Raven woke groggily and his throat felt strangely sore. He moved to run his hand over his face and found he couldn't. He tired to lift the other and likewise found that he could not manage it. He swallowed in an attempt to ease the burning in his throat. Blinking, he lay still, waiting for his vision to clear and his straggling thoughts to catch up. He pondered a moment over why he could not lift his hands, until a familair pressure on the top his wrists instantly had his heart beating against his chest like a caged bird . The room he was in was unfamiliar and as he turned his head to look around, his eyes fell upon an Elyos. The White Wing sat in a chair near his bedside reading a book and at the sight of him, fear crashed over Raven like a wave that roiled and churned threatening to drown him in it's heavy surf. A multitude of disjointed images, each one more horrific than the last, flashed in rapid seccession before his eyes.
"No, no, no-no-no!" Raven protested, his voice rising in pitch and wavering with an uncharacteristic timbre. "No, no, no no no!" He continued breaking out into a cold sweat as he began to struggle against the restaints holding him down.
The Elyos got up and came over to his bed. " It's ok. You're ok." The male in the white coat said reaching out a hand toward Raven.
"No!" The terrified young Asmo shrieked as he shrunk as far away as possible. Raven's eyes took on a crimson glow and he clawed at the bed beneath him in a frantic attempt to free himself.
"It's ok, Sir. Please calm down." The Elyos said holding his hands out in a nonthreatening gesture. Raven knew better. It wasn't ok. It was anything but ok and he renewed his efforts to escape his bonds before the Elyos could alert the guards that were surely just outside the door of the room. Just as he fought his restraints, so to he fought the panic that rose inside him. Raven knew had had to keep his wits about him, so taking a deep breath he stilled his mind and let his training take over. The Assassin could feel that the restraints had not been snugged up tightly around his wrists and there was an sickening pop as he dislocated one of his thumbs against his hip. It was enough to slip his hand out of the shearling lined leather cuff and with one hand free, he'd soon have a fighting chance against his captures. The Elyos, had turned away from him and was walking toward the door. Raven scanned the room for anything he could use as a weapon. Strangely, there was a tall, slender vase holding a handful of flowers on the table beside his bed. Cracking the neck of the glass vase against the corner of the table, he leap at the White Wing dragging him away from the door, the jagged edge of the broken vase held to the side of his throat.
" Stop struggling." Raven hisses softly into the other male's ear as he maneuvered them into a better position inside the room. He pressed a sharp edge of shattered glass tighter against the Elyos's pulse as an added incentive for cooperation.
"Ah, you're awake." A platinum haired female said as she calmly entered the room. She was an Asmodian and Raven found the situation starting to grow even more confusing. "Put the vase down, Raven. It's ok. You're in Sarpan at my clinic being treated. I'm Gaynor, remember? Do you remember?"
As she spoke, she continued to approach him and his hostage. Each step she took toward him, he retreated one away until the back of his heel touched the baseboard of the wall behind him. Nowhere left to go, his mind began to rapidly calculate the limited options he had. It was then that the towering Asmodian Glad appeared in the doorway and his memory of having come to the clinic snapped sharply into focus. He lowered the broken vase and released the Elyos. The little Asmodian cleric let the breath she had been holding out in a single exhalation that puffed her cheeks as the Elyos fled the room, a hand held to his throat. Raven set the ruined vase on a counter, not sure what to do next and with an overload of adrenaline flooding his system, sought to hide the trembling of his hands by running them thru his hair. His topknot having been untied, he had plenty of loose hair to feather his fingers through.
"I'm very sorry, Raven. I should not have allowed an Elyosian staff member to take a turn sitting by your bedside." Gaynor said in an apologetic tone. "While under sedation, you experienced a rather...lucid dream we had a difficult time bringing you out of. For your safety and the safety of others, we felt it best to place you in restraints. You were monitored closely and the bindings were to be removed the moment you woke." The little cleric picked up the book the Elyos had dropped. " It seems that you were not as closely monitored as I had instructed you to be."
Raven remembered coming to the clinic. He remembered willingly drinking the sedative she had held to his lips, but the other, darker memories that had flashed in front of him just a few moments ago were also fresh in his mind. He paced to and fro, his breath as ragged in his lungs as if he had been running.
" Izzie, would you be so kind as to go and bring back a meal for Raven? It's ok. I'll be fine." Gaynor said as she sat motionless in the chair beside his bed wishing to allow the obviously unsettled Assassin time to gather himself. She sat and watched as he stalked back and forth in a tight serpentine path along the back of the room like a big cat in an enclosure. Sure enough, he slowed his strides and it wasn't long before he stopped pacing altogether. He drew his fingers thru his bangs and took in one more slightly shaky breath as he came to stand at the foot of the bed.
