"Do not leave the bed," what must be a nurse or something unceremoniously dumps on me as a I wake up. I can hear in her voice that eyeroll, that gladness to be away from my- Ow... Ow!
My eyes flutter fully, all this pain a better waker upper than any kind of caffeine or sugar. I'm not bandaged, not tightly knit in a cast or even healed with magic for some reason... I'm borderline lying here as if they... No, no if. They do want me to bleed out. Even my blood doesn't look right, it's a sickly yellow, not a right and normal red.
"Why should I stay in it? You haven't even done your job!" I snap as it all comes bursting out of my mouth before she can leave. My cracked and mangled arm quakes, snapping off the bed's railing as I take in how bad and run down even this old thing is... I'm not even in a proper hospital room or something! It's a damn basement closet or the like!
"Do not make me call the City-Guard in here!" the nurse snaps back just as viciously, a clear and literal button of warning on show. I stare her down, her show of force and aggression more implicative than mine. Still, either she's an idiot for threatening me like that so far out of sight... Or she knows full well no sane person will push their luck in my state.
I look away, a growl in my throat, "Then get on with it and do your job."
I snort right after, blasting my breath through my nose as I look at too many wounds. Too much gore across my body. It's a shock to not be in a state of shock. And, who knows, maybe there's a wound on me that might just do that because they're literally everywhere. I've probably lost kilos in weight from the amount of my shell that's been fractured and broken.
"If you can't tell, I am doing it right now!" she insists, aimlessly moving a few tubs and other items. I can't quite tell what they are and if it's all important, but I know what half-arsed effort looks like. She's even tending to students who for some reason are arriving here of all places for care...! With little booboos and scratches on their knees!
It doesn't matter, she sorts them all out before she even goes back to anything I remotely need. There's nothing I can do about it, so I lay back down on the bed, wincing in pain as much as I am doing so in anger. I keep my back there, shuddering in much the same way. It hurts so much and being angry to get adrenaline in my system is all that works to get it to simmer away some. But it's all so overwhelming, and it's not just physical pain at all... My mind won't shut up!
I should be used to all of this now... But, I'm not. I'm not... I'm not!
A flash of red slips into my vision as I look around, no, a flash of rose red. My fists curl tight, straining already weakened carapace into a fresh lot of clean snaps that only make me clench harsher as I jolt at the pain. Yet, it all goes towards that idea of a woman. Rage for Rose'lhia.
All that effort with her and she's shown herself to be a fickle thing. Looking for any excuse she could pull out of the bins to get away from me. She's made that abundantly clear with her actions... Her treachery. It's all so clear now, she regretted leaving her flower with me.
It's just all so clear now and... And I'm finding myself getting calmer in the wrong way, the worst way. I'm not forgiving her or seeing it as petty and beneath me. Instead, it's because I can't stop these tears from flowing down my eyes and I can only pretend that it's because of the physical pain to keep my self safe from more torment. At least the kind of torment that goes for my heart.
I'm crying to myself on a dirty, filthy mess of a bed. A disgusting thing caked in dried up osibindah blood. Soaked in freshly spilling blood my anger forces out of me... It's all there and I'm crying on, in and around it.
It keeps tearing at me, unignorable pains that act up over the slightest movement. Annoying itches and stinging sensations. Each bit of it from a broken shell that's gone forever or stuck in me like a frag grenade. Every little cut some sliced tendon or cut open muscle because of those literally razor-sharp whirlwinds.
However, compared to what is in my heart and my mind... It's good, it's beautiful. What's up there and in my deepest chest cavities is never going to go away... It's all there and it refuses to go away as I keep catching sight of things in the room. And... I spot something, an old poster or carving someone's doodled out of sight and mind. In the depths of some rundown or just unloved room. A holy carving.
My mind turns to home, to Tobaballe as a building comes to mind. One where finely dressed people enter and left fuller, happier... Or satisfied and heard. All dressed and decorated in the clothes and colours of the gods, the divine. I focus on that image, the temple and the signs that lead to them as an echo of a voice lingers in my head.
Motrtha's... Einervaene wants me nowhere near her in public. Rose'lhia has betrayed me. Baltanthan is nowhere to be seen and no one else I've truly known is here for me. Not Vapooliar... Dandel'lhia... Vadei... Gods above... Even Heiya and her father would suit me now. At least slavers have to make sure their goods are cared for before they sell them.
But... Not the divine, there's no distance between me and them in a temple... I can still go to Motrtha for help!