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“What is wrong with that one?”
It was muttered by a servant of the royal family to one of the castle guards, staring out into the training grounds. A single young child, blond hair tied behind his head, practiced his swings with a startling efficiency. His face was expressionless, cold. He decapitated the head of a dummy with frightening speed and no emotional reaction. As the wooden head rolled on the ground, the boy watched it go, eyes hooded, unseeing.
He made no sign that he’d heard the whisper. Thunder rumbled overhead, a promise of danger for any other trainee who wished to practice with metal, leaving only the youngest of them out on the field. Around him were dozens of felled practiced dummies, all perfectly decapitated.
“What is wrong with that one?”
The townsfolk stared at the back of the child, so young and yet so full of uncanny wisdom. They had decided to install a new well in their beloved little village, since the old one had gone unused for years. The boy had tensed up, expression hardening.
According to hearsay, he was a child of prophecy.
He whispered something unintelligible, and when prompted to raise his voice, his first word was, “Bodies.”
They thought they had heard wrongly, but then the usually silent, heavy-burdened boy continued to speak.
“Bodies, in the well. More blood than water. I’d advise against it.”
There had been no other explanation: the child just turned and walked away from the construction sight, leaving them to ponder if it was a prank, a prediction, or a curse upon them all.
“What is wrong with that one?
The merchant fell to the ground by his ship’s ramp, clutching his wound, letting out a choked, gurgling cough. The islanders let out of cries of shock, rushing to the side of the dying man, past the boy with blood on his sword.
A grandmother screamed at the child. A little girl hid behind her, sobbing loudly. The boy, no older than twelve, shook his head without a hint of remorse.
“It’s a monster.”
And indeed, as the tight knit community surged around the man, trying to stem the flow of blood, whispering soothing words, shielding him from his attacker—his skin melted like heated metal, twisting, resembling something with horns and claws, before evaporating into purple smoke.
The small pirate only sighed wearily when the islanders stared at him in stunned silence. Explanations would’ve only given the enemy time to strike, after all.
“What is wrong with that one?”
The boy refused to partake with people, struggling furiously when others asked him to spend time with them. More often than not, he was found deep in the wood, climbing stones and trees, nary a scratch on him, despite the monsters he couldn’t have avoided. His fingers tingled with magicks that no one had taught him, and he whispered to spirits no one else could see.
He was caught conversing with fairies, as calmly as if they were people, instead of doing whatever it was that he was supposed to do. An adult snapped at him, asking him if he really preferred talking to simple forest creatures than his own kind.
He looked up with his wide, unnerving eyes, and simply answered, “Yes.”
“What is wrong with that one?”
The boy stared off into the sea as the night fell. His boots were long soaked through, ankle-deep in the surf. He had been standing there, looking off into the horizon, for hours, if not days, as the rest of the world continued to live around him. He did not move. He did not feel.
Some kinder soul—or maybe simply a more stubborn one—stepped over and grabbed his shoulder, ready to pull him back to the world of the living, chastising the boy for ignoring his health and responsibilities. The next thing they knew, they’d been flipped onto the wet, gritty sand, their day clothes ruined, a pain in their arm that they’d never felt before—and a sword at their chin. They coughed, trying to return the breath to their lungs, as they tried to understand what had just happened.
The boy stared at them like he had only just realized what he’d done, his eyes expressing a brokenness that couldn’t be named. Without a word, he sheathed his weapon and ran.
“What is wrong with that one?”
He was only a teenager, only a farmhand. That was what he had insisted to their little community when he had returned to them after a grueling journey. They tried to uphold the comfort of normalcy for him.
Then, a delivery to their butcher, carted on a wagon, in a large wooden box. The meat inside had been kept frozen throughout its journey by a combination of mountain ice and chiling magic. In the shop, the boy waited to help with the delivery; and he did not notice, distracted by something, when the crate was cracked open behind him.
Moments later, they surveyed the damage the boy had caused, unsure whether or not he should be reprimanded. The crate was smashed, the meat no longer usable, the shop upturned from the force of his attack.
“The cold,” the boy tried to explain, his eyes wild, “I thought—when I felt—the cold—”
His voice failed him, and rather than wait for an answer, they sighed and turned to fix the mess.
“What is wrong with that one?”
The boy wept desperately, clutching his head as if it were in pain. The princess kneeled beside where he had collapsed, shooing away guards and noblemen, but the damage was done: they had all heard his agonized whispers. The whole kingdom would know.
“They won’t shut up .”
She tried to soothe her oldest, dearest friend, but he continued to mutter to himself spaztic, disconnected thoughts, like several voices trying to speak their minds at once. He grabbed ahold of her silk gown like a lifeline, and managed to sob in his normal voice that he’d never be whole again.
She didn’t know how to console him.
“What is wrong with that one?”
The boy muttered to himself, pacing in his study, the heavy clunk of his metal boots echoing in the empty room. On the table were scattered lists and complicated diagrams, covered in what could’ve been the research of a scientist, or the scrawls of a madman. One of his superiors looked in with rising concern.
To try to make sense of this war, this battle between goddesses and clashing of timelines, was a fruitless endeavor that helped no one—but it had become an obsession for the young man, determined to figure out why it had to be him, if he had any hand in his fate, whether his thoughts were even his own.
The captain, much too young for his title, stopped abruptly. He spun towards the table and knocked it over, scattering the papers, sending them floating down anticlimactically. His look of bitter apathy did not sit well on his face.
On the other side of a cracked-open door, the superior decided enough was enough. He would involve the princess, if it meant keeping the captain’s head on straight.
“What is wrong with that one?”
A little boy lay flat on his back in the flowing grass, staring up at the sky. Beside him, a woman tisked as she hung up the laundry.
The object of her disdain lay a distance away, past her little garden, within the center of their floating village. One of the children, scarlet hair practically glowing in the sunlight, was lifted up and separated from his companions. The redheaded child continued to scream and cry, lashing out, even as another was consoled by his mother, nursing a black eye.
“He’s just afraid.”
The woman startled, surprised that the quiet, spacey child beside her was paying attention. He sat up, taking a break from his cloud-watching, to witness the aftermath of his friends’ fight.
“Well, that’s no reason to hurt anyone,” she huffed. Better to get that idea out of this sweet, thoughtful boy’s head, before he too became rough around the edges.
But the blond child cocked his head to the side, frowning. “People don’t do things without reason,” he muttered. She was struck, not for the first time, by how much wisdom this child carried, despite his small stature. “I bet he wouldn’t get so angry if he just had a friend.”
“Hmph!” She couldn’t help but voice her discontent. “See, Link, that’s how you get your own problems, trying to step in and help people with their messes. You let him work it out on his own, or you might end up the same way.”
“Maybe,” Link mumbled, his voice too squeaky to be so sad. She clipped up a pair of pants and then turned her attention to the boy instead; she tousled his blond locks, making him giggle.
“You’re a good soul, Link,” she hummed to him, and he blushed at the praise. “I know you want to help others, but make sure you don’t hurt yourself along the way.”
The little one gave a noncommittal shrug, his eyes still thoughtful, and laid back down on the grass. She sighed. There might be a chance that he’d heed her warning, but deep down she knew that she spoke in vain. There was no way someone with a heart that big wasn’t going to get hurt.
At least for now, she could watch out for him, doing her part to protect him until the moment he could make his own decisions. Her eyes traced a loftwing circling overhead.
She only hoped that when he did, people would be as kind to him as he was to them.