Welcome to Gaia! ::

Pins and needles were as Mordred found out, literal things that could be in your leg while it healed. Extreme trauma. Multiple fractures. Lacerations. Blunt force trauma. The list was extensive. It was alarming. The ER doctor had told her, that when she'd arrived, they had initially wondered about amputating her lag the bones had been so badly damaged. She was lucky he said. Lucky because she had just enough that it would be a struggle, she'd be in physical therapy, but she'd have a leg. She'd walk again.

She also had almost had her insides become her outsides. They stopped that too. But what scared them the most at the ER was the boy who'd brought her in, distressed and speaking in Russian. He'd fought them to stay by her, and only when police tried to grab him did he flee the scene. Whoever he'd been, had he'd arrived a bit later, she likely have bled out and been too far gone to resuscitate.
A word Mordred had known before. Experienced before.

She had, for lack of a better word, died. No pulse. She had died a second time. The first had been after the rift. Now?
Now just from being henshined in the city. No where was safe, no where was it safe to just exist. And it hurt to be reminded of how weak she was, how easy she was to kill. She could have fought back, should have attacked. But she hadn't. She'd been a coward and hide behind Icarus but even then she'd ******** up. He got hurt because of her and he had to carry her to the hospital and it was all her fault.

Mordred had few visitors. Mostly just Arthur who would sneak in. Actually it was just Arthur. Everyone else was just a stranger who stopped out of pity to see the girl with no family, who sat often in silence or yelled to be left alone.

At the very least, the curse Icarus had taught her was being put to use.

Mordred was used to two things in the hospital. Pity looks and nurses coming in with no warning outside of 'Hey kiddo' and 'Vitals check, coming in!' Either overly nice sounded to the point you knew it was said with a fake forced happiness like it wasn't something painful and humiliating to be stuck in a bed, or, it was said in a muted melecholy of knowing that likely they were the only person the reserved little girl saw all day.

Russian was different, and it started her. Enough that she jumped, jostling her leg just enough to illicit a loud, (poorly pronounced) Russian curse.

When she saw who it was, she blinked. He was around the right age, same hair color but- There was a wetness in her eyes, a sheer vulnerability and raw fear that she was wrong. She had rings under the puffy red eyes from sleepless nights, from crying. Her leg was in a sling, metal bars and screws keeping it together. Her bed was tilted but not by much. An IV drip, heart monitor- Mordred looked small surrounded by the medical equiptment and she knew it. Worse, the stranger, perhaps not stranger was seeing her like this.

The girl didn't know what was worse. A stranger seeing her like this, or perhaps Icarus seeing her like this.
"I- are you-" Her voice was soft and worn. She used it to yell and scream, not talk.
"Did he hurt you too?"
It was all she could ask as she lay in the bed, shaking, afraid that she was wrong, afraid he wasn't the same person, afraid she was right and he was angry, she was right and he had been hurt because of her.
She was afraid.

And she hated herself for it.

She jumped a bit when he called her an idiot. Then- She smiled. It was tiny, the faintest upturn of her lips as her eyes watered. That was Icarus. He would call her an idiot but he was nice- he'd teach her the right way to say it. A small sniff, he wiped her eyes with the back of her hand trying to put on a brave face as she repeated the word back to him.
She hurt, she was still afraid but they couldn't let it show. They had to be strong. They were strong. But he looked, sounded guilty and she felt that shame in her stomach. That lower part that hollowed out and made your heart tighten and want to sing into the dark so no one could know the truth.

"I was stupid." She looked at her leg, away from him.
"You tried, I got in the way." She moved her gaze to her lap. "I was useless. I made thing worse. He- he almost. You could have- and I just froze and-"

Mordred sniffed again, not looking up.
"I'm Mordred you know. Mordred Pendragon." A beat.
"I chose my name because they found me once before. They'll find me again eventually. I-" Silence.

"I'm sorry."

