Well, this one isn't even a complete scene. It is actually the first part of a very long one.
At about 5:15 I started to make my move, since I wasn't sure how much time it would take me to find and move the table. I walked back to the kitchen door, but before entering I noticed that the external wall leading to the dinning room, seemed awfully thick. I walked to it, and after finding were it had a door, I opened it. I was greeted by the table, which was standing on its side, on a narrow walkway. As I closed the door to block the moonlight, and my eyes adapted to the interior light, I groaned: the table was a twelve-by-four feet, solid slab of ebony wood, and had, to my infortune, six half-metre long and very chunky square legs, which spelt "Heavy". What really topped the cake was that I had decided to make the move at the very early morning, so even if I puffed too hard I might make more noise than acceptable.
"Found it." -- I mumbled under my breath.
I opened the other wall's door, which to my pleasure happened to clear enough space for the table to fit longitudinally, and with room to spare. But there I saw my bedroll still extended, and with a tray by its side. I quickly ate the four remaining rice balls, rolled up the bedroll, put both the bedroll and the tray on a far corner of the room, and measured my work ahead: I would have to carry, at the very least, two hundred kilograms of wooden table a little more than a metre, but also had to place it on its legs from a sideways position, and had to avoid banging anything at all costs. The good news was that I wouldn't need to rotate it, but the bad news would be that I would need to work wearing a toga and not even wearing shoes. I approached it and finally decided my course of action.
After ten minutes of warm-up I crouched with my back against the centre of the flat undersurface, raised my right shoulder till it was firmly in contact with the upper central leg, put my hands ahead on the leg, and tilted the table over me. 'Now there is no turning back' I thought, as I knew that even if I tried to tilt it back upright, it would make enough noise to lift the death. Once I felt confident enough I spread my arms forty five degrees from my body and put them as flat as possible against the wood surface, and gathering every gram of strength I had in my body, I stretched my legs, lifting the table a good feet and a half off the ground. Now effectively carrying the weight on nothing but my shoulder (damn slippery toga!), I stepped forward. The floor was screeching dangerously at every diminutive step I made, so it took me close to a minute to walk the metre, and an eternity to bend my knees enough for the lower legs of the table to quietly touch down. I almost fell backwards as I had let too much pressure go before making sure it was stable, so I had to quickly lift it up (again) and as I felt a blinding pain from my collarbone, I made a bit of a racket just to regain my balance. * I froze as soon as I stabilized, but my shoulder wasn't ready to wait, so after just a few seconds I was already kneeling again. As soon as I felt the lower legs touch ground I made a quick step forward, and although the left side skidded a bit, the right side gripped instantly, and now I had an initial angle to work with. I continued to bend down, and as I approached the floor, I extended my arms forward, and as I could finally shift the weight into my hands, I extended my legs to the sides before they could get trapped, and ended the lifting more or less like a push-up, but mostly on my left arm.
The entire ordeal had lasted less than five minutes, but it had taken the best of me. Once the three remaining legs had landed, not too loudly, I just remained there, on the floor under the table, panting for the world to listen. I was thinking that I would not really have minded if someone came to help me now, but after the adrenaline finally had worn out, I had regained enough of my senses to thank the Heavens that nobody had come down. Remembering that I still had to cook breakfast, I started to crawl from under the table.
"Great, so now the entire breakfast plan will go to hell!" -- I muttered under my breath. I was now out of the table and sitting, and didn't even need to look down to know that in the middle of the space between my neck and my right shoulder, a purple bulge was starting to grow; nonetheless, as it grew I gradually lost feeling from the front of my arm, all the way down to my thumb and index fingers. ** I tested the mobility of my arm, and after checking that I could hardly lift it without grinding enamel of my teeth, I proceeded to rearrange the toga to cover the bulge.
[ * Author note: if you think I'm exaggerating, try carrying a little more than double your own body weight on your collarbone, and after letting it rest there for a minute or two, raise it ten centimetres and let it fall again. If your collarbone doesn't snap like a twig, consider yourself fortunate. Yet, even after your clavicle is gone, you wouldn't necessarily drop the load, as there are still plenty of muscles and ligaments to go.]
[ ** This should be anatomically correct. A big enough swelling around the clavicle area might strangulate and shut down the nerves of the frontal upper arm, the frontal lower arm, and the frontal portion of the hand (index, thumb, middle, and one side of the ring finger), in that order. Since the nerves feeding the rest of the arm are progressively deeper, they are really unlikely to be shut down by a survivable impact. More to the point, it really feels weird to not feel half of your ring finger while you can still move it, or to be able to extend your arm but not be able to contract it again.]
'Lets see what can I do with a single hand', I thought, and while keeping my right arm tightly against my side, I stood up, went to the kitchen, and started looking around.
Ow. Have I mentioned that my collarbone also hurt if I made fast head movements?
I started to mumble while doing my rummaging. "Lets see . . . oh, damn fridge light! Well, there are eggs, some meats and milk . . . over here is a juicer . . . a wok and a rice cooker . . . a mountain of carrots. No, I won't be able to peel them! Well, there are also like twenty oranges, and some grapefruits . . . a couple large pitchers . . . and there is a powered citrus juicer! Good." I took out the pitchers, the citrus juicer and plenty of fruit, and after washing and cutting the fruit (a very slow process if you can't hold it), I started filling the first pitcher with grapefruit juice. I was happy to be doing some work even over a broken collarbone, but about the time I had gone by half the grapefruits the kitchen lights flickered on . . .
"Ouch!" -- By instinct I brought my left hand to cover my eyes, but it was covered in grapefruit juice . . . -- "Yeauuuu!!"
"Oh my!" -- . . . -- "I'm sorry, Ramirez-san."
That voice. Sweet, clear, and with a certain power.
"Don't worry, Miss Belldandy. My fault."
Well, I had dropped a grapefruit half when the lights came on, so now I was on the floor looking for it, but my left hand only found a gentle pair of hands.
"Lets get your eyes washed, Ramirez-san." -- She guided me to the sink, so I could wash my eyes. While I was doing so, I felt something fall out of my left eye, and my vision from that eye went white immediately. I carefully reopened my right eye, and saw a small black disk resting on the sink catcher.
'Have I been wearing the contacts all along?' I thought in amazement. I picked it quickly, and turned toward Belldandy.
"Er . . . sorry, Miss Bell . . . "
"Oh, of course, Ramirez-san"
I thought she would guide me to the bathroom, but she instead took the contact from my hand, and with her other hand, ever gently, opened my eyelid.
"Arrgh!" -- . . . -- "Oh, sorry, Miss Belldandy!"
"No, I apologise to you . . ."
No need to write don't the next exchange. Lets just say we were retro feeding each others' apologies until we could agree that we both were sorry, and that the best idea was for her to guide me to the nearest bathroom, where I should be able to put the contact in the dark. While I was inside the bathroom, looking at my reflection and reflecting on what I saw, I started to hear a sweet but harsh voice in the back of my mind.
'Rats, now I am even starting to connect with her', I thought. I also remembered that I had been thinking about asking her about this telepathy. As soon as I got out, and just for the heck of it, I tried to engage her.
'Er, sorry, Miss Belldandy,' I tried mentally.
"Oh yes, Ramirez-san!" -- She spoke up. -- "I have wanted to talk to you about your telepathy since Crystal told me of her observations."
"Well, I also wanted to ask you about it. Not having intimacy inside my head is worrying me, not to say that ball of energy I made."
"I know. Crystal also told me about the incident outside the Almighty's office, and she has the theory that you were retro feeding the fear of all involved. She said that if she hadn't thrown a wave of confusion at the assembled mob, you might not even be alive right now. "
I hadn't thought about that one and the realisation made me shudder, but I quickly regained focus on what I had wanted to aks her.
"Well, Belldandy-san, I wanted to ask you if you knew a way to make it stop."
"Crystal had told me so, and while she was here we debated how it could be done. We concluded that it wouldn't be an easy task, but that I shouldn't have a problem. Do I have your permission to go ahead?"
'Uh, permission?' -- I thought that hers was quite a peculiar choice of words. -- "By all means, go ahead."
"Then, could you follow me?"
"Of course."
We just walked around the corner, but instead of going back to the kitchen, we entered the door opposite to it, leading into the dinning room. She turned on the lights of the far side of the room, and turned extending a hand towards the far door; however, she put it back down, and looked around confused. I also looked, and only saw that the table was slightly more misaligned than I thought, but other than that I hadn't even scratched the polished floor.
"H . . . How did you use telekinesis without all of us noticing it? Have you learned to mask your power?"
Telekinesis. So there is something such as telekinesis, and I stupidly almost broke my back to do the job the old fashioned macho way. The strong sense of irony made me want to joke, even as she was quite concerned. I prepared my best aristocratic voice . . .
"Telekinesis, Miss Belldandy? No, I didn't. I used an even stronger kind of magic: machismo!"
I remarked my declaration by raising my good arm and bulging its muscles. That at least got a good giggle out of Belldandy, and I was about to do more humour when I remembered part of the determination I had made during the night: for my own good, I would avoid flirting with anyone until I'm sure they are available. So, I steeled myself, made my way to the other side of the table, kneeled down, and tried to make my best imitation possible of an old monk.
"Well, Miss Belldandy, I would wish us to get down to business. I guess you might have something else to do."
She took a second to react at my sudden change of mood, but she sat down opposite to me.
"All right, I think we can start whenever you are ready." -- She said, calmly.
I was curious to ask her what would the procedure involve, but I was a bit more interested in seeing my telepathy go away: My mental link with Belldandy had already strengthened enough to pick stray words. To my relief, what I picked next included " . . . get started." Then she picked up her hands and started to gesture toward me, while murmuring. After like a minute I started to smell ozone coming her way, and remembered the exact words I had used to approve her actions: 'By all means.' I gulped at the now obvious implications, closed my eyes, and after another ten seconds or so, felt a very pleasant wave of heat wash over my head, from where it started to dissolve into my body. It was a very pleasant sensation, except when it came in contact with my injury, where it created a very acute pain. I clenched my teeth waiting for it to be over, but to my surprise the wave disappeared right where it was, and Belldandy was speaking, worried.
"Oh Ramirez-san, why didn't you tell me you had a broken collarbone?"
'So it is actually broken' I thought.
"Well, it doesn't hurt so much. Anyway, I didn't thought . . . it would be polite to worry you this early in the morning!"
Okay, that was stupid, but I hadn't thought on an excuse. I thought it had been stupid from me to not think that the fracture would become a topic of discussion, but felt relieved that Belldandy smiled.
"Oh, it wouldn't have been a burden at all, Ramirez-san. Come here, let me mend it."
"Okay".
I stood up, walked around the table, and sat again by her side, while she had turned to a position were she would be facing me again. She did some muttering and raised her left hand over my shoulder, and after a few seconds of feeling like a wet, scalding-hot towel had been dropped there, a warm feeling rolled down my right arm like a wave. Once all the sensation had passed, I moved my arm around and looked at it. I was quite impressed to not feel pain, but I was even more impressed that now my arm was now devoid of scars. Most of the scars were just the typical cuts and scrapes you see in someone that had an active childhood, but I really noted two missing: a long but faint one I got from almost being ran over as a kid (one I would ratter forget), and another small but easy to spot I got in from playing with a dog of mine, which I would ratter see back with me. Anyway, I was very grateful. Remembering to not embarrass the goddess, I lowered my head on a short bow.
"Thanks, Miss Belldandy."
"Never mind." -- She now started to make motions to stand up, but as I had got back in my feet I noticed she was wavering, so took a good hold on her shoulders.
"Are you okay, Miss Belldandy?"
"Oh sorry, I guess I used too much energy."
I bit my lip. I had made her overextend herself, and now she was weak.
"How can I help you?" -- I said, ratter nervous. She didn't answer. Instead, she put a blissful face, closed eyes, and let her body go limp. She took me by surprise, but I could still catch her, and now alright panicking, I started to yell for help.