ARROWHEAD II
The first thing she sees is a slow, swirling spiral of purple and green. The first thing she feels is searing pain. Voices warp and paint waves beneath her eyelids, blue, teal; spikes of orange and yellow. What happened?
You got arrow'd, she answers.
What happened after that?
We don't know.
Whatever stasis she's been into, it fades, broken amid lapses of consciousness and rest. Her fingers tingle, something burns in her belly. One leg is missing. Wake up, where's your leg?
Not yet, I want to sleep some more.
Wake up. Wake up!
We don't know where we are.
Soft...
That's a hand on our forehead.
We are so sweaty, Trist...
—A shower, a shower sounds so good—
Left leg's toes are okay.
Where is your right leg, Tristana?
Finger wiggles. Oh gods, it's coming back. It hurts.
Something's running their fingers through your hair.
They feel cold...
She smiles. It feels like that takes way more dexterity than it should. When her eyelids open, they make a noise like the big wooden doors at the military base; creaking and heavy and it makes the fluids in her body reverb.
Purple smears, oh, blue eyes. What beautiful hair! And, it's gone.
What's that voice saying?
What a wonderful voice. Blue eyes has the voice.
"Handsome," she groans. It all hurts so much. Ow, my belly...
Ants are crawling all over my scalp and my fingers. "Are you single?"
Laughter. "No, I've got a mate."
"Shame". Eardrums are thumping. Her brow furrows. "I'll steal you from her."
Blue eyes has a hand, and it strokes her cheek.
It's so warm outside now. She inhales. Sharp. Her head is resting on a pillow. Everything feels plush and soft, yet she still feels so tired. She flutters her eyelids. The ceiling looks like a curtain.
What?
She jumps. The surroundings are not her house. They are not the military base. They are not in any way familiar and that means danger; Commander Tristana takes the wheel, and in a split second her ears are sharp and her eyes focus and she's sitting up full speed, and in yet another, flames of pain are burning somewhere in her abdomen, rippling through her body, so intense it makes her double down on herself. A pair of hands holds her shoulders, left leg bucks up in an instinctual response of curling into fetal position. Her right doesn't budge, it sends her brain on a frenzy. Fuck's going on?
"You're awake," Teemo says, his hands tightening around her shoulders, grounding her. She can barely process the sentence through the stab in her gut. "Oh gods, you're awake." He sounds alarmed and relieved, both emotions shaken into a paradoxical milkshake.
"Where am I?" She grunts, choked by the unexpected piercing onslaught. She's suddenly aware of how sore everything is. Even his hold on her feels painful. "What happen'd after th'fite?" Gods, her entire mouth is just as heavy. She squeezes her eyes. "Fffffuck."
"Lean back," he orders in captain fashion. "You're down. Go slow. You got hit in your abdomen." He's let go of one of her shoulders to quickly reshuffle her pillow so she can sit up against the bed frame.
He's so strong, yet so gentle. She feels compelled to pull him in bed with her, where she can cuddle up to him and never move again. Get it together, you're acting like an animal.
Her back thuds gently against the pillow, and she breathes, shallow, until the stab subsides into tolerable levels. Only then does she look at him. He's topless, there's a gauze with a magical symbol on his chest, swirling gently; down in her own wrist sits an open canal for IV support. It does exactly fuck all to contextualize her.
"Cap'n," she calls. Her voice is shaky, and she wants to punch herself. She hates being this vulnerable, even in front of him. "Wassup?"
There was probably a better way to phrase the question, but her brain feels like it's steaming in a pot just from being awake.
"Hey," he says, releasing her shoulder. "You got hit bad out there. Two arrows. They made you sick, so you're recovering now. I also got sick, and I'm also getting healed. I've been by your bed waiting for you to wake up proper, you've been in and outta Runeterra for two nights before today." He chuckles, and it's dripping such relief that she once more feels prompted by her most primal genes to pull him by the neck and make out with him real good then and there.
"Was it poison?" She mutters, the P popping awkwardly. Gods, it feels like her tongue is the length of her entire body, and her entire body is so cumbersome. "You know what... why... why are you hurt? You ok?" Aren't you like the poison master? Why are you sick of all people?
"Breathe," is his answer. He lands a palm on her thigh. She feels exactly nothing, like he's touching air next to her. Her heart races, and breathe she does, three inhales, three exhales, gone in an instant.
