{A bird hatched in an undeveloped state, requiring care and feeding by the parents}
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Awareness returned in soft gradients. First was sensation on my skin, softness, I was on a bed, there were smooth sheets, a pillow at my back. My head felt like it was full of cotton too, soft.
Everything was soft, the light was wrong, my head felt like it was barely attached to my shoulders. Everything felt distant, slow and ponderous. Something beeped nearby, steadily and rhythmically. There was something else, a sound, like... like... snoring? I couldn't see. Everything smelled clean, smelled of soap and lemon.
I sat there, listening to the beep, until I it occurred to me that my eyes were closed. Weird. Shouldn't I have noticed that? That sounded like the kind of thing I ought to have noticed.
Opening them took a monumental effort, like lifting a car. There was a florescent light over my head, I stared at it. For a while I couldn't move and for the life of me, I couldn't think of a single reason I'd want to. My eyes itched.
As I lay there, a face intruded into my vision, blurry and indistinct. It took me a few seconds to realize I wasn't wearing my glasses. I experienced a moment of panic, but it... panic felt like such effort. I didn't have much energy to spare to it.
The shape moved, it was pale, framed with a white halo that I realized was hair, "Tay..."
I blinked, "Elle."
My throat was raw, it hurt a little, to talk. Moving was painful too, but I slowly turned my head. Elle was leaned over me, sitting beside my bed and blinking down at me.
"You okay, Elle?" I asked. She seemed okay, but I couldn't be sure, I couldn't see her very well.
She didn't say anything, but after a moment she raised her hand to touch my forehead.
-stressed; worried, fretful; afraid she would die, afraid I would die, afraid Mimi would die-
My power was more agile than my mind at that moment, and I drifted from breath to breath with the new information before I sighed. The medication didn't stop the pain, not all of it, but it did let me stop worrying about it. I think my arm was bandaged? Either way, I found it difficult to care. It was difficult to care, like I was detached from myself, from the pain, from the troubles of the world around me. It let me drift comfortably in the embrace of a soft haze.
Elle lifted her hand and patted me on the forehead again. She made a wordless but emphatic sound, it sounded like an admonishment.
"I was worried about you too, Elle." I rasped. I gently moved her hand, "Have you seen my glasses?"
She sat, staring at me blankly. Then, she stood and walked off into the blurry haze. I squinted, looking for shapes the right color to be people. There was a blob of orange, but it was the wrong shape...
Elle hovered near the blob, until the blob unfolded from the chairs and stood up.
"Taylor!" Mimi gasped, "I-I have your glasses!" She hurried over, a blurry orange shape- and slipped my glasses over my ears. Suddenly I could see. Blurs resolved into sharp, clear lines and I blinked.
Elle and Mimi didn't look like I remembered- bloodied, seared, exhausted. They had new scrubs. Elle's hair had been brushed, and they had washed. There was a bruise on Mimi's jaw I didn't remember though.
I was laying in a bed. My scrubs were gone, there was a needle in my arm, an IV drip. Looking down, I realized that where one of my arms was hooked to the drip, the other was immobilized in a sling. A machine beside my bed beeped in time with my heartbeat. The walls were cream and there were chairs against the walls, a closed door at the far end of the room. Everything was colored in muted shades. I was in the infirmary. I... I could not remember how we'd escaped. It was all a jumble of noise and voices and sensation. Pain. But dull, distant. The world was muted.
I wondered if this quiet emptiness was because it had been so long since I'd slept. It was... A surprisingly humanizing experience.
Articulating waking up itself was surprisingly difficult. I hadn't appreciated the strangeness of living without a real sleep cycle, experiencing this kind of awakening was like coming back to a good book I'd used to love but hadn't read in years. I'd missed it, and remembered it wrong. I had never realized how much I missed it.
I'd... I had been hit, right? I tried to sit up straighter, and a spike of pain ran through my shoulder, arm, down one side of my body to my toes. Ow. I sucked in a sharp breath. Ow.
"Taylor, don't try to move!" Mimi said.
"Yeah. Not doing that again." I said, and tried to smile a bit.
Mimi sniffled a bit, refusing to look at me, but Elle walked over to sit beside my bed again, frowning solemnly.
Someone knocked on the door, "Come in!" Mimi called. That was all right, I didn't feel particularly inclined to speak loudly at the moment.
"Oh, hello. You're awake." It was a man, an orderly. With my mind muzzy as it was I didn't recognize him immediately- Lars, the orderly from the cafeteria. Big and burly, and concerned, could feel his worry.
"Lars?"
"Yeah." He stepped to my bedside and glanced at the machines I was hooked up to, picked up a clipboard hung on the wall and leafed through it, making considering noises, "Doctor Lafayette wanted someone you knew present when you woke up, so here I am. "
"What about Mimi and Elle?" I asked.
