It took a few seconds before he realized that he was looking at a stone brick wall, and that he was awake. The light of dawn, which was filtered by dark blue curtains, bathed the room giving it a melancholy aspect. Slowly, he straightened up and sat down on the bed.
A bed he didn't know, a strange room he didn't know either. It was spacious and had three long windows on the right side of the room, a half-stained mirror on the left side, ornate furniture and a wooden dais covering the floor, and a ceiling and walls entirely made of misshapen stone bricks. The bed was wide and had a canopy the same color as the curtains, which for some reason was covered in fur throws and duvets, even in the muggy heat of the room.
It was disturbing how picturesque and unusual everything in that place seemed, so much so that if he hadn't been terrified by this fact, he would have even found it comical. And it was even more disturbing that he couldn't decide why he felt everything was different. He knew normal rooms shouldn't look like this, but he couldn't remember what they should look like either, it was a bizarre feeling that made it hard to think rationally. The ghost of a now non-existent pain made him run a hand across his forehead. And in a few seconds all the memories of the terrible night he had experienced came to his mind at the same time, worse, the surreal dream he had just had, also revealed itself in his memories. But those were still the only things he could remember, absolutely nothing before.
He saw himself with no prospect of what to do, he saw no alternative because all that turmoil of strange events and feelings in relation to himself and the place where he was was waging a war in his mind. With a sudden revulsion he threw the blankets away, and slid down, plopping down beside the bed, panic-stricken and overwhelmed. But a worrying sound brought him back to reality, someone was opening the only door in the room, and that was enough for the avalanche of thoughts to be forgotten.
He couldn't however, react in time as the door opened in a fraction of a second and he had just come out of the collapse, he didn't have a quick enough reaction time. A woman already with several white strands in her disheveled hair, and with a face marked by lines of fatigue, opened the door with apparent impatience. She was dressed in a stained leather apron over a simple wool dress, and when she saw him slumped over the side of the bed, she stopped, her hand still on the doorknob, gaping.
"Young Aethel..." whispered the woman with palpable disbelief in her husky voice.
And she closed the door, leaving the room even more exasperated than when she entered.
It was the second time he had heard that name, and the first time he had been called by it, or so he thought, until he remembered that the men from the night before had been calling for someone named Aethel, and they had found him.
"Aethel..." he whispered in fascination.
It's not every day you discover your own name, and somehow that reassured him, made things simpler. He had no memories before this strange place, and the best he could do was accept that fact, anyway there was no wishing, or missing something that one had no memory of. But that didn't mean he lost interest in the "before", quite the contrary, he wanted to understand the world he was in to at least try to figure out how he ended up in that place, and why he was there, and his name was a great place to start.
Aethel stared at his feet, crouched beside the bed while he had these musings, and the sanity that finally came over him made him realize how a bit stunted and small his limbs and body were compared to those of the people he had seen so far. He supposed the next step in his investigation of himself was appearance, as all he knew was that he had brown skin so he got up and strode over to the mirror (with not a trace of pain or fatigue). . Frustration hit him when he found his reflection distorted and blurry by the mirror's surface, but a few things he managed to notice. As discovered earlier, his hair was short and stiff, and in addition to appearing to be much longer than he had felt the night before, he guessed from the reflection that his eyes were either gray or a very light blue. There appeared to be some sort of blemish under the right eye, but it was hard to tell.
He touched the spot he was looking at, feeling a rough, slightly raised surface, starting at the bottom of his right eye to the middle of his cheek. By then he was already aware that it must be a child, a conclusion he could easily have drawn earlier. Despite that, he didn't feel like a child, and he began to wonder why the hell a little boy would have a scar on his face.
With the earlier panic displaced, and the room quiet, Aethel was able to hear strong, hurried footsteps through the door. He had completely forgotten about the woman, who apparently brought company. For precaution, he thought it would be better if they saw him still in bed, so he ran and jumped on the pillows and leaned against the hard wooden headboard.
Half a second after covering herself, the door was slowly opened by the most strangely dressed person he had seen so far, but as he again didn't know the reason for it's strangeness he dismissed the idea. The man holding the doorknob with an incredulous look fixed on Aethel appeared to be much older and more tired than the woman from before, which was understandable since for some reason that was beyond Aethel's comprehension, he wore a huge chain made by metal links of different colors and brightness, links a little smaller than his own head. The magnificent chain was highlighted however, by the mediocre gray hooded robe the man wore underneath.
The bald hair, the unshaven beard, were very white and the eyebrows thick as an eagle's, even his eyes were a grayish white. He stood there, half-hidden by the door, watching a confused Aethel as if he were some rare specimen. The scene was too ridiculous to avoid a smirk, which clearly only freaked him out even more.
"Hello," Aethel said, as matter-of-factly as she could.
Looking like a hesitant animal, the old man was slowly opening the door with those suspicious frowns, the woman from before who was behind him, also looking uncertain, but with a much less exaggerated face. When the old man was half a meter from the bed, Aethel couldn't take the tension.
-Something wrong...?-
-Something wrong!?- he repeated with disbelief- Yes... yes... YES!, I believe that grimy kids coming back from the dead is not something very natural!- Croaked the old man, he had a hoarse and high voice, remembering bizarrely a raven.
"Was I dead?" asked Aethel, slightly surprised.
The old man's answer was to approach, so suddenly that the boy jumped on the bed, scared. Slowly and with a certain trepidation on his face, he took Aethel's arm, who in turn didn't react as the other didn't seem to want to hurt him, he was just genuinely curious and amazed. His hand rested on the thin wrist, then on the boy's chest.
Now Aethel had a better idea of what was going on. The old man was probably some kind of strange healer, who had been tending to him, and the woman, judging by her clothes, must have been a servant or something of that sort. The old man had a sweaty hand on his forehead as he apparently finished his analysis.
-Well, the Gods must favor you brat- he said, the exaggerated attitude disappearing as quickly and strangely as it appeared- I was sure in a few days you'd be dead-
Aethel was amazed at how indifferent he was to the fact that he was talking to a child. The woman, however, still looked very suspicious.
"Looks like old Tor still has an... heir" half statement, half question she whispered, far from discreet, "what dark times isn't Maester Manfrid?"
-Dark?, ha!, an euphemism for sure- he grumbled - stand still there corpse boy, I'll get your father.-
Manfrid left the room, leaving the woman wondering what "euphemism" meant, and Aethel with a strange apprehension of meeting his father.