"Feeling better?" She asked. " How about you have a seat and we'll talk about what happens next." She said patting the mattress. He gave her a curt nod and sat down, albeit on the end of the bed furthest from her. " Well, those ribs of yours are completely healed. The area around them will still feel a bit tender, but the bones are as good as new, better even." She said with a hint of pride. "I'll start you on a course of anti-biotic and anti-inflamatories once you've eaten your meal. Speaking of meals, you've dropped a considerable amount of weight since your last physical. I am putting you on a high calorie diet until we get your weight back up. There is a restaurant and a pub below the hill. Both have been given instructions on preparing meals for you. All of which are being paid for by the military as you are convalescing under orders here in Sarpan. There are a number of meal tickets in the packet you'll receive when you leave here. Just hand one over at either establishment for each meal." She said rising from the chair and walking slowly over to remove a substantial looking dressing gown from what looked like a small supply closet that was doubling as a cloak room. "While you can easily manage the ointment and bandages on your wrists, You will need to come to the clinic at least once a day to have your back seen to. If the journey here is too much for you early on, I can arrange for a staff member to go down to the barracks." She said as she returned to his bedside, the heavy mass of fluffy fabric in her tiny arms. Clad only in his under garments and a few bandages, he happily accepted the robe she offered to him. The adrenaline wearing off, Raven had been trying to keep from showing how chilled he felt. Much to his dismay, he found that as he wrapped the felted wool around himself, he began to shiver even more.
" It's ok." She said, laying a delicate hand on his trembling shoulder. "It's to be expected. You've lost practically every ounce of body fat and a substantial amount of muscle mass, but we'll set that right in short order." As tiny as she was and as musically as her words fell upon his ear, he almost expected her to sparkle and raise a two fingered salute to her eye like a pixie from a children's pantomime.
There was a knock from the doorway as the Glad, carying a covered tray tapped the doorjam with the side of her platemail boot before entering. A seasoned warrior, the heavily armored female moved with the grace of someone well accustomed to wearing such gear. Though there were a few tell tale clinks and clatters, she was relatively silent as she delivered the tray of food to Raven's bedside.
"Well, we'll leave you to your meal." Gaynor said turning toward the door. " While I don't expect you to eat all of it, try to eat as much as you can. The more you eat, the faster we can get you back in shape." The little cleric said cheerfully.
After they had closed the door behind them, Raven removed the domed lid that covered the tray. Eat all of it? Who could? He mused at the mountain of scrambled eggs that sat next to a stack of pancakes, bacon, sausage, and another equal sized hillock of cottage fries. What must have been nearly two whole tomatoes lay fanned out over six pieces of heavily buttered toast and four tall biscuits. An assortment of fresh sliced fruit crowded a plate that had been placed atop a bowl of porridge next to a rather large crock of butter and two glass jars of different jams.
"The more you eat, the faster we can get you back in shape." Raven repeated as he picked up the fork and tucked in.
Raven's story part 11
The plate heaped with food before him tasted as good as it looked and even better than it smelled, but he barely made even a tiny a dent in the enormous meal before he felt almost uncomfortably full. Long months of surviving on a diet of little more than crusts of bread thrown in claw reach of his chains and what ever creatures he managed to catch, had shrunk his stomach. The wheedling specter of want that had shadowed him every moment in the desert stirred and he hurriedly scooped portions of this grand meal into pieces of waxed slyphan wings that Kistig had used as wrappings.
There was a knock at the door just before a grey haired Asmo entered the room. "Soldier SilverSong, my name is Merrill. I'm here to change your bandages this morning." The elder male said going to the cabinets and placing items on a sliver tray on the counter below. " I see you are a fan of our good Miss Betria's cooking. Best biscuits around I'll admit myself. Tsk, tsk, tsk but slyphan wings? " he said looking over his shoulder as he washed his hands. "Not to worry, I'll have that boxed that up properly for you. I do hate to see a perfectly good biscuit go to waste."
Raven immediately felt at ease around this male for some reason. He wasn't even embarrassed by being caught hoarding a cache of food like some starving street urchin.
"Seated or standing, the choice is yours." The cleric said as he dryed his hands.
" I'll sit." Raven said judging it would be easier for the somewhat shorter male to do his work that way.
