Febuwhump Day 22: Restrained
Word Count: 808
Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl
Rating: K/G
Characters: Captain Buccaneer
Warning: N/A
Summary: Adjusting to automail in the north is hard.
Notes: N/A
Restrained
Briggs didn't have many windows, but by this point, Buccaneer had learned where all of them were. Most of the time, instead of windows, there was a door with a small window in it at best, or perhaps no window at all, that led out onto a balcony. However, since Fort Briggs was, indeed, a military fort on the front lines and the first defense against Drachma, large windows with a view weren't really a thing. And if they had been, General Armstrong would have had them replaced with something else sturdier anyway.
Still, Buccaneer found one, and he stared out it. The snow was blowing, and he could feel the icy cold through the glass. He could hear the wind whipping around the fort. He could see the trees in the distance, see the mountains rising up majestically, knew exactly where the river wound.
The mountains sang to him. But he couldn't return their call.
His arm suddenly twitched, and he looked down at it, scowling. It was the problem. It was the reason he wasn't out there on patrol.
Buccaneer was the best mountain man Briggs had. He knew those mountains backwards and forwards. He knew when something had been disturbed, he knew the habits and patterns of the local wildlife, he could identify every plant out there, and he was excellent at picking up on weather changes. He was also a good soldier, understanding tactics and the element of surprise, and was an excellent shot. He belonged out there on those mountains.
And it was a place he couldn't go. Or at least, it was a place that he couldn't go for long. And all because that Drachman patrol had taken his arm from him.
He was glad to have the automail arm, there was no doubt about that. Without it, he would have been medically retired, and then even being here wouldn't have been possible. He wasn't sure what he would have done if that had happened. Would he have become a guide? Would he have faced the dangers of the mountains alone? Would he have returned to his family? None of those were options he wanted, so this really was the best option available.
But it was restrictive.
It wasn't the maintenance that bothered him. It wasn't the frequent checkups. It wasn't even the pain from it, or the rehabilitation, or having to learn things all over again. All of that he could deal with. He could easily learn to work around it. No, what bothered him, was how quickly the cold affected it.
Before this, Buccaneer could stay out in the mountains for hours, or even days. He could stand the cold longer than anyone else. He provided valuable intelligence on the mountains, trained the new cubs that came in, and could and had followed a Drachman patrol around the contested area.
But now? If he stayed out even a few hours, he risked frostbite to what was left of his arm. He had been warned by Neil the first time he pushed too far that if he got frostbite in the flesh part of his arm, it would weaken the connections the automail port had, and if the port started having trouble, it would be more surgeries. He had also very sternly warned Buccaneer that there was a limit to automail, and that if he pushed it too far, he risked not being able to have any at all. Neil may have been a bit of a jokester, but he was always dead serious when he was talking automail to a patient. Buccaneer took the warnings very seriously.
But it was still frustrating! Buccaneer lashed out, banging his automail arm on the door frame. He wanted to be out there! He wanted to be on patrol again! He knew Neil was working on something to help him, consulting with other automail engineers about metals and heating elements and all sorts of other things that Buccaneer didn't completely understand yet.
But having this automail arm, while a good thing, was also so restrictive! He felt restrained, held back, by the limitations of it. It was like it was a leash, holding him in place. Yeah, he had a radius he could go in, but he couldn't go any further because of it! And if it was restraining him that much, then what good was he? What could he do with a restraint like this?
It chaffed at him. He hated being restrained. He hated having this limit put on him. It was better than the alternative, but that didn't mean that he had to like it.
He raised his metal arm up and glared at it. "One day," he growled at it, "I'm going to figure out how to move past your restraints. And then I'll go back to my mountains again."