Reyna waded across the river, painfully weary of the two armed young men behind her. As far as she knew they weren't planning to hurt her but the water leeching into her wounds was a stinging reminder that she was already injured, hungry, and too tired to fight anymore. On the river bank some of the purple clad kids were beginning to gather and stare at the commotion. She wasn't sure at this point what kept driving her and a voice in her head began to whisper that drowning probably wasn't as bad as everyone made it sound. It couldn't have been much worse than how she was already feeling. Nevertheless she forced that kind of thought deep down and shoved on with the unidentifiable store of energy she had somehow tapped.
The sun was bright in the clear sky and the grass on the river bank was unbelievably green and soft looking. Once she'd trudged out of the water she let herself fall to the earthy bed. At least on land she could rest without drowning. She smiled a little at the thought and closed her eyes just relishing the warmth of the sun on her skin. She'd missed it more than she knew while she was in Washington. It rained far too much in Washington, she thought before letting the exhaustion take her.
She drifted in and out of consciousness several times without fully coming around. At one point she noticed she was lying on some kind of cot or bed instead of in the grass and she was surrounded by a moving purple wall. Another time it was just a blurry figure hunched over her in purple clothes. People whispered around her from time to time about nothing she understood. But every time they could, someone forced her to drink something that tasted unidentifiable but wonderful. When she finally completely awoke it was in the dead of night.
She sat up and looked around her carefully. Every part of her body felt like she'd been put through a wall and she was painfully stiff. Someone had bandaged her shoulder, leg, and hand very neatly with clean white bandages.
The room she was in was actually a long tent with a neat row of cots down one side. She noticed she wasn't the only one occupying a cot. There were two other kids fast asleep. In the dark it was really hard to tell, but one looked like a teenage boy with his arm slung across his chest, and the other was a grown man with no visible injury that Reyna could see. She swung her legs over the edge and stood probably more quickly than she should have. A dizzy wave rushed her and she was suddenly nauseated. She stumbled and sank back into the cot knocking over the small tray table next to her and shattering a glass that was on it in the process. The man several cots away jerked and sat up. It was too dark to tell, but Reyna knew he was looking right at her. He rubbed his eyes and stood, making his way down the row to her. She panicked. He moved slowly, dragging himself out of sleep. She hoped that would mean he wasn't very focused. She knew she couldn't run standing alone had gotten her into this mess. So she leaned her arm down as slow as she could and felt for a shard of glass. With a sharp sting on her middle finger she found it and slowly picked it up. He stopped next to her cot and his boot crunched the glass. He looked down and cursed under his breath, and in that moment Reyna took her chance. She swung her arm out and slashed the glass across his face. She shouted and jumped back, landing on the cot beside hers.
"Gods of the inferno, are you mad, woman?" he yelled while he clutched at the wound on his face. He reached over to the wall and flicked on a light between their two cots. Blood was running down his face and between his fingers. He looked like he was a young man with tawny eyes and apricot colored hair. Like everyone else she'd seen so far, he wore a purple t-shirt. He stood and crossed the tent to where a chest of drawers sat. He pulled out a few things that Reyna couldn't see and, to her inference, began to treat his injury. After a minute or so, he sighed and strode out of the tent with a square of gauze pressed to his cheek. Reyna sighed and leaned against the pillows. She released the shard of glass and looked down at her palm. It had worked to fight the man off but she had also cut herself in the process. The blood was fairly abundant. She grabbed a handful of the linen sheet and pressed it to the injury, gripping her hand in a fist to stem the flow.
She looked around the room again with a little more light available. The opposite wall of the tent was lined with chests of drawers and large cabinets. It occurred to her that she was in some kind of medical facility however makeshift it appeared. The teenager on the cot near the far end of the tent stirred and grumbled as he turned his face from the light source. He had ashy blond hair and his feet hung off the end of his temporary bed as though he were too tall for it. She was beginning to calm down until she heard voices nearby, male voices. Her adrenaline spiked again and made her dizzy. She was losing blood from the cut in her palm and she was already unwell to begin with. Finally she bit the bullet and tried to stand again.
Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath she stabled herself and quickly moved to the chests and cabinets. She wedged herself between two of them several feet from the light on the wall in the hopes that shadows would hide her. She'd made it to her hiding spot just in time too. The tent opening was pushed aside and four people walked in. Three of them were in pajamas and one was the man from before. There were two teenagers in purple cloaks with gold fastens, a boy and a girl, and a boy only a little older than she was.
