Van Gogh's Crows

It was done, there was no coming back. The ship that was taking her away from Nordshal, away from the place where she had always been and that she had never left before, was leaving the shore and Elodie inhaled deeply while she looked at the land becoming smaller and smaller at the horizon. She still wasn’t able to believe she had the courage to board that ship. Not knowing how to behave around people was the biggest obstacle she had to overcome. She didn’t know how to treat them and how should she expect to be treated from them. For more than ten years, the rest of the world moved on, while she was stuck inside her house, inside her own mind, inside her own fears. But she wanted to change, didn’t she?

She didn’t know what made her change her mind and her behaviour towards the rest of the world, she only knew that something had clicked one day, and she decided to open that damned front door and step outside. That day, Nordshal itself wasn’t looking too different from the village she remembered, but the people that were walking down the streets, those people were something new, something that caught her interest. Apparently she caught their interest too and it was thanks to their attentions that she realised she might have been something more than an ugly and useless child. She started wondering how the world outside was, how people would have reacted to her in a bigger city, in a city where people all around the world could meet and, most importantly, a city where nobody knew her and her story. It was with those thoughts in her mind that she finally decided to board a ship that was leaving that small island in the north and heading towards the unknown, huge and terrifying place that was the main land.

Even though she was extremely curious to see the world, the thoughts that clouded her mind every time she found herself walking on the deck of the ship, didn’t fail to throw her into a state of pure panic, where she wanted to jump off that ship only to avoid reaching the destination, even if that would’ve meant dying. That is why she spent most of the time in a small room below decks, where she ended up blocking everyone out and keeping herself inside. She didn’t know how much time had passed since she boarded the ship, but she knew it was time to get off when everything, even her heart seemed to suddenly stop. No more waves to rock the ship gently and the world seemed to fall silent. Her feet started moving by themselves, taking her up on the deck first and right off the ship when she noticed that they had actually docked.

Now, the only thing she had was a name of a city: D’Auvignon. She had no directions and no clue of what she should’ve expected from the city itself, but she had the chance to hear stories about D’Auvignon when she was in Nordshal and she was determined to find out if the stories were true. Asking for directions was harder than she thought, but in the end one of the people that she saw passing by on the ship, was able to tell her exactly where she had to go. Trusting people had always been an issue for her, but she had no choice after all, so she headed north, hoping not to get lost once she entered the forest. It was true that the ship didn’t dock too far from the city, but the woods between the ship and the city were still a challenge for someone like her, who had never left her home before.


Elodie left the shore and what she considered her ‘safe space’ on the ship and entered the forest. The main path was pretty clear, while the woods on the sides made impossible to see if someone or something was coming from there. The girl wasn’t walking for too long when she froze on her spot. Right in front of her, a man laying on the ground in a pool of blood, his eyes closed. The girl scanned his body, noticing arrows around him and different cuts from where the blood was still running slowly. What was she supposed to do now? Help him? How? ...Why? Who was this person? Maybe he deserved to die. Maybe he did something bad. ’Fuck. Who am I to judge.’ She said between her teeth before rushing towards the man and kneeling before him. She didn’t really know what to do, but she also knew that her new life, starting from today, had to be different from what she had experienced until now. In a normal situation, she would’ve turned her back at him, but she was determined to start over in a good way. Moving him looked risky, but it was also the only way to bring him with her to the city and look for help. She grabbed his arm and tried to lift him up, but immediately noticed that no, it wasn’t working. When she carefully put his arm back on the ground, noticed that where there was supposed to be a cut, the skin looked healed and simply dirty with blood. Elodie frowned and shook her head from left to right, pretty sure that her eyes were playing tricks with her. ’Come on, focus.’ She said to herself in a whisper, before looking again at the man laying on the ground. The blood that she could see running from a distance, was now a lot slower, almost reaching a stop. Inhaling deeply and exhaling again, the girl touched him on his side, as if she wanted to draw his attention. ’Are you dead?’ She then asked, knowing that no one could actually answer her ironic question, not sure if that was a relief or a disappointment, because once again, she wasn’t able to be better.