She stared at him from the bed, watery eyes and remorseful. She didn't cry, but she did sniffle.
"Sorry." She looked away, down at the sheets. "I don't want to cry. I'm sorry." What she was sorry for, she couldn't put her finger on. Being weak? Being scared? Being sorry? She didn't know, her emotions felt like a mess and she just hated being locked away in the room like she was something to be pitied.
Something that needed protection, even if in her own head she knew she still needed it.

An arm lifted up before it was roughly slammed down on a pillow. She did this several times before sniffling in anger. Mordred hate this- being helpless, stuck, forced to be cared for by strangers an reliant on them.

"Kahvinske." She butchered the name on purpose. "Pietro sounds better." She smiled and looked at him, still fighting back the last of her sniffling. "It's less a mouthful than Mordred anyway." She moved a bit, discomfort clear as she fumbled for the buttons on the railing.
"I think they said I had a menu with food credits or something if you're hungry. They don't let me order much."

Mostly ice cream.
She only ever ordered ice cream.

Another sniffle, she smiled at how nice Pietro was. He may act mean, but- she smiled a bit wider, a bit warmer. He was nice. He wasn't all pity or sympathy, he was real and understood that things were not good. They were bad, messed up, and there was no real way to just fix it. No band-aid to make their problems go away.

"Crying is messy. All snot and tears and you can't talk. Its miserable. I hate it." She was saying it like it was no matter, but it was obvious she was trying to pull back, put on the brave front. Her new friend, (were they friends? They sort of seemed like it now), deserved her better than a crying mess at least.
"Mory.. is okay. I guess. It beats Dread. But you have to admit, Dread makes me sound pretty cool right?" Small talk, she wasn't great at it but she was trying. Trying to just ignore the pain in her leg, in her skin and well.
Everywhere.

His question made her eyes widen just a bit as she looked past him at the door, the hall way.
"Home." Her voice going soft once more.
"Just Arthur an me. They'll... they'll probably try to wait to make sure an adult picks me up but-"
Up and down her shoulders slumped.
"At least this time they didn't see my face." A look.
"He- he didn't..." Panic, in her eyes, a base fear. She couldn't help it.

Taking the tissues in hand, Mordred blew into them with all the grace a snot filled nose could.

FFFFFFFFFFFRPPPTTTHHHHHHH

"Thanb yoo." she got out before letting another undignified nose cleanse. Balling up the used tissues she crumpled them trying in vain to toss them over to a nearby waste bin. One of two made it in.
"Good enough." She muttered to herself.
Her gaze downcast, she thought about his words. A secret name for each other, something for them. That sounded- well it sounded nice. It made her smile.

His mention of being discharged to him made her look up at the teen, eyes wide but this time, with excitement.
"You think- you think they'd do that? Like, when I get out of this cast that they'll let me go ho-" Her words stuck in her throat.
Without warning she reached over and put her arms around him, trying to hug him from her odd position on the bed.

"You're too nice Pietro. You're actually nice."

"And... thank you. I don't want to have to die again. Picking a new name was the worst."

The fact he was wiling to try was what mattered most to Mordred. She looked at him, a smile on her face, genuine and happy. It was briefly lived, but it was there. He'd managed with a simple promise to try and it had made her feel happy. Few things these days did.

"It's okay, just teach me more bad words in Russian. THEN I won't tell anyone." It was spoken with a certain mirth, a tone that indicated that while she knew everything wasn't alright, okay, or even good, it was better. Things would be better. She smoothed out her hair, pretended to be entirely put off by the touch but- She smiled.

"Pietro." She tested his name on her tongue again, barely a whisper.
"it's a nice name." She paused.
"Jane." Purple eyes stared outside. "My name used to be Jane. But sometimes... being Mordred is better. Is that- is it like that with you too?"

She sucked in a breath then looked at Pietro.
"So." She began, "How do you say '******** off' in Russian? I want to scare the nurses again." She grinned at him feeling perhaps, she liked Pietro as much as she liked Kavinsky. Which was more than average.

A beat and "I think it's better to be Mordred. Jane doesn't have anyone left but-" She smiled, and this time it seemed to match her eyes. " Now I have you and Arthur. And that's enough."