Trafalgar's mind turned over slowly, unmoored. He didn't know what had happened or where he was, only that some strange sensation was running through the whole of his body, root to fingertip.
It was a good feeling, though. Restful. He felt comfortable in a way he hadn't in some time, and it was that, more than any pain, that told him he was safe enough to open his eyes.
He cracked them a little at first, then wider. He was floating. The pool from before held him, shallower than he'd have guessed, deep enough only to lie back in and keep his face above the surface, the dark liquid warm against his skin and drawing the ache out of him a fraction at a time. Wherever the stuff touched him, it worked. He could feel it moving under his skin, patient and thorough, knitting at the torn places deep in his chest that Dravok's cut had left behind, and the longer he lay in it the more the pain there dimmed, until it was less a wound than the memory of one.
