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 Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 12:27 pm
"Wait--" Amrita flinched, her free hand coming up to press the heel of her palm against her temple. She blinked away the flash of pain that had distracted her, shaking her head lightly to clear the residual disorientation that followed. It was something she had never felt before, and what made it worse was that it had been totally out of the blue.
"...You okay?" Remi's voice was filled with concern, his tone low and very close to her ear. She nodded to his question, but she wasn't sure if she was telling the truth; it had simply become a reflex to pretend nothing was wrong. It was how she had always dealt with things. "...Rita." His voice had taken a warning edge; he had always been able to tell when she was hiding something.
"I'm fine." She insisted, shaking her head. "What did you say?" Though she knew better than to assume he was going to let it go, she always had to try. The silence that followed her question only proved her right, and she turned her head to look at him, hiding the ache behind her eyes by glaring at him as playfully as she could muster. "Did you hear me, old man?"
She didn't hear his answer. A second round pain bubbled behind her eyes, spreading through her brain like ice. Amrita dropped her pen and bowed her head, both hands raised to press tightly to her temples. If Remi was saying anything, she didn't register it. Words didn't reach her. She curled downwards, her forehead pressing against the cold of the table in front of her, but it did nothing to ease the lingering ache. When it faded on it's own she was able to breathe again, and she released the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. "What the hell..."
"Amrita." Remi's voice, while low, was heavy with urgency. "What the hell, Rita?" He demanded in the same heavy whisper, his fingers pressing tighter against her shoulders. He was holding her, she realized, trying to help.
"I...I need to go home." She announced, loud enough to be hushed by a passing librarian. The majority of the pain had faded, but the pressure in her head was still intense; it lingered, pressing, threatening to come back. Never in her life had she experienced a headache like this before. There was only one thing it could be, and honestly, she had been expecting it a lot sooner than now. She had thought, foolishly, that the Professor had been mistaken about the supposedly weekly headaches.
Remi didn't stop her when she tried to stand. She never imagined he would, really; not after she explained her situation to him. She felt that she had to tell him; Remi was one of her closest and best friends, and they spent a fair amount of time together. Not telling him only seemed cruel, especially under the circumstances. She felt him as he helped her up, his hands ending up hovering around her waist, his touch featherlight as if waiting to catch her should she fall. It was a gesture she vastly appreciated, and she easily accepted it, even going as far as to hold on to his shoulder.
The next time the pain returned, Amrita drew a sharp, hissing breath and held it, uttering a small, lingering whimper until it had faded again. The breath was let out slowly and shakily and she finally loosened her tight grip on the Kitsune's shoulder. "Sorry. I've...I've got to go." Amrita apologized, already inching towards the door with every intention of leaving him behind; she didn't want to be in public when it happened again. The faster she got to her room, the better. She needed that tea. Now.
"Oh no you don't. You're not going anywhere alone!" Remi growled at her with enough conviction to make her stay put. It was the boil that collected their books and writing utensils, shoving them unceremoniously into his bag. When they headed out, they headed out together; Remi's arm around her back, his hand on her waist. Collecting their things had been the only time since the first moment of pain that he hadn't held on to her in some way; the closer they got to her dorm, the more thankful she was for it. The waves of pain were coming in more and more frequently, enough to stop her in her tracks until she could think enough to walk once more. Remi's arm became littered with little cuts and bruises from all the times she dug her nails into him as though it would ease the pain.
By the time they reached her room the pain was constant and, just as Emerys had told her it would be, it was crippling. Remi must have carried her the rest of the way; she could barely think, let alone walk. Her head felt like it was going to explode; the agony was unbearable, and every touch, every thought just managed to make it worse. It became all she could think about and focus on. There was a voice somewhere that sounded suspiciously like her own, asking for someone to end it for her. Begging to be dissipated, if only to have a few fleeting seconds of stillness.
She had fought so hard in the past to live, and now all she wanted to do was die. Anything to be rid of this agonizing pain in her skull.
There was a second voice, a male one, trying to talk her through it. Through the agony and the sounds of her own voice was his, trying to get her to tough it out, panicking as he tried to figure out what to do next.
Relief only came when a bitter tea was forced down her throat. Later she would realize that it was the concoction that Professor Emerys had given her, prepared for her by Remi. It was something she would think about much later on, but at that moment, she could only muster enough thought to feel gratitude. The pain was still there, still pressing painfully on the inside of her skull, but it seemed less now. The edges were less sharp, and for that she felt blessed.
Then came a heaviness that matched the pain perfectly in it's intensity. Her whole body seemed to relax slowly as the agony melted away. Her hands fell away from her head, her fingers tipped with her own blood. Her tightly closed eyes relaxed, but never opened; her eyelid felt like lead, too heavy to move. The heaviness was a thick blanket, covering her, weighing her down. The voices were gone, her thoughts and feelings were gone. There was nothing left to worry about.
Everything had simply faded to black.
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Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:23 pm
The first thing she realized upon waking up was that she was warm. Too warm, really. There was also an arm draped over her waist, and a warm breath on the back of her neck...which really did nothing more than explain why she was warm, at least. She let out a small, breathy groan of frustration as she reached down to push the arm away, pressing her elbow back to try and nudge her warm bed mate away from her. Whoever it was rolled away without a fuss, and judging by the little snores that followed, didn't wake up. The ghoul sat up slowly, reaching up to rub her face with every intention of trying to clear away the heavy drowsiness. She felt strange, and couldn't shake the feeling.