Death. The last dead person she saw, was her own mother. She had never seen blood either. Locked up in her home, nothing there to threaten her safety, she never even thought about the fact that people, all around the world, die. Their lives - even hers - aren’t endless and that was something she had never thought about up until now. She didn’t expect that ‘changing her life’ would’ve implied facing death. Even if she wasn’t the one experiencing it, she was still watching someone while his life was slowly leaving his body. What was the ‘normal’ thing to do in these cases? She didn’t know. Her body felt as if it was moving on its own when she rushed towards the guy and taking him to the city felt like the smartest thing to do. Only that she didn’t take into consideration that she wasn’t strong enough to carry him.

Now she was there in the forest, with blood stains on her clothes, talking to a dying man that was laying next to her. What a great way to start her new life. Her feelings were telling her to just stand up and leave, that there was nothing left of this man to save, too many wounds, too much blood loss. She was about to stand up before freezing on her spot once again. Her eyes were wide open now and she was staring at the man that only ten seconds before looked dead and that was now talking to her. His voice was barely audible but the only fact that she was looking at him moving and looking around was shocking enough. ’Just let me go.’ He talked again, a lot more clearly, before closing his eyes again. Her first instinct was to keep him awake, and to do so, she grabbed both his shoulders before lightly gripping onto them and barely shaking him. ’Please don’t die.’ She then whispered between her teeth. She didn’t know why saving this person was so important to her. Maybe she simply wanted to prove to herself how big of a difference she could make, but it wasn’t working that well.

This wasn’t what she had planned. This wasn’t what she was expecting at all. Even her own reaction took her by surprise, since she had never really cared about people and their needs. Death never affected her life, not even when her parents died, because she was immediately taken by the huge vortex that the abuse of her stepfather was. She didn’t have time to process pain and when she ended up completely alone, she finally released her emotions, eventually running out of them.

So why exactly was she so determined to save this man who she had never met? Was the desire to change her life so strong to change her actions so drastically? Or was it because she had never really understood what death looked like and now she was basically facing it? Either way, she was helping him now and she didn’t know why but couldn’t find the strength to get up and leave. Even when she had given up on trying to lift him up, she simply sat there next to him and laughed at her own misery, since she wasn’t even able to do one simple thing.

But determination struck her again when he actually gave her a reason to believe he was alive. She felt like maybe, just maybe, there still was a chance for her to prove herself she was worthy of living. The man in front of her was dead only few moments ago and now his eyes were open again. Maybe, in the same way, she could’ve found a new meaning to her life and somehow be reborn as a new and better person.

His face was the one of someone who knew the feeling of pain and somehow expected his pain to be a lot worse that what he was feeling. His expression looked surprised and hers probably turned like that as well once he asked her to pull the arrows out of his body. Elodie wasn’t sure she was ready to do that, she didn’t want to hurt him further, but she also didn’t want to question him. She decided to start with the arrow that was sticking out of his leg. She noticed how it was already snapped in two pieces, one laying on the ground next to them while the other was still piercing his leg, so she simply pulled it out as fast as she could. When she noticed that the blood started running a little faster, she put her hand on the wound and started applying pressure before looking around trying to find a bandage of some sort. She ended up choosing to rip off her shirt, but when she lifted her hands from the wound to do so, the blood had basically stopped running. ’What the…’ The girl said with her forehead furrowed, while she moved forward to watch the wound closely. ’Is this normal?’ She pointed at his leg before turning her head towards his face, clearly questioning him.

A strong sense of confusion was hitting her continuously, from all sides. First of all, she was confused because she didn’t know where she was. She left her safe place back in Nordshal and now was in a forest, in the middle of nowhere. Confusion, was also what she felt when she saw what she thought it was a dead body right there, in the forest. She wasn’t expecting that, she wasn’t ready to face that just yet. Then again, her own reaction took her by surprise and she was still trying to understand why she was doing what she was doing. The dead body started moving again, coming back to life, leaving her in shock. He started talking to her; an interaction she didn’t see coming, and she found herself pulling the arrows out of his body only because he asked her to do so. When did she become so compliant? Her head started spinning when another sudden realisation hit her again: the wounds were healing incredibly fast. She never saw any wound, but what was happening right then and right there, simply wasn’t logical. There were too many things that didn’t make sense, and apparently neither of the people involved in all this mess were able to explain what was happening.

