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Apparently having a broken nose was cause for concern. And slashes across various parts of his body. And if people had been able to see the, the finger marks dug into his chest and the smattering of bruises across his abdomen. So, as little as he wanted to go face nurse, whom he knew to be female, he had decided to go to the nurse's office.

Arriving at the door he hesitated. Was it actually worth it? But he was getting weaker, and while it was more than likely just flaws in his own training it could possibly be related to any number of the things he had experienced while at the school. Such as any one of his four dissipations.

Swallowing he opened the door and carefully walked into the room, looking around nervously. Before he had always fled the room as soon as he could walk, but now was not the time run. It was time to take matters into his own hands. "Hello? Is anyone available?"

The hissing noise was slightly disconcerting, but not entirely unexpected. As she addressed him he felt himself wanting to hunch down and cower in front of the woman and straighten up as she looked at him. Why on Halloween had he thought that this should be a good idea?

"I desire to make a request of you Mistress Cricket," he said with a slight bow in her direction, trying not to cringe at the movement. "I believe that my physical abilities have diminished recently, and would appreciate if I could receive an examination. I presumed this was the place to make such a request."

He tried to repress the shudder that ran through him at the touch. Horror at being touched by a female, interest at being touched a ghoul that was supposedly a ghost, and simply being forced to look her in the eye, staring at her almost as if petrified before she looked away. At least the term child was reassuring.

He felt slightly ashamed as she pointed out the obvious. He did try, he knew how to patch himself up a bit, to get past the worst, but he was no expert. "Yes Nurse Cricket," he said with a bob of his head as he moved over to the cot and sat.

Once there he carefully removed the tape from his nose before moving on to unwrap his waist band. He felt oddly self-conscious as he stripped off his shirt and began to unbind the wraps around his chest, not because he had anything against being shirtless, but rather because he did not wish to reveal the damage underneath. "I am uncertain, though I thought it might be time to seek out an expert's opinion."

If his nose had not been broken the mantodae would have been looking away, anywhere but at the nurse in front of him. She seemed to be nice enough, but he could not help but feel that he was a disappointment. As it was he did his best to concentrate on her left shoulder, which seemed a fairly safe place to look. He had been tended for injuries before, and if he did not concentrate on how gentle her touch was and did not look at her he could pretend that she was not a ghoul.

As gentle as she was it hurt, and he could not help but hiss in pain, doing his best to stay still and trying not to appear weak in front of her, fingers clenching at his side. His tear ducts welled up with her burst of fear and but he just moved his gaze slightly higher, trying to keep them from actually falling. When she moved back the sharp pained lessened, though there was a throbbing in its place.

Rather than look at her he looked down. His ribs were beginning to show their faint outlines, but it had been such a gradual difference that he had never really paid attention to it until now. "I do eat Mi--Nurse Cricket. I try to obtain lunch in the cafeteria and I can normally catch a rat for Princess Eva and I's dinner. Sometimes more." He found himself flushing and unable to look up. She was concerned, but he could not help but feel like it was just one more suggestion that he was not good enough. That he could not even take care of his bodies' most basic need.

He looked at her in surprise as she began talking about FEAR in a manner he had never heard of before. Even though her fingers were making him shiver, shoulders trembling as he forced himself not to move. She was a professional. She was doing her job and he could not do anything about the fact that she was a ghoul. She was part of the staff and he needed to respect that.

As soon as it was evident that she had stopped talking he began talking, a trickle of words turning into a stream. "You can use FEAR to not need nourishment? I have been taught to focus my FEAR for battling purposes, and I know that others use it for things such as healing and defensive purposes, but you can even use FEAR for such a task? Such things were not taught in my studies. I would very much like to learn more about this practice Nurse Cricket."

By the time he had stopped talking he realized that he had just bombarded her with multiple questions and then an additional request to his time. Blood rushed to his cheeks and he dipped his head down. "If you do not mind sparing the time on me that is." Still, the prospect was staggering. Yes, he had never actually seen someone that had starved to death, but he had seen those that looked on the verge of it. He frowned at the memory, all of those had been boils.

Things were sounding very promising. She seemed to know exactly what was going on, and also to know the answer. And then she asked him to agree to do something that he did not know what it was.

He began wrapping up his chest, not hurrying but using the time to contemplate her question. She was a professional hired by the school, and should probably be trustworthy. But it seemed a very ghoul thing to do to have him promise something before telling him of it. But twenty minutes a day? That was not too much, surely she could not require anything too horrible within those twenty minutes. Twenty minutes from his day though, from practicing and getting stronger.

But obviously he was not getting stronger. He was getting weaker and he had problems. Could he really afford to say no? He pulled on his shirt and went to work on his waistband. "I shall give up twenty minutes daily if that is what is required Nurse Cricket." There was a sense of determination in his voice, of finality. He was accepting her offer and he would do what was necessary to accomplish it.

As soon as she began talking he regretted his decision. It was not the idea of meditation, or anything that she told him to do. It was her tone, reminding him of a ghoul that wanted something, and knew that she was going to get it. It was extremely disconcerting.

Her instructions did not make him feel much better. Sitting for a while? That sounded awful. He did not like being still. He tried to focus on being comfortable. He would sit with Princess Eva sometimes, but he was almost always stroking or brushing her fur, or at the very least talking to her. From the time he got up until when he went to sleep he was doing something. If he was in his natural form perching seemed easier.

And well, right there was the answer was it not? His natural form? The cots seemed sturdy enough that he could probably find a good place to rest on one of those, and she had seemed to leave the option fairly open to him. But shifting in front of someone was so impolite that he balked at the idea.

Finally he walked deeper into the room and turned away from her before initiating the change. The familiar bits of flesh hardening, the bones in his legs separating before fading away, and compression and stretches of his body until he was finally able to turn around, fully changed, and worked on finding a comfortable position perched on the rails of a cot.

"Nurse Cricket I am ready." His mandibles clacked as he spoke, and though the words were not perfectly formed typically his speech was still comprehensible.

((If natural form is not okay let me know and I'll edit it to something else~))

Beautiful? Her tone had changed after his transformation, and though it bothered him he felt slightly more at ease in his natural form. He tried to ignore her tone, ignore how much it bothered him to have her sounding so...nice. Instead he focused on her words, doing his best to follow her instructions obediently. It was hard to just obey, so before he did anything he thought about it. Focus on his breathing? That was reasonable, and did not bother him, so he decided to do it. It was his choice.

So he focused on his breathing, on how his body moved every he took or exhaled a breath, on the natural rhythm of his body. This was not too difficult to do as he was fairly in tune with his body. But this was the first time that he was seeking his fear and not grabbing it to him to use in battle. He tried to be patient, to feel out what his fear was, wondering if his body would pulse like Nurse Cricket's.

After he felt that he had felt out as much as he was likely to he began to attempt to relax his FEAR. But it was almost like a heavy-handed child trying to stroke a cat that did not wish to be petted. His FEAR seemed almost like it would rather cringe back than settle, and it took several attempts until finally he began to sooth his FEAR, relaxing.

It took several more minutes of attempts, some successful and some not until he thought that he had done as she wished and he settled down to focus on his breathing again, attempting to be more aware of his FEAR as he did so.