#also if it's relatively clean noticeably well fed and fully willing to approach you

[coockie8]

oh

u kno i actually never thought maybe my cat actually wasnt a stray 😬😬😬

[junkyardlynx]

Pt. 10

She was in a bad way.

Her teeth had been impacted through her cheek, white tombstones flecked with red grit peeking through. She smiled in spite of it as I reached out to touch her shoulder with a shaky hand, fresh blood welling up in her mouth from the effort of the movement. My chest, already heaving, felt suddenly empty and cold. The fire from before was gone. Casting a critical eye eye over her, I could tell that her jaw was broken in several places and her cheekbone was mostly shattered; scorch marks from the flame of his fist had imparted second degree burns to her flesh. She shouldn’t be standing right now. I could tell that she’d managed to throw up a barrier of ice just before impact.

Sarisa would have died if she didn’t.

My breathing became erratic and frantic as I looked around for a scrap of flesh, a mote of mana, anything. I could easily heal this, it would be fine, if I could just find a scrap of material, plea-

It was just...gone. 

Amduisas and I had used it all up. Even his body was gone, as it was more thought than flesh - when the will and mana that comprised it was exhausted, it couldn’t maintain it’s form and turned to a brittle husk of, well, nothing.

If I’d fought more carefully, if I thought about what I was doing for once, if I just...

It was too late to think like that.

“Sarisa, follow me. I need to, ah, dress your wound.”

Her right hand, burned and slightly bloody, found mine. 

She gave it a tender squeeze. 

The weight she entrusted to me as she leaned to my side was less than it should be, but more than I could bear. 

She nudged me with her shoulder.

I suppose that was her way of saying “let’s go” without saying it. We started walking, heading towards our destination, though I was sure nothing remained for us to find. This was all orchestrated too well. They probably meant for us both to perish back there, as the...reagents required to summon a Duke of Soritoroth were particularly hard to come by. Not many people had that high of a magical capacity, and the number required was frankly insane. You had to be insane to do anything like that. Insane. It was simply without sanity.

Just like everything about my fucking life, apparently. Seeing Rissa’s shattered face might just mark the first time I’ve ever cursed this existence. Well, it’s not like it was anything I could fix by having regrets. The time for that was long past. I’d given too much of myself, my soul, my innocence to discard this way.

The observatory loomed in the distance like some sort of voyeuristic patron of our struggles, the rusted and decaying dome open slightly as a broken telescope hung partially out of it. It reminded me of a sleeping dog, in a way. Watching and waiting on the edge of consciousness for the return of it’s master. Would it cause a ruckus when that lost master returned to it?

As we approached the building proper, we could see the immense disrepair it was in. The white paint was cracked and peeled away, revealing the dull concrete underneath. The sign denoting it’s name had completely rusted away, the reddish-brown of oxidized metal being the only thing left. A small auxiliary building constructed from wood and sheet metal stood as an access and rest area into the observatory dome itself.  Noting the obvious signs of recent use, I suddenly turned to Rissa and let go of her hand. 

She looked at me quizzically. 

That gave me enough time to scoop her up with one arm under her knees and the other under her shoulders, carrying her into the doorway. Almost like one spouse carrying another into the bedroom. I shook my head of the thought even as my cheeks went red, placing her on top of a relatively clean table.

“Sorry.”

I could read her as well as she read me, and the look in her eyes was, ah, yeah. Something of a “No you’re not, playboy.” I could hear the playful reprimand. 

I wanted to hear that playful reprimand.

I stripped my torn and mostly-useless shirt from my body, slipping it under her head.

“You’re probably gonna get a little of my blood on ya. You’ll just have to deal with it.”

I felt like I was talking just to fill the spaces where she’d speak. I probably was. She gave me a little shrug and the twinkle of her eyes signaled her smile to me. Once I made sure she was comfortable, I scrubbed the dirt off my hands as best I could in the sink. I was surprised at first to find that the water was running to this place, but then realized that of course it was. They’d been out here kidnapping my fucking friend and plotting my death. Gotta have water for that. 

“Give me just a sec, I’m gonna see if I can find anything useful in here before I play Surgeon Simulator on you.”

I opened dented filing cabinets, forced open warped desk drawers and pilfered mildew-ridden cupboards. My search was fruitful, and I produced an ancient pack of gauze pads and a nigh-empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

Ah, good. I’d really, really need those.