As they approached her bed and the light she began to see them more clearly. The older boy had his cloak fastened around bare shoulders exposing a well-trained upper body. The girl was lovely with long ginger hair and light green eyes. Her hair was still tousled from sleep and even that looked beautiful on her. The younger boy had fine hair the color of papaya flesh and a narrow willowy build.
"What the- Where'd she go?" The man's gauze square was red with blood as he held it to his face.
"She can't have gone far, we'll find her," the shirtless boy said.
"Well when you put out the search party be sure to remind everyone she's armed and dangerous. I don't even know what I did."
"You probably scared her, Sean," the girl said in a kind voice, "I bet she's closer than we think." The girl looked over to Reyna's hiding place and Reyna ducked her head. She saw to her horror that she'd dragged the whole linen sheet with her and it was exposed from the crevice she was in. Of course if she moved it she would give herself away for sure.
"Sean, let me look at it," the younger boy ordered. Reyna assumed he was talking about her handy work. "That's going to need stitches for sure."
"Sons of Dis," Sean cursed, "well I'll get a good scar out of it."
"That's the spirit," the older boy laughed. "I'm going to head back to bed. Come get me if she shows back up?" There was silence for a moment then a horrible pain shot through Reyna's hand as the sheet was tugged away. She cried out against her own better judgment and clutched her hand close. It was the red headed girl standing by her hiding spot. She had a concerned look on her face. Reyna shrank back to the tent wall.
"We aren't going to hurt you, honey. You aren't well and we just want to help."
"Don't baby talk her, Scarlet, she isn't a puppy. She's attacked a medic and she's in just as much trouble as any other legionnaire would be for the same act. If she doesn't want to come out drag her out." The girl, Scarlet, turned and glared at the speaker.
"Because you didn't raise hell when you first got here, Davis?" She turned back to Reyna and extended her hand. "Davis can be kind of cranky if you wake him too early. I promise no one is going to hurt you." She looked so sincere and concerned for Reyna, and with fresh blood seeping from her hand Reyna figured at least for now she would let them help her. She stepped out and looked wearily at the boys. The young one was busy in one of the chests gathering the supplies to stitch up the man's face.
"Sam, can you take a look at her hand?" Scarlet asked.
"We already took care of it and redressed it earlier this evening, it shouldn't need anything for a while," Sam replied without looking up.
"No, I meant her other one." Sam looked up at them.
"You hurt the other one? Probably from the glass you cut Sean with I bet. Well, that's what you get. Let me see." He began walking towards her and Reyna backed up into Scarlet. Sam stopped at her reaction and looked to Davis and Sean.
"What's wrong?" Scarlet asked her, putting a reassuring hand on her uninjured shoulder.
"Can't you look at it?" Reyna asked. She was painfully aware that her voice was still tinged with the evidence of her first language in comparison to the other four in the room.
"No, I'm not trained to look at it, but Sam here is. He and his siblings have been treating you since you got here, why not let him take a look." She wanted to trust Scarlet but the recent past was just too raw in her mind. She shook her head vigorously and the action made her nauseated again. Sam looked at her with curious probing eyes. None of the concern or understanding of Scarlet's looks was there, just mild interest. Reyna could tell gears were working in his mind and that scared her even more. After a moment he looked away towards the two men.
"Don't try to approach her. I'm going to go wake up Laura." He left hurriedly and the two just stared at her.
"You aren't scared of us, are you princess?" Davis asked in a snide tone. Reyna flinched at the term princess and glared at him. He moved like he was about to step towards her and she backed even further into Scarlet. He chuckled and crossed his arms. "Like I said before, I'm going to turn back in for the night. I think you can handle this one, right Scarlet?" Scarlet sighed.
"Of course. Go to bed, Davis, you're an ass at this hour." Davis shrugged and ambled out of the tent. Scarlet watched him go and, after he'd disappeared from sight, knelt down to Reyna.
"What's your name?"
"Reyna," she responded, feeling a little bolder once Davis had left. Sean already knew not to mess with her again so she wasn't so worried about him. Scarlet smiled.
"Pretty name. I'm Scarlet as you've heard. He's Sean," she pointed to the man seated on a cot, "and he was only trying to see if you were okay a little while ago. That's his job, he's a medic." Reyna nodded. She understood but that didn't mean she had to like it. "Do you know where you are Reyna?"