She rubbed her face once more, fingers brushing down the torn edges lining the smooth texture of bone on the left side of her face. Something was off about it, but it was something that she couldn't place. Strange, she thought as her fingers pressed along her face; something feels weird. Perhaps she was still dreaming? That had to be it. Content with her conclusion she set to stretch her arms above her, her head tilted to the side and she arched her back, popping several vertebrae into place. Then, slowly, she rotated her head down to see who it was she had apparently shared a bed with.
At first, she didn't recognize him. His silhouette suggested kitsune between the ears and the tails; but they weren't entirely uncommon. She tried her best to remember who he was, or how he had ended up in her bed, and tried to blink away the sleep to peer at him in the dark of the room. It was only up close that she recognized him, and when she did, her breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened in pure shock.
"Remi?!" The ghoul drew away quickly with a strained whine, scrambling backwards until her back pressed up against the cold stone wall, practically trying to become one with it in her sudden panic. What was the Violet Queen doing in her bed?! It was not a pleasant surprise to find him there. He was her ally, certainly, but they were both terribly devoted to their Kingdoms; whatever happened had to have been-
Oh God.
"Remi." She hissed out, her voice hoarse and heavy with sleep. "Wake up!" Her warning was thick in her voice but she didn't dare raise her voice, lest someone hear her. She had to get him out of here, before someone noticed. It was dangerous for him here, and there was only so much she could do to protect him; if something bad happened, they would have to deal with the Violet King. And it would be her fault. Despite her attempts to verbally wake him, he continued to snore away, oblivious to the world. Her tactics switched, and she pressed back against the wall again, this time stretching out a leg to--
Wait.
What?
The noise she made was indescribable. In the dark she could see something was terribly wrong; her leg was paler than she remembered, and the foot at the end was twisted. Backwards. Unnaturally so. Words and thoughts failed her, and all she could do was stare. At her mental commands the toes flexed, the knee bent, and after nudging Remi a time or two, managed to generate enough force to make him roll over again. It left him dangerously close to the edge of the bed, but she didn't care any more. He was the least of her worries now. Her leg was different - no, both legs were different - and she quickly looked down at her hands next. They weren't twisted, but they were covered in stitches. She rubbed these hands together, feeling with alien fingers along foreign hands, worn with stress and covered in callouses that weren't hers.
"Wh-wha---" Her breathing was becoming ragged with a new panic. This body wasn't hers. Who was she? Hands she didn't recognize lifted to touch her face again, so familiar and yet so different; the visible bone had always been there, but the stitches. They were new. Different. Strange. She traced them with her fingers, first around her eye and then down her cheek, eventually finding the set that began just under her lower lip. Tracing that one down ended with her pulling the top of her dress down just enough to find the mass of scars and mangled skin between her breasts. A whole life time of old scars, where the enemy saw fit to aim for her heart.
"What the hell--" She gasped out shakily, pulling her dress back up properly. Nothing about this body was familiar to her. It was wrong, all of it. When she found no answers on her body for what was going on, she took a better look around: this bed? It wasn't hers, either. It was much more simple. What she could see of the room was wrong, too. She tried to look down at the sleeping Remi, but now that her eyes had adjusted better to the dark, she could see that even he was wrong, too.
He was Remi at his core, she could see it; but his shell was wrong. The differences were as subtle as shades and not as drastic as her own, but they were there.
"Oh my god..." She whined, reaching up to hold the sides of her head. She wanted to hold herself, but she didn't know who she was. This place was too new, too different, too unfamiliar. She felt entirely displaced, and she didn't know what to do. The ghoul sat there as the minutes ticked on, trembling and clutching the bed sheets at her side. She tried to think of the things she knew, in order to figure out what in the world was going on.
First, she thought, her common name was Amrita. Sometimes Rita.
Second, she recalled, her true name was The Moon. Named after the Eighteenth Major Arcana.
Third, she pondered, she was awake. This wasn't a dream; she proved that by pinching herself hard enough to make herself yelp - though Remi continued to sleep soundly on the edge of the bed - and proved it again by dragging this body's nails down her own arm, hard enough to draw four thin lines of blood. To her surprise, the lines sealed up only moments later, leaving the skin as smooth and off-green as it had been prior.
Okay, so her name was The Moon, commonly known as Amrita. She was awake, and her healing powers were better than she recalled. She was in control of a body she did not recognize, in a room she had never seen before in her life. Remi, the Violet Queen, was in her bed; they were both fully dressed, at least. The more she thought about her situation, the more she realized that sitting here wasn't doing her any good. Not at all.
She had never felt so close to her Arcana namesake before.
Nothing made sense, but she had to press on. Her journey from here was uncertain and surreal, but she had to follow it. Sitting still never won anyone any answers, and there had to be a reason she was in this body, in this room, and in bed with another Kingdom's royalty. Nothing ever happened for no reason. Having a purpose, even one that meant she was to explore this strange new world in this unusual body, made her relax visibly.
Her mission here was clear: all she had to do now was figure out how to get around Remi.
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