“Okay, close your eyes, champ. This is gonna hurt. I’d say it’s gonna hurt me more than it’s gonna hurt you, but uh, I can’t lie. This is just really gonna hurt, Rissa.” 

I swore internally at my own nervous, talkative mouth. You never talk this much! Shut up, you idiot. She’s gonna know something’s wrong. 

“Hhits’ nishe...’earing ‘ou talk.”

Oh, man. Did someone push Rhongomyniad through my chest? Her broken voice was killing me.

“Maybe I’ll have to do it more. If you speak again before I’m done though, I’m gonna delete your Steam account. C’mon, mushmouth.”

Before she could even think of formulating a response, I gave her undamaged shoulder a comforting rub and then set upon her. I carefully began to pull her cheek away from her impacted teeth, and she hissed loudly. She didn’t scream, though. 

I’d have screamed if I was her. I guess girls really do have a higher pain tolerance. Damn. 

A line of tooth-holes remained in her cheek, but her teeth were free. I pressed a section of my shirt to her dripping cheek to stem the flow of fresh blood. With that, I gave her an exaggerated thumbs up and, well. She attempted to kill me with a look. Not really, but also, kinda really. 

“Hey, I’m gonna do something and you can’t get mad.”

What? Sarisa inquired with a cock of her head.

“No, you gotta promise. You can’t get mad.”

With the most perfect eye-roll I’ve ever seen, she shrugged as if to say “whatever, fine.”

I smiled.

Reaching into a Wound under the table to extract a small dagger, I kept talking to distract her.

“I don’t think Thom’s here. I think he was here at some point, judging by the state of things, but I think...we were manipulated into coming here. They probably wanted to kill us. Too bad they suck at it.”  

I managed to hide my own hiss of pain between the “s” in suck. I was running the blade along my left side, like carving meat from a particularly juicy ham.

I needed materials, after all.

I tapped my toe in time with the steady dripping of blood to mask the sound, covering my tattered sneakers in fresh shades of red. I’d heated the blade, cauterizing the wound as it cut, but hey. Blood still happens.

Side note: don’t buy white shoes. It’s not worth it.

“But I don’t think Thom is an entirely willing participant. I think he was fed a string of lies and thinks he’s helping us or something. There’s no way he’d just give us up. I’m concerned as to how he learned, but it doesn’t matter as long as we get him back safe and sound. I still need him to teach me how to be good at Counter Strike - did you know he bought an entire fucking car with the money he earned from betting on his own matches? An entire Honda Civic.”

A piece of my own body came free, falling into my waiting hand with a soft but audible squish. Knowing my time was pretty much up, I basically threw the peroxide on my side as I hurriedly slapped the gauze patches onto my skin. 

Ah, fuck. I think she noticed. She started to scramble, the worry and anger clear as day on her currently Picasso-esque face.

“Nope. You said you wouldn’t get mad, Rissa.”

With that, I channeled mana into my hands, leaning heavily on the table. Holy shit, this actually hurt a lot. I didn’t notice my pain when I fought Amduisas, but this was different. I wasn’t in the middle of some rage-fueled fight for my life. I was talking to someone I lov-loved? Loved? Was that the word? 

I glanced at the inchoate mass of unbound life in front of me, cut from my own body.

Ah, yeah. I guess I really did love her.

The flesh, freshly separated from my body, seemed to slither through the air as it melted into a black sludge, attaching itself to her face. The teeth-holes in her cheek knit themselves closed and the crunching of bones and cartilage signaled the repairing of her own body as the viscous sludge faded.

She didn’t scream.

Sarisa just placed her hand on my wrist and gripped it tightly, nails digging into my skin. 

Hey, I can’t afford to lose more blood right now, you know? Not that I’d say it.

In a few agonizing minutes, her face was restored. Dried and flaked blood still covered her face, but the damage was healed. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough to fully mend the burns on her hand, so they’d probably end up scarring. Add it to the list of things I’ve failed at today, I guess.

“Hey, doofus.” 

I murmured as my head slipped from the cradle of my hands, ending up on her stomach with a gentle thud.

“Seriously, Jeal? That’s gonna scar, you know. You think I’m gonna find it hot that you have a big stupid sexy scar on your side or something?”

Her playful reprimand reached my ears as darkness came over me, pulling me down into sleep. The last thing I felt was her fingers in my matted, bloodied hair.

I’d really, really need a shower when I woke up.