember that? You two got up to all sorts of mischief within these walls. Between the pair of you I think you wound up every guard in the militia.”

Sperantia stared at Mallos. Fearne held her breath. There was a very long, very pregnant pause.

“I think I’d know if I was a familiar,” Sperantia declared. She cast Mallos a scornful look. “And I know I wouldn’t have a male fairy if I was.”

Before Fearne could stop her, she leapt off the bed and dashed out of the room, darting between people’s legs. When Fearne enquired later, several servants saw her run all the way through the castle, and a lone guard witnessed her disappear into the forest. Several admittedly half-hearted attempts to track her down provided futile; if a cat didn’t want to be found, it generally wouldn’t be.

The excitement died down and life, more or less unchanged, continued as normal. Days past. Weeks past. Sperantia wasn’t seen or heard from again, and no more news came from the pantheon. Fearne encouragingly told her sleeping patient that no news was always good news and apologised shamefacedly, for the hundredth time, for losing his familiar.

On the fifty-ninth day, twenty days after Sperantia’s disappearance, word reached the castle that Tsi was shaking off his slumber. The news from the pantheon was not wholly optimistic: the messenger felt compelled to emphasise that Tsi was awake ‘but not well’, and refused to elaborate on what that meant. Only a week later, news of similar content concerning Lorraine reached the castle. None of the deities came by the castle in person, and the messengers they sent clearly weren’t authorised to say much. Still, the news was hopeful. Both Tsi and Lorraine had woken up within a week of one another, two months after their comas were induced, which meant Mallos had to wake up soon.

A week passed. Then another. After a third week, seventy-five days since the coma was induced, Fearne took the difficult step in approaching the royal family and discussing the future with them. Most coma patients who did awake, she explained, woke up within the first three months. After three months, the chance of a coma patient awakening was exponentially reduced, and the three month deadline was often the cut-off point for life support. Mallos had been in a coma for two and three quarter months, which meant that in a week’s time, his family would have to decide whether it was worth the heartache, resources and indignity to keep him alive when there was only a very, very small chance that he would ever wake up.

Two months, twenty-eight days since he had entered the coma, just two days before the three month cut-off point, Mallos sighed in his sleep and rolled over while Fearne was chatting to him. It was such a small, simple move which made her break down crying. It was the first sign of life he’d shown for nearly three months.

Fearne passed word to the royal family and the pantheon, and from there it was just a waiting game. Typically, Mallos worried everyone by not moving again for three more days. Zed came by to visit in that time.

“Never could get him out of bed,” the Brazilian joked, but his face was drawn and he had dark circles under his eyes.

“How are Tsi and Lorraine?” Fearne asked carefully. Zed sighed.

“Not themselves,” was the only answer he would give.

Three days after Mallos had first stirred, three months and one day after his coma was induced, Fearne hurried out of the ward and flagged down a young squire who was passing outside in the corridor.

“I need you to take a message to the king,” she started breathlessly, but the squire frowned and cut her off.

“Won’t the royal family be at dinner now?”

“They’ll want to hear this,” she insisted. The squire rolled his eyes but listened carefully as she spoke. “Tell the king Mallos is awake. But…” She hesitated. “Tell him that the medical practitioners advise he comes in person to assess his condition, before the prince is allowed to see his grandfather.” The squire looked at her, waiting for an elaboration, but she shook her head. “It would be improper to say more. And I cannot make an assessment for the king on what would be the best course of action for his son.”

The squire got the message. “I’ll go now,” he promised. Fearne watched him disappear round the corner, before turning back to stare, grim-faced, at the door to the long-term ward.

“Hurry back,” she whispered.


i can feel you in the silence saying, “let forever be,
love, and only love, will set you free.”