Nanashi groaned in pain, waking up unwillingly. She lay on her stomach in her bedroom. She tried to push herself up on her arms, but they shook tremendously. She felt so uncomfortably hot. Her left wing felt aflame.
"Nanashi," a concerned, motherly voice smoothed near her. Asa. "What is it sweetness?"
"My... wing..." Nanashi groaned out. "It's burning."
Asa had been sitting next to her bedside, rising up on her feet in a hurry. "Lay back down," she requested.
Nanashi did so, smarting as her wing was jostled. She felt Asa's careful hands pull gently at the feathers of her wing. Even with the gentleness, Nanashi winced aloud. Asa turned and checked her right wing, which did not hurt at all to the touch.
"Infection," Asa stated. "I gave medicine while you slept though." She left Nanashi, heading towards the table that held her medicines. She rummaged through them. "Can you keep yourself awake? Long enough for your wind serpent to fight off the infection for you?" she rushed out. She was busy making up her own concoction that would help with the infection.
Nanashi pushed herself back up onto her elbows, even that effort cut a deep ache inside of her. Her head swooned. 'Can you?' she asked the wind serpent.
'I have been,' it answered. She noticed in her minds eye it was no longer a serpent, but a dragon. "The whole time.'
She paled at the thought, relaying that information back to Asa. "It has been..." she choked out dryly. She hung her head low down in the space between her arms.
Asa looked at her, wide eyed. She stepped over to Nanashi. "Drink, sweetness." Asa assisted her to raise her head up so she could drink the odd concoction. She choked on it.
While it did not taste bad, the drink mixed with overheated she felt made her gag. She felt Asa rub her lower back soothingly. She try to keep mind focused on that feeling. She fought but failed to keep herself conscious.
When she came to next, she was laying once more on her stomach, feeling a more comfortable temperature than she was the last time she was awake. She felt thirsty and hungry. She pushed her upper body up, freezing in the motion half way up. There was a significant amount of weight missing from her back. She turned around, reaching behind her, feeling nothing.
'Where are my wings?' she asked the wind dragon.
'I don't know, mistress,' it answered, just as nervous about the idea as she was.
She loosed a choked scream, trying not to realize what had happened. She heard the door of her room open right after that. She looked up to see Haruto rush into the room and to her on the bed. Asa was not far behind her. He sat with her on the bed, pulling her into his arms in a tight hug. He spoke soothingly to her, explaining what happened since she was last awake.
The queen had healed her wing, but there was a raging infection stuck inside. Even though both her wind dragon had been fighting at the infection and Asa had been giving her medicine, it was too virulent. The left wing had to be removed, or else the infection would spread into the rest of her body. Since the left wing had to be removed, the right one was removed also.
She choked, crying at all of that, hating how she was now grounded to the ground with everyone else. "Who made that decision?" she managed to ask.
"I did," Haruto told her. "I know what it's like to lose my own wings, so I insisted that only I could make the decision to take your wings away." She raised her head up, staring at him in utter disbelief. "You would have died otherwise," he explained.
Her ears felt like they were ringing. His touch lost all its comfort, only to make her cringe. "Get away from me," she breathed.
"Nanashi," he said her name gently.
"I said get away from me," she growled, shoving him away from her. It was a bit of a struggle as he did not want to let her go. "Get off!" She struck him full on across the face. She turned away from him, throwing herself back down onto the bed, face in the pillow.
"Nanashi," he whispered her name sweetly. His hand came to her lower back, but she recoiled away.
"Let her be," Asa told him.
"Stay with her," Haruto requested, voice cracking.
Nanashi felt his weight rise up off of the bed. Not long after that she felt weight of someone lighter settled down on the bed along side. Asa's gentle hand stroked her hair soothingly as waves of despair threatened to drown her.