Febuwhump Day 17: Self-Inflicted Wound
Word Count: 430
Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl
Rating: M
Characters: Lan Fan
Warning: Blood, loss of limb, self-mutilation
Summary: Lan Fan will do what she must for her young lord, for her clan, and for herself—no matter the cost to herself.
Notes: N/A
Self-Inflicted Wound
Lan Fan had been wounded before. It was impossible to avoid it in her line of work. Even as a child, training for this, she had been wounded. She had even wounded herself before. But never in her life had she experienced an injury like this.
She could see her arm flapping around as the young lord carried her. Even unconscious, her other arm wasn't flapping in the same way. No, there was something broken and wrong in the way her left arm was moving. It didn't help that she could tell that she should be feeling more of it, but that she wasn't.
Her arm. It was useless.
She was useless.
Her prince was carrying her away, risking his life for her. She was being a burden on him. He was going to risk his life, risk the life of their clan, on her and that was something that was simply unacceptable. But she also knew him, and she knew that he was not going to just simply put her down and let her die.
She was going to have to take this into her own hands, so to speak. And she knew how, thanks to that insolent young alchemist.
She stuffed cloth in her mouth, pulled out a kunai, and flipped it around. She heard the young lord's questions and objections, but she paid them no mind. Instead, keeping her resolve as hard as steel, she raised the kunai up, and then plunged it down.
This was unlike anything that she had ever done before. Certainly, she had allowed things like ropes and bindings to cut into her before, just a bit, to allow herself to escape, and she had done things knowing that she would be scraped or burned or cut. But it was always something that would heal.
There was no coming back from this.
Later, she wouldn't remember much of the details of cutting off her own arm. She did remember that it was already partially severed, which made it easier to physically do. But most of it she could not recall. She went from plunging the kunai down, to seeing her arm hit the ground. Someone told her later that her brain probably blocked it out as a type of self-preservation. That was fine with her.
She had the young lord pick it up. She had the young lord tie it to a dog. She had the young lord bind her wound, and then leave her in the sewers. And then she had him leave, to continue the plan that would save their clan.
He would survive. Their clan would survive. And, if she were lucky, she would survive as well.
It was worth the price of her arm.