The piece of shirt she had ripped just now was still in her hands and the girl couldn’t help but stare at the wound. She could swear it was bleeding profusely just before she put her hands on it. ’Wait…’ She whispered, then looked at her hands with her eyebrows furrowed in a puzzled look. Meanwhile, the man confirmed what she was thinking: it was impossible for the wound to look like that. The healing was somehow… magical? This whole chaotic situation was making less and less sense and Elodie didn’t know if she could handle more weird things. At the same time though, she knew that she couldn’t just leave, or just ignore what was happening. She needed to know the truth, to give some sense to whatever that was.

She was still perplexed about it, but without saying anything to the boy, she leaned forward to reach his shoulder and took off the arrow that was sticking out of it in one fast and probably painful movement. The wound started bleeding, as expected, but that didn’t thrill her as much as it did the first time. She did the exact same thing she did before and started applying pressure to the wound with her hands. At first, she could feel hot blood reaching and touching her skin, but then, nothing. A rush of fear ran through her, and she froze. It was the moment of the truth and she wasn’t brave enough to lift her hands and see what was happening beneath them. Deep down, she already knew what was going on, or she thought she knew, but it just didn’t make sense. The girl was pretty sure she didn’t have magic powers. The only person left was the boy then. Who was this guy and why couldn’t he take care of his wounds by himself, if he had magic? She could feel that the blood had completely stopped running out of his wound when she lifted her hands and looked at them. They were dirty with blood, but his wound wasn’t. It looked like the one on his leg now. Frightened, the girl took the piece of fabric she ripped from her own shirt and started cleaning the blood with it. Once she could feel her hands were dry again, she inhaled deeply, before looking up at the stranger that was still sitting in front of her, unable to talk, unable to look away, unable to stand up and leave.

Too focused on her own thoughts, Elodie didn’t even notice the suspicious looks that the guy was giving her. She was too confused to pay attention to anything else anyway. She noticed, however, how the guy reacted when she pulled out another arrow without him asking and without warning him. Her eyes focused for a short amount of seconds on his frowning and somehow angry expression, but she kept on working on her own experiment without saying a word.

Doing the exact things she did before seemed like the smartest thing to do to understand if it was a random thing that happened once or if that was the way this person’s wounds were actually healing. When the girl put her hands on the second wound, she didn’t look at the stranger’s face, but could feel his body tense up, as if he was expecting something, as if he too was as focused as she was on understanding how and why his own wounds were healing so fast. Could it be that he wasn’t really the cause of this fast healing?

The wound looked exactly like the one on the leg; she could see that no blood was running down and everything was clean except her hands, which she cleaned frantically with a piece of fabric. When he told her to calm down, his voice sounded as if he was sitting miles away from her. It sounded distant, but also brought her back to reality. Her vision became clear again and her eyes automatically met his, as if she was looking for something to cling on to avoid slipping into insanity. Maybe she was exaggerating, maybe he was actually the one who knew some kind of way to heal himself. His voice and his eyes, somehow helped the girl, who finally reacted and tried to fight away the numbness her own body fell in. She shook her head vigorously and inhaled, before stopping breathing once again when he spoke a second time. ”You have a gift” His statement only confused her even more, because she really thought he was the one who was acting on his own wounds. ’I… What?’ It was difficult for her to find her voice again, but she didn’t seem to be able to control her body or her actions anymore. ’Aren’t you the one doing… Whatever you’re doing?’ She then asked, still trying to give this whole situation a clear explanation. With his words, he only managed to confuse her even more and she didn’t know how that could’ve been possible. ’What do you mean when you say gift? Her voice broke while she was pronouncing the last word. She wasn’t special at all, wasn’t she? She was just a piece of garbage, the unwanted daughter of an unwelcome man, she wasn’t even supposed to be alive, wasn’t she? Why would she have a gift? How was that ‘gift’ going to affect her life, now that she wanted to change it for the better?

