Shayera got so caught up in trying to get as far away from the area she had previously been in that she had forgot about her burns until it was too late.
The wounds still stung a week after receiving them but it was in such an awkward-to-reach spot near her shoulder blade that Shayera could only try to ignore it. It also didn't help that the Nth metal burn on her abdomen still wasn't healed and she could tell the effected skin was becoming red.
Then the fatigue and fever kicked in. Shayera was no doctor but she knew that was not a good sign.
Sure enough, when she looked in the reflection of the lake water, the burn on her shoulder showed signs of infection as well. The skin had taken a purplish tint and the whole area had begun to swell. Her arms were no better. The skin was bright pink and her body felt like a furnace. Shayera didn't even want to know what the burn on her wing looked like. She could only imagine that wasn't fairing much better either. After all, the gunshot wound to her wing had still yet to heal as well.
Suddenly Shayera was faced with a new, overwhelming issue. How was she supposed to treat this by herself? She needed antibiotics for the infection and the burns themselves should probably be looked at since she had paid almost zero attention to them right after she got them.
But then she remembered that she had no way of getting to a doctor.
The lake water wasn't medication but it was cool and felt somewhat soothing against her skin. Yet she knew it wasn't completely sanitary. So while it might have felt nice in that moment, she knew it must likely would make things worse in the long run.
At this point the Thanagarian was hoping that this would at least help her get through the pain for the next few days until she could figure out what to do. She sat against a tree and made a point of sleeping on her back instead of on her side, like she would prefer to do.
Nothing she had done was helping.
Shayera slowly ran through the remaining threads of her energy as she didn't have the strength to try to find food. As the infection took ahold of her body, she found that her mind was becoming just as weak as her body was becoming. Shayera couldn't seem to focus on anything, much less something as complicated as trying to gain a sense of direction and then plotting on how to get food or even medication.
After another two days her condition got to the point where she could barely walk in a straight line and it took everything in her to just keep herself conscious.
Shayera was just aimlessly stumbling through a forest, nearly tripping over herself every few feet.
In her feverish daze, she started running all the events that led up to this through her head over and over again.
It wasn't like she had meant for any of this to happen. She didn't know how this would have spiraled out of control. She didn't know the fate of two worlds would wind up resting on her shoulders. That she would be forced to choose between her homeworld and her adopted family.
She hadn't meant for this.
And maybe...maybe she should have told John sooner about her situation with Hro. Perhaps even apologizing to John before she had left would have done her some good. Though she figured that John probably never would accept an apology from her. The Green Lantern was as stubborn as she was but maybe, if she had apologized, they would still be together or at least maybe she wouldn't be hiding out in forests or on top of buildings. Perhaps John would have let her stay with him at the very least out of some mercy.
Shayera found that living on the run wasn't all that great. Trying to stay away from civilization was tiring and living in constant worry of where her next meal would come from or where she would sleep that night was just awful in every way. Often times she found it was just easier to keep flying then stopping to eat or sleep.
If she had helped the Justice League sooner maybe she could have convinced them to not vote her out in the first place.
Shayera couldn't imagine that they would have voted to keep her within the League. There was no way out of the three of them that John, Bruce, and Diana didn't vote her out. Wally, she knew, wouldn't have the heart so she had at least one vote in her favor. She just didn't know which way J'onn and Clark would go. J'onn was compassionate yet very practical. She could see him easily voting either way. Then there was Clark. She saw the betrayal on his face. She saw the dulled anger in his eyes. He had helped her when she first arrived and she repaid him by nearly destroying his planet.
Had none of this happened they all would have been a family still. It wouldn't have ended like this.
It was all her fault.
She shouldn't have waited so long. She shouldn't have focused on ignoring her problems. She should have tried to talk to John when they first became involved instead of just shrugging it off and...
Her thoughts trailed off as Shayera shakingly exhaled, sobs wracking through her body as tears streamed down her face. Because it was her fault.
Shayera's vision blurred from both the tears and her fever. She didn't see the tree root until her foot caught on it and she fell to the ground.
Shayera weakly tried to push herself off of the ground but only managed to lift herself a few inches before she collapsed.
All of it was her fault.
She could have fixed this, avoided this, gone about this in a way where no one would have suffered. Now she was going to die here, alone, the greatest failure in the universe.
"It doesn't matter anymore," she mumbled to herself.
Just as the darkness was taking hold of her vision, Shayera could see a golden light radiating through the forest as a large shining ankh appeared in the air. Shayera didn't have the energy to fight against him when Doctor Fate lifted her off of the ground.