Have a short one this time around :3


[[ Episode 3 ]]

A Dragon Among Men

Lavs groaned as she literally rolled out of her bed and onto the floor, choosing to slowly shunt herself toward the bathroom rather than walking. Once there the need to stand was unavoidable so she relied on the door jamb for support as a dull ache radiated throughout her body, protesting at the movement. The lights flicked on automatically as she yawned and staggered into the room, tugging off her pyjamas and throwing them back into her bedroom without a second thought, knowing that she'd be able to pick them up with ease once she'd worked all of the sleep out of her joints. Right now the motion of bending would only ruin her.

Lavs forced herself into wakefulness as she went through the motions of getting up for the day, pausing only as she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Under normal circumstances someone with her appearance would pass as nothing but 'ordinary', but like this, in the stark light of the bathroom, the latticework of countless fine scars that decorated her torso could hardly fail to make anyone stare. Shit, she was used to them and was still caught off guard sometimes. Lavs ran a finger along the oldest mark, a surgically precise line across her abdomen that represented the beginning of her new life. That one had been for her first kidney.

How much of her was fake now? Thirty percent? Forty? Or had she surpassed half, somewhere along the way? Just how much of her was flesh and blood, versus metal and serial codes? It was a scary thought and yet one she had grown quite comfortable with over the years. After all, her decision – whilst criminal and certainly not one to be made by a child – had freed her from an agonising and protracted early death, the remnants of which still clawed at her cells in a futile battle against submission. If the trade-off was having to furtively hide the truth of her recovery then it was well worth it; oddly enough, being out in the public eye granted her a strange layer of protection that stopped people from looking too closely at her reluctance to socialise beyond anything related to her work.

Lavs shuddered at the memory of the disastrous party from a few weeks back. Though she had gained a certain pride at going unnoticed even by the prime minister and Queen she'd also had too close a call as the paramedics insisted on checking her thoroughly for injuries. Thankfully she'd had enough of her wits about her to convince them she'd only suffered scratches at worst and then escaped before anyone could double-check. One of these days her luck would run out and she knew it; getting away with this many internal changes and somehow not suffering any of the frequent side effects involved already seemed too good to be true, and Lavs suspected that life would hit viciously once it finally turned against her.

She sighed as she paced out of the bathroom, stopping to pick up her discarded nightclothes and sorting them away, no longer bothered by the familiar soreness that the technology inside her caused when it initially switched to a higher state of function upon waking up. Lavs swiftly picked out her outfit for the day and dressed, then wrangled her hair into some semblance of presentability, casting thoughts of her crime out of her head. It would do no good to linger on morbid thoughts for too long.

And besides, she had a book signing to attend.


Sometimes it pays to read the author comments on my chapters. Sometimes, I'm not just joking :P