Solo 1: 6 of Wands R (Post Chapter 1)

Beth had been released from the...tender care of the Prytaneum’s healer, a dour man named Rafe, after only a quarter hour’s worth of work--though waiting had been nightmarish. Rafe had terrified her--despite her weak attempts at jokes, he barely spoke to her (and most certainly did not laugh). They spent practically the entire appointment in tense silence. Beth remembered wondering if he thought her overdramatic. Despite extensive injuries and, indeed, feeling as if death were peeking over her shoulder, she was hardly the worst off of the lot. A sliver of a whisper--saying “you could be buried under stone and snow, like the people you chose to abandon”--protruded into her thoughts, but she quickly turned her mind away. She had no inclination to think about such things, not when the echoes of her mind were so cavernous.

Instead, she set about feeling human again. It took the bulk of an hour and several shampoos, but she finally washed any trace of bird poop from her hair. Then she took another hour to painstakingly scrape the crap from every inch of skin that it might linger. This she followed up with a bath, scented of mint and roses. She sat in the water, inspecting her body, trying not to think of anything at all. She stayed until the suds disappeared, the water turned cold around her, and she began shivering.

A few days before, it had seemed sort of….silly. Like a wish fulfillment fantasy she might have made up in high school. Their trip to the Alps had changed that. Suddenly, it was almost painfully too real. A few days before, Beth had not been able to trace the criss-cross of (thankfully) thin white scars tracking their way across her forearms, belly, and upper thighs. They didn’t hurt, really, but it was a strange sensation to look into the mirror and see physical evidence of combat marring her once perfect skin.

“At least it wasn't your face,” she told her reflection, drawn and pale in the glass. Pale, except for the lingering patches of redness where she had scrubbed to erase both filth and memories. Beth slipped into her silky purple pj romper, looking dismayed as they did not cover enough of her to hide the scars. She rummaged through her luggage and found an old purple and black mandarin collared house robe. It wasn't the sexiest item she possessed, but the long sleeves and even longer tails did the job.

Beth was usually fine about showing skin, but the aftermath littering her body left her feeling self conscious, to say the least. Even in the loneliness of her own bedroom. She felt vulnerable, weak, and unsafe. She remembered the terror of the fight, the odd numbness that had settled on her as the feathers pierced and slashed at her skin. She wondered if she would ever be comfortable with bare arms and legs again. She ran her hands across the folds of the dresses, shirts, and skirts she had managed to hang up before they were called to leave. So many of them left her exposed in ways she no longer found pleasant. She hesitated for a moment, then started pulling items off hangers--spaghetti straps, quarter sleeves, miniskirts, she pulled them down with increasing mania until they lay scattered at her feet. None of it was good enough. None of it was salvageable.

She sank to her knees, fists balled up on her thighs, trying to stop tears of frustration and rage from pooling in her eyes. It wasn't fair. Why did it happen to her? How could she ever recover? If she asked Rafe, would he fix her? Or would he scoff at her for being hysterical and refuse? Others had lost a lot more than the ability to wear the clothes they liked. She wasn't rendered unable to use her limbs as a consequence of her wounds. But other people weren't her, and that made all the difference in her estimation. For so long, her clothes had been her expression, a voice when often she had none. A simple choice of color here, a neckline or skirt length there and she could speak with more than just her lips. Now, it was no longer as easy as breathing. There would always be considerations she had to make.

Beth wished her friends, her mundane friends, the ones she'd left on the other side of the country had been there--and just as quickly retracted it. What could she have said? How could she explain everything that had happened without giving away the secrecy of the Chosen? Was she so desperate for company in her misery that she wanted to drag them into the literal s**t storm that they had faced?

(Instantly, she knew the answer was a resounding yes. It did not cheer her.)

And so her phone lay on its charge cradle, dark and silent, as she moldered in the solitude of her dorm room.

WC: 832
XP: 10
FIN