"Teemo!" She whimpers, jumping up again and flopping back down like a rag doll when pain pierces her. "Dammit! Oh gods, Teemo, I can't feel th's leg." She tries to lift it, move it, point to it somehow; no answer. "I can't move it! I can't move my leg! Teemo! No! How am I goin' to—"
"Breathe, Tristana," he echoes, colder this time, more authoritarian. The hand on her thigh shoots to hold her hand instead and gives a reaffirming squeeze. She squeezes back, doubly hard. "They were not ordinary arrows. They had an area of effect. You got hit the hardest, they were in your guts and your thigh after all. Your leg's just dead from the effect. You've been trying to wriggle it sometimes when you tried waking up before. It'll get better."
He's tiptoeing awkwardly around the specifics of what the arrows had, and that unsettles her. He's never the type to do so, albeit he's not one to do things unreasonably, either. There must be a motive to his non-disclosure; his eyes glint with awkwardness he's trying hard to conceal, too.
She doesn't feel like torturing him, doesn't have the energy to play bad-cop and pry it out of him. Sickness stomps her into just following the guessing game. She takes a second, two, just to sigh deep. Commanders can't command while blind with fear and rage.
Carefully, she ponders what card to play. He's being so uncharacteristically vague.
"How did we get 'ere? Why aren't we at the site of th' portal?"
This is clearly not any familiar place in Bandle. Both know it; she omits the observation.
"We got found when you were already losing the fight to the arrows. We'd been walking circles through Demacian forest for hours. Jarvan's army took the portal. We were outnumbered heavily, we had to flee. I was so hazy I lost my map. We lucked out, Trist."
Hell of a lucky shot, alright. "Shit," she spits. "Th'portal."
"Portal's irrelevant to me right now." He shrugs, again with that mix of anxiety and relief. "I really thought I was losing you while you flipped your crap on the bed. I'm just glad you're up and we can get your leg back. It'll take a while, but you're alive. We can take care of the portal later."
Gods, just kiss me, you absolute cheesy dumbass.
"Wait. We were wandering the woods 'f Demacia, right?"
"Yeah."
"We're still in Demacia."
"Yeah."
Bingo. "...Everything in here is small enough for us, though." Indeed, everything around them is appropriately yordle-sized.
Teemo rubs his face with a hand, chuckling. He's cracking open. She's not about to stop the assault just now. "You've got a rune spell acting on y'r chest, but we are in Demacia. Demacian assholes were trying to break one of our portals cause they think they're gonna die if a yordle touches 'en, or something."
She doesn't need to ask the question—Teemo knows her, and she knows him; both know it's hanging there, out in the open. Boom.
"It's a mana regeneration spell," he says. He's stumbling with words, and though Tristana knows he can show his soft belly while around her, it still makes dread climb up her spine to see him this fiddly. "I told you, we were found."
He swallows. No mention of who their savior was, either; that makes her dread worse.
He can see it in her face, and she knows he can. They've learned to read each other so well it foils any semblance of stoicism. All strength is only pretend.
"You're not really gonna have a fun time finding out where we are," he says, nearing his face to her, his voice going decibels down. "I didn't wanna scare you, not while you're this fragile."
He shakes his head. He's so clearly, honestly concerned; Tristana would be beaming at how sweet it all is if he hadn't just dropped that hell of a bomb.
"Truth is," he says, releasing her hand to crack his knuckles, fiddling. "I kinda didn't know how I would tackle you waking up and the big reveal. I dunno what the heck I'm doing right now."
"Just throw me in the cold water, dude. I'm good. I'm a tough cookie, come on. I did just make it out of whatever the hell this was, no?" She gives a couple reassuring pumps to her chest.
"Yeah, you did." He flashes another cringe-inducingly awkward smile her way. A slow sigh after, he's standing up. "Think you can get up, tough cookie? I think you're better off taking it in with your two eyes."
She nods; he offers a hand to help her up in a gesture that would be quite chivalric under any other context. His muscles are hard as a rock as he holds her weight up, puts her arm around his neck so she can land on her left foot; she notices her right leg is fully limp, thrashing like a freshly outta-the-pot noodle. As she gives a few tentative steps, using him as a crutch, the foot just drags on the wooden floor, lifeless; she doesn't feel it. The dissociation disturbs her, she chooses to avoid focusing on it too intently.
"You ready?" He asks with a deep breath.
"Yeah. You're freaking me out a bit with how worried you are. Jeez, are we in some kinda black market dungeon?" She jokes. It fails; he does not look all that relaxed.
"Well, certainly not that hellish," he admits with a shrug. "But it's just,..." he halts, tilting his head as he ponders what descriptive to use. "...Weird. Let's just head out; she's gonna want to see how her patient is doing anyway."
He stares at the doorway, at the cute little curtain of glass beads, like something truly baleful awaits them behind, and she can give him no more than a hesitant look as she hops her way out alongside him.