The atmosphere was tense, probably because both of them were paying extreme attention to what was happening to the guy’s wounds. Elodie simply assumed he was focusing on healing or something like that but she also wanted to understand how that whole process worked. The girl was holding her breath and couldn’t hear the boy’s one either. It was like everything was looking in their direction, waiting for something to happen.

And that something actually happened; the wound over which the girl put her hands, was now healed. For how much the girl was struggling and panicking over what had just happened, she tried to find a logic reason for that situation even if she didn’t fully understand it. The only thing she knew for sure though, was that she couldn’t be the one healing him. He must’ve done something- ”You have a gift”. Those words broke into her thoughts and everything in her mind fell silent. The words that came out right after, were unconsciously said, she didn’t know and didn’t even realise she was saying them, until the man sitting in front of her replied. ”No, I’m not doing anything” he said, his voice sounded pretty convincing to the girl’s ears. ’Hold up, what..?’ Elodie couldn’t even believe that she was giving in to the idea of... whatever he was referring to being legit.

The words that the boy started saying right after, felt like a river running through Elodie’s mind. They were clear in sound and in meaning, but she didn’t feel like he was talking to her. She had saved his life? Did she? How? When? Why, even? Maybe he didn’t realise that all that was new for her, that whatever he was talking about, it was too much information for a girl who’ve just found out that she might’ve been something different than whatever she thought she was. Her whole life was a lie? And now he was offering his help. If she wasn’t so freaked out by this whole situation, she would’ve probably taken a moment to think about it but all she could do was sitting still, absorbing the meaning of his words. Then again, her body started moving on its own. She got up without saying a word, her gaze fixed on the man still sitting on the ground, alienated and almost dissociated from reality, all she could do was start walking, leaving him behind. ’I can’t…’ Her voice broke and the words came out of her throat as a whisper. The direction was the one she was walking towards when she encountered him, it should’ve been the road to D’Auvignon. Yes. D’Auvignon. Where a new life was waiting for her. A simple life. A life without anything weird, complicated or even slightly off. A life where she could live in peace.

The girl’s body seemed to be controlled by someone else. She was feeling numb and it was like her body was protecting her from the dangers it sensed and that she couldn’t see coming. She got up and walked away, looking forward, never turning back. Her legs were heavy but she couldn’t feel them. She was walking slowly, but felt like she had walked miles when a sharp pain, one that she had never felt in her whole life, pierced her leg. Her senses came back like an electric shock, making her even more aware of the pain and her surroundings.


She thought it was over, that she wasn’t going to see that man anymore in her whole life. She was glad he felt better, that he was alive, but now not so much. All she could hear was a high pitched ringing that went all the way to the center of her brain, killing her inside. Her voice was trying to cover up that sound but the only word that she could think of was ‘why’.  Her breathing was getting shorter by the second and her legs fell apart. Her knees couldn’t keep her up anymore, and somehow, his arm around her neck felt like a life vest, keeping her on the surface of the water, keeping her away from her downfall. She clinged to his arm with both her hands, opening her mouth and gasping for air.

All around them, there was silence. The only sounds that could’ve been heard were her choked groans, her voice wasn’t helping her and couldn’t come out stronger than that. His voice was as sharp as the arrow that he was still holding in her thigh, if not even more. It cut right through Elodie’s heart, that dropped down to her feet, knowing that he wasn’t going to let her go easily. Then, pain again, to which the girl was able to respond a little stronger than before. Her voice scratched her throat and her vocal cords while she was losing her balance once again, ending up on leaning on the boy with her back. What was she supposed to do now? How could she even hope to escape that situation? ’I- I un-’ Her voice wasn’t coming out correctly, she couldn’t speak but she was afraid that if she wasn’t to reply to him, he could’ve done worse. ’Yes’ She managed to say in a weak and hoarse whisper.