"Good choice." The grey haired Asmo in the white medical staff coat said with a nod as he positioned the chair in the center of the room in such a way that Raven would be able to sit facing the door. Merrill engaged in some idle chitchat about the weather as he went about removing Raven's bandages. Allowing his voice to express some of the emotion he felt , he went on to speak about the troubles he was having with his garden as he cleaned and applied salve to the wounds that covered nearly every inch of the emaciated Asmo's back. The cleric had been told to handle this patient with kid gloves while not dropping his guard. He had taken a deep breath outside the room to clear the animosity he initially felt after learning about this unruly patient's attack on his fellow staff member, but as he treated the young male seated in front of him, he felt a growing empathy well up inside him as a story of unimaginable suffering slid under his fingertips.
"Almost done, soldier." Merrill said as he fastened the last of the bandages. "Your release papers are being processed, but I can tell you what they say." He said handling Raven a glass of water. " Take these pink ones after meals. Take all of the pills in the bottle, all of them." He said placing several pills on the tray. "The white ones, twice a day. They are for inflammation and this little blue one is for pain. Take as needed. Avoid dairy while taking the pink ones, though a bit of cream in your coffee won't hurt and they'll tell you to avoid alcohol after taking the blue ones, but it's only because they'll make you a cheap/sloppy drunk." He said giving Raven a wink. "You should come have the bandages on your back changed once a day, but frankly twice is better early on in my opinion. The walk will do you good, but if you can't manage it, I have been instructed to go down to the barracks to attend to you there. No need to send a message. If I don't see you by noon, I'll come looking for you." He whispered in a mockingly sinister tone while arching an eyebrow. " Feel free to have a bit of a lie down. It will take a little while to have all your paperwork sorted...along with some other things." The cleric said as he picked up Raven's meal tray.
Raven moved to sit on the bed. The combination of full stomach, pain pill and his earlier exertions having indeed made his eyelids feel a bit heavy. Well aware of how slow the wheels of bureaucracy turned, he pulled the covers up from the foot of the bed. A small smile curling his lips as he saw the two egg and bacon biscuits the cleric had left on his bedside table. The bed was soft. The covers were warm and Raven fell fast asleep the moment his head touched the pillow.
Raven's story part 12
A tap at the door woke Raven, but he had a difficult time shaking the fog of sleep completely from his head. As he rose from off the bed, his hands felt heavy and clumsy and it was then that he decided not to take anymore of the blue pills no matter how much pain he was in. He took a slightly broader stance than normal to maintain his center as he watched the doorway faze in and out of being doubled for a moment. The grey haired Asmo who had changed his bandages entered.
" Good news!" He chimed. " You're all cleared to go and I have brought both your paperwork and clothes to you. I'll just leave these here and once you've dressed, you are free to go." He said placing the neatly folded stack or navy and gold on the bed beside a good half dozen of small bundles. " Good food should never go to waste." The cleric said as he left the room almost as quickly as he had entered it. He popped his head back in as he said. " Noon tomorrow...or I come looking..."
Raven was glad he had been left alone to dress. Though he had doned his uniform more times than he could count, his fingers did not seem to want to obey and he struggled a bit before with a final tug that straightened everything to inspection grade he was ready to leave his room. He gave Merrill a nod as he past by the grey haired cleric for all he had done as well as the half dozen neatly wrapped packages that lay tucked into Raven's cube.
The walk to the barracks was easy. It was mostly downhill. The walk back in the morning, might be another story. The weather was as pleasant as the gaily clad couples who strolled the cobblestone streets and Raven didn't feel half as bad as he thought he was going to after being ushered out of Asmodae. As grand as Panda was, it was equally as cold. The pomp and ceremony was so deeply steeped within the stones of those high austere walls it drained the merriment from all but the strongest souls who resided within. Walking away from the clinic in Sarpan was more akin to strolling some broad avenue in a roofless botanical garden where the paths just kept going. He tarried at the apex of the bridge that led to the barracks to watch the play of light dance on the water below. As he moved on, he mused that there were far less idealic flowerboxed cloisters he could have been resigned to while he recuperated.
The barracks had a broad covered porch that curved around a good quarter of the building. A lone guard stood sentry and Raven had to double check the street address on his paperwork to be sure it was the right place. His housing orders were barely even looked at before the Archon at the door told him to go inside and make him self at home on the second floor like he was some itinerant cowhand being welcomed into the bunkhouse. As he topped the stairs and entered the bare bones dorm room accommodations, he understood completely. Taking an empty bed in the far corner, he applied the name sticker he had been given to the face of the plain wooden locker before he stowed his gear inside. Taking the bedclothes from the locker, he set about tucking the sheets around the thin straw matress atop the narrow wooden bed frame, he smirked as a bit of baseboard fell away under the gentle probing of his dagger to reveille a hidden cubby in the wall. Raven tucked a few items inside before replacing the slat of wood.