step one is to fall (step two is to recover)
(Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial‘s prompt: FFF54 Rainbow Kisses! Set in Code F&D universe. Italics are Fae-speak and the translations are in the notes. Enjoy!)
Seko.
Darkness
Diro.
Scored walls and black scars along off-white walls. Lightning-sharp scarring pain soaring through her chest.
Kana.
Fire burning and particles of dust and ash in her mouth and nose.
Lira.
Crumbling floors and despair like the sea-salt pervading her mind.
Teksi.
Falling.
If this had been a book, Aster would have woken at this point. She would have remembered the sudden fall and then darkness and then she would have remembered what happened next. Instead, she wakes up in an unknown bed that smelled of a scent that should have been familiar but wasn’t.
Saying that she woke up is also incorrect, because Aster doesn’t actually wake. What happens is that she opens her eyes and her entire body starts screaming with the pain of it, and she desperately wishes to go back to sleep but her body, having noticed that she is no longer asleep, is having none of it. She doesn’t wake up as much as she gets dragged into the land of the living against her will. At least she got the time to count to five first.
The only thing she registers once she’s gotten over the initial shock is that wow, the light is bright and her eyes are not used to this. It’s not so much bright as Aster doesn’t know how long she’s been in the darkness. She sends tendrils of her magic out, but there doesn’t seem to be any active danger.
There’s a soft scratching sound, rather like the one a pen makes against paper. Aster tries to make words come out of her mouth but can’t quite get them to come out. Her throat feels like someone had force-fed her sand and not the good and soft sand from a beach either. The hard and grainy type from the harbour.
“Where am I?” She asks, once she manages to get words out.
“Rather further from home than you ought to be, travoksa.” A voice returns. The scratching stops and there’s the sound of a chair being pushed back. The air shifts around her as someone approaches.
“Who are you?” Aster does actually realise that if the person before her --wait, no, being before her—is any danger, she isn’t exactly in a position to defend herself, but the question bears asking anyway.
“Syoko no visokami.” Aster registers and understands the language, even if it isn’t a dialect she’s ever heard before or is familiar with. Okay, so this is at least a faerie. Or, if not a faerie, not someone who’s going to do her harm.
Aster doesn’t know how she knows that. She doesn’t speak that language actually. It sounds like the language of the faerie, but not the one she’s familiar with. It’s too early for her to be doing deductions so she’s going to trust her instincts here.
“Syoril! Kivo na mi haeri. Ka vyokso no mi haem?”
“Ko raesa.”
She hears a door open and footsteps as someone else enters the room. The footsteps aren’t human; they’re not the taps of human feet, there’s slight scratching and the rustle of scales?
Aster opens her eyes.
It’s a dragon.
Aster would scream if she had the energy. The faerie seems to know it because she looks at Aster as if she can tell. The