"Yes," she responded simply. She'd come with full intent and could figure out the rest. She crossed the river to the camp and now she was in a medical bay. It wasn't hard to figure out.
"Good. Now, can you tell me why you won't let a boy near you?"
Reyna looked over her shoulder at Sean who was paying too much attention to their conversation and not enough to the fact that his gauze was saturated enough to have blood dripping from it.
"No," she replied curtly. Scarlet pressed her lips together like she was thinking. They heard footsteps on the gravel outside and Reyna turned to see Sam reenter the tent. He was followed by a tall girl with a disaster of brown curls. It was obvious she too had been aroused from sleep. For the first time Reyna wondered exactly what time it was. Sam didn't wait for people to get the ball rolling socially.
"This is Laura, she's a medic like the rest of us. Since you don't seem to like Y chromosomes let her look at your hand. Scarlet would you mind fixing another glass of Nectar? Apparently she decided to make a mess and weapon with the first one." Sam it seemed was in unquestionably in charge. Everyone just did as he asked even though apart from Reyna, he was the youngest in the room. He busied himself with the materials for Sean again. Reyna showed her palm to Laura but kept her eyes on Sam.
He arranged his supplies neatly on a silver tray, doled a generous amount of some salve on a small dish, and carried it over to Sean. He set it down on the tray table and drew the dividing curtain to hide them. Through the curtain he asked something in Latin and Reyna assumed he was talking about her since Laura responded in kind. Reyna didn't understand it all but some of it was similar to Spanish so she got the important stuff. It sounded like she wouldn't need stitches if they did something quick. She didn't understand what that something was though.
Scarlet brought over a glass of amber colored liquid and handed it to her. Reyna took it carefully with her bandaged right hand. It didn't seem like a good idea to break more glass. She took a tentative sip and her whole body warmed. As quickly as she could she downed the whole glass. It tasted like all the fruits she loved, mango, papaya, coconut, and guava. It was like they'd found the most perfect of each fruit from the batch and turned it into one juice.
"Did that hurt?" Laura was looking at her in concern as she cleaned the cut on her hand. Reyna shook her head and that's when she realized there were tears in her eyes.
"No, its fine," she replied. Then looking at Scarlet, "where did you find this?" Scarlet smiled at her.
"It's the nectar of the gods. It tastes different to everyone." She took the glass from Reyna who quickly wiped the tears from her cheeks. She felt better than she had by far but her chest ached for home after tasting the nectar. Laura finished cleaning and bandaging her hand faster that Reyna could have imagined. She could still see Sam's silhouette stitching at Sean's face behind the curtain. She looked around again and saw that the sleeping boy with the injured arm was laying there wide awake, watching the commotion. He caught her eye and gave her a small smile which she quickly looked away from. Just a smile brought on the waves of nausea. She must have looked sick again because Scarlet tried to usher her back to a cot.
"Get some rest Reyna. We can handle your placement in the legion in the morning after a good breakfast. You'll feel a lot better then." Reyna climbed back into her cot and the second her head hit the pillow she remembered how tired she still was. Scarlet let Laura go back to bed and sat on the cot next to Reyna's until Sam finished with Sean. She was grateful that Scarlet stayed with her, otherwise she'd have been alone and too tired to fight without Hylla there.
Sam drew back the curtain and walked back to the chests of drawers. His once neat tray was heaped with bloody gauze and topped with a blood stained hooked needle. The cut on Sean's face looked violent and painful around the neat blanket stitch. He must have seen her looking because his mouth quirked in a half smile.
"It isn't as bad as it looks, and it sure isn't the worst I've ever had. Legionnaire Balen got me in the shoulder once during the games and I have lacerations on my clavicle from that one. I still thank the gods I didn't lose my arm from that one. 'Course I had to get him back and-"
"Sean, not tonight, okay?" Scarlet interrupted.
"Oh sure, sorry 'bout that." He stood and went to help clean up with Sam. Sam seemed to be complaining about the state in which Laura had left her work station. Reyna didn't think there was a thing wrong but she was quickly learning that Sam was probably just a really tough person to please.
Reyna didn't close her eyes until both Sam and Sean had left. She could hear the other kid at the far end breathing heavily and assumed he'd fallen asleep again. When she did finally close her eyes she dreamt of tropical flowers and humming birds, fires, screaming, and pirates.