"There was a fire down in medium security. We're shuffling people around for now, Lafayette didn't think there would be any harm in letting them wait with you."
Mimi looked extremely uncomfortable. Oh, that was her fire, I think... Right. I tried to think, to chose a question, but I kept... Drifting...
"I'm on the good drugs?" I asked.
"Many good drugs," Lars laughed, "All the good drugs."
"Oh." I thought about that, "I guess that makes sense." I was feeling pretty floaty.
I thought about that as Lars fiddled around with the equipment. "How bad is it?"
"Your shoulder?"
"Yeah, all of it?"
"Not too bad." Lars said, and gave me a meaningful glance, "You were in rough shape when they brought you in, though. Doctor Peterson or Lafayette will be by soon, to talk to you about some options we have available here at Alchemilla."
"Options?"
"Specialty options."
I blinked slowly at that, processing. The cobwebs in my brain were still clearing. Specialty options sounded like a euphemism, or... Or something. There was an emotional undercurrent I couldn't place, I wasn't sure what to call it. It was complicated. Some kind of special program for injured parahumans? Tinker medicine? A healer maybe? I'd heard of stuff like that, but it was rare.
Shifting mental gears took too long, but the time I'd formulated some questions to ask, Lars was pulling up a little cart to my bedside which forestalled any additional conversation, the smell hit me first. Rich and urgent, it awoke a primal need deeply seated inside me; that cart had food and I was hungry enough to eat a horse.
Lars set out a tray for me, one that hooked on to the rails on either side of my bed so I didn't need to juggle the tray, my sandwich, my bowl, and and a spoon at the same time. There were two other trays for Mimi and Elle too.
Mimi pulled up a chair beside Elle and helped her to eat. I didn't wait for them though. It tasted incredible, and I inhaled it. Even after finishing my ham sandwich, apple, and tomato soup, my empty stomach still felt like it had plenty of rattling empty space left over. I was also a little dizzy, maybe moving that quickly had been a bad idea.
"Wait, what time is it?" I asked, I had no idea how long I had been out, or even a real measure of how long the crisis with Labyrinth's world had run. "What day is it?"
Lars sat down in one of the chairs, clasping his hands thoughtfully, "It is about nine thirty, you were out for... Oh, about thirteen hours. I'd say you slept, but the docs were saying it was more a healing coma, something about you not being able to sleep." he shrugged.
Oh. Hmm. I sighed, my tray had not been an especially large lunch, but my reserves were very low at the moment. I just... wanted to lay there right now.
Mimi and Elle ate their lunch, Mimi had to help Elle with the soup. She spilled the first two spoonfuls down her shirt. Mimi surprised me, with how patient she was with Elle, I could sense that seesaw of emotions in the background. It was strange, I hadn't picked up on that before. Was it because I was more familiar with her now, or because there weren't a lot of other problems diverting my attention?
I closed my eyes, counting the motes of familiarity. Mimi- fretful, ashamed, emotions swinging, seesawing. Elle- a kaleidoscope of colors, a sense of place and creativity. Heather, Nick, Charnel. Others, further away, dimmer and less familiar to me, not as clear.
I could hear someone walking through the hall, outside my door. Brisk steps, heels echoing off the tile.
The heels stopped outside my door, and I opened my eyes as the knob turned. The door opened and admitted a woman with steel-grey hair pulled away from her face in a severe bun, glasses, and a slightly sour expression.
"Hello, Auspice, how are you feeling?"
"Better." I said, her nametag read Lafayette.
"Good to hear." Doctor Lafayette said, "Wayland, anything to report?"
"No 'mam."
Doctor Lafayette pulled up a chair of her own. My bed was flanked by chairs by this point, Mimi and Elle on one side, Lars and Doctor Lafayette on the other.
"At Alchemilla we have some options many hospitals would not have available." Doctor Lafayette said, "If you're up to it, I'd like to get into what we have."
"Okay." I said.
She lifted a clipboard, glancing across notes, a pen tapping idly in one hand. "Broken clavicle- that's your collarbone -second and third degree burns all across your left arm. Extensive lacerations. Most people would be looking at a long recovery period and physical therapy. We have conventional rehabilitation of course. If you go that route, you would be looking at a lengthy recovery period. This is a viable option, your injuries, while serious, are stable. It would be months before using your arm again is feasible, however."
Doctor Lafayette gave me a meaningful glance, "That is one option."
"Option two?" I asked. I think the good drugs were starting to wear off a bit, the distance I'd been enjoying was starting to fade.
Doctor Lafayette nodded, "Option two, we have an in-house healer. A patient, he goes by the moniker 'Wine'. He is a minor power granter, and his healing is very potent, but some find it unpleasant."
She glanced at meaningfully, "For the record, I will prescribe physical therapy regardless, it speeds recovery and helps you get reaquainted with your body after a major physical trauma like this one."
I immediately didn't like option one. Even if this week was some kind of hoodoo, a statistical outlier, I didn't want to be stuck with only one arm for any length of time. It'd been maddening and torturous for just the few hours I'd been forced to work around my arm dead weight in a sling. I couldn't imagine being stuck in a bed, unable to get up and unable even to sleep. I'd lose my mind.
"When..." I coughed, my mouth was dry, "Can I meet him? Wine?"
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Doctor Lafayette led in a second Doctor, who she introduced as Peterson. A thickset man, his hair was black, but graying at the temples. He looked like I guessed I probably did, tired and ruffled and creased.
And a boy in blue scrubs who was introduced as Wine, who Doctor Peterson led by the hand, and stared into the middle distance with a faint, unfocused smile.
The boy in blue had short brown hair and brown eyes, and looked just a touch... vacant. It was hard to place, but I suspected he had a condition like Elle's. I was intrigued as Wine walked to my bedside, guided by Doctor Peterson. When Doctor Lafayette was finished with introductions, I got to talk with Wine.
"Hi, there." I said.
"Hello." Wine said, "I'm... I'm..." He frowned.
"Wine," Doctor Peterson frowned, "It's Wine."
Wine stared into the middle distance, Silent for several moments as he processed that, "I think it used to be different." He said.
I smiled faintly- my power sensed only vague goodwill from him. He was cheerful, even... in a simple, unfocused kind of way.
"How does his power work?" I asked.
Doctor Peterson looked faintly uncomfortable, "Wine's power allows him to shapeshift into liquids with different properties. Some of them can... Er...produce specific and pronounced effects. In essence, he is, um, a minor power granter."
"Ah..." I said. I closed my eyes, resting a moment. Being awake was triing, and if I was being honest, I'd already decided.
"Okay, let's... Do this." I said. I was tired of being bedridden.
"All right." Doctor Lafayette said, and patted Doctor Peterson on the shoulder, "Your show Horace."
Doctor Peterson knelt and helped Wine roll up his sleeve. Wine turned to look up at him, face blank and vacant. "Wine, she's going to need to drink some of you, okay?"
"'kay." The boy said.
I opened my eyes, blinked, I stared at Doctor Peterson with wide eyes. "W-wait. Stop, what? What did you say?"
"It doesn't hurt him!" Doctor Peterson assured me quickly, "It just tires him out, and... Well, it can look a little disturbing, and might be a little disorienting."
Yes. I could imagine it might. At my right, Mimi looked a little green around the gills herself.
While I was still frozen in silent horror, Wine lifted his hand, which became partially transparent, like green glass, starting at the tips of his fingers, moving down from the tips and remaining more substantial closer to his palm. The effect continued, down his wrist, to his arm. He held out his bottle-green wrist, and the fingers that now resembled green glass, holding it under my nose.
"Here." He said, smiling a little vacantly.
I leaned back, and went a little cross-eyed trying to look. Even though I really didn't want to look.
"I. Um."
Reading off him was disconcerting. He was like Elle, there was a separation in his mind, his power gave him a perspective, enforced a certain mode of thought. I remembered my initial impression: his power dealt with energy, forms of energy, of transmission of that energy from one state to another. Organic energy? Was that why he could heal, his power allowed him to energize cells in specific ways?
No, focus. My arm needed healing, he was offering to heal it. Could he?
Did I want him to?
I narrowed my focus to his hand, the fingers he had changed; his wrist, his arm. I could sense the way he had empowered the liquid. It... It wasn't part of his body, or my power didn't register it as such. I tried to call it something, pin a name on it, and the closest comparison I could manage was the lights- the beams of energy from the fight in the sun room. Blake, with his hands glowing, his hands trailing light in the air. A projection of something else from his body, using a power. It was some kind of construct? It would... Yes. It would heal Wine, if it remained part of him... attached to him? Whichever. If I drank it, I would receive a diminished and diffused effect, a temporary one throughout my entire body. Drinking his... arm... would heal me. It was still stomach turning. I swallowed hard.
"Here." Wine said again, waving his hand. Like I'd overlooked it and needed reminding. That vacant smile remained.
He was standing close by, close enough we were almost touching, and I could sense... I sensed nothing but general helpfulness, that same simple good will, from him.
"T-thanks." I said.
'Drink' some of him? I peered at his arm, moving my head a little back and forth, like I was finding a good angle. I opened my mouth and- gently, bit down on his wrist.
It was warm. A little warmer than I expected, softer than skin would have been. Not like glass- semi liquid, like... jello? It had a weird smell. Chemical. Sharp. A little like a cheap soda. But not exactly unpleasant. I didn't know what I had expected, but that was not it.
I hesitantly sucked a little, and it filled my mouth. A moment of surprise at the force of it, before the taste hit me.
It was... It was... I didn't have words for it. It was like every nerve was on fire, fully charged, energized in a way I couldn't describe. It hit me and, unthinking, I swallowed greedily.
A few seconds passed in this state.
And then, a few more.
I came back to myself suddenly as Wine's knees began to buckle, and I hurriedly drew back from his arm, from the sensation. There was liquid running down my chin, I wiped at it, that same warmth, elation, warring with a distant sense of horror, of disgust; and also a remote notion of fascination. I held my fist to my lips and breathed. It was easier already. Wine's limbs were floppy and translucent, Doctor Peterson helped him sit down.
"Do you... Feel better... Auspice?" Wine asked, his eyelids fluttered, but he was smiling faintly.
"... A lot better," I admitted, honestly. Better than 'better' in fact... I felt.
Warmth settled in my stomach, moved out into my limbs and... It was one of the strangest sensations I had ever experienced- it felt like itching, but not. Like... tickling, or squirming? Numbing followed by tickling, itching, squirming? It sent goosebumps up my arms, I wanted to scratch. It made me shudder, even as the pain receded from my shoulder. And then...
I flexed My arm tentatively, once. Then I waved my arm in amazement and pulled at the bandages, looking for the red and blackened skin. The scarring.
The skin was knitting back, that irritating sensation of crawling, of squirming, was the tissue setting into place. It wasn't like watching healing, not in fast forward or otherwise. It was like new skin rose out of my arm, rolling up under the burnt patches, pushing them out- dead skin sloughed off. It looked like a year of healing in one minute.
"Whoa." I said, staring at the shiny new skin on my hand.
You didn't appreciate the phrase 'superhuman healing' until you saw and felt it, understood what it really meant. It was miraculous, I could hardly believe it seeing it with my own eyes. I made a fist as tight as I could, then opened my hand and flexed my fingers, flexed my arm, my shoulder. It was gone, the pain was all gone.
And that warm feeling spreading out from my stomach wasn't fading either. I felt like I'd had a full night's sleep and an energy drink. I could run a mile, fly to the moon, wrestle Alexandria. Laugh and sing right there. I felt amazing. Everything was sharp and clear, the smell of lemon and soap, the feeling on my skin- new unblemished skin. Each whole and easy breath.
Wine made little sighing, sleepy noises, slumping. Doctor Peterson reached out to grab him, but Wine sank Right through his hands to the floor, eyes closed and half dissolved into purple goo. Asleep.
"... I was worried that would happen." Doctor Peterson sighed.
"What's wrong?"
"Losing pieces of himself tires Wine out."
"It doesn't hurt him though? You said it didn't hurt him." I asked, just to be sure. I mean, he looked fine, but...
"Yes. I don't think he can be physically hurt." Doctor Peterson said, still staring down at the puddle-boy, "His power just treats it as an injury and causes him fatigue in response, he has to sleep it off."
I frowned, looking down at him while he slept, and flexed my hand, feeling the skin stretch, the joints move without obstruction or stiffness or any pain. I flexed my hand again, then reached out and threw the sheets aside and jumped- actually jumped out of bed. My feet hit the floor and my ribs didn't hurt. I moved my arms. Twisted at the waist.
Looking up, let my eyes wander across the others. Mimi was standing with Elle, holding her hand. Elle smiled, wide and genuine. Mimi looked like she couldn't decide if she wanted to step forward or turn and run, so I decided for her and stepped forward to both of them. Just a brief hug, then I stepped back. "What do you think?" I flexed my bicep.
I looked ridiculous, my arm was a stick, but the point was to show the damage was repaired with no hard feelings. I wasn't angry, and I wasn't afraid. I clenched the fingers of my healed hand so they didn't shake, and refused to think of fire. I wasn't afraid, not of fire eating away on my arm.
I was rewarded with a small smile from Elle, and a hesitant twitch of Mimi's lips.
It was a heady sensation. My ribs didn't hurt. Or my shoulder. Or my wrist. Though at the moment I could barely say I had a body, it certainty didn't feel like mine. Moving it was such a chore. I was surprised I had managed to sit. Stand?
"Aaaand, there's the peak. She's crashing now..." Doctor Peterson said, "She needs to get back in bed."
Mimi was there under one shoulder immediately as I started to tip. Lars and Doctor Lafayette took over a moment later. I felt silly, three people helping me get into bed. I giggled.
Doctor Peterson was talking, but I didn't understand what he was saying. Everything was very far away and unimportant right now, and I relaxed, rested. I hoped I'd not need to get up in a hurry. I didn't know if I would be able to do more than tip over, if it came to that. Mimi and Elle lingered as my vision faded, sitting beside my bed, worried. I tried to smile for them, they didn't need to worry, I felt great.
It got dark, my eyes felt heavy. So heavy.
I didn't sleep, never slept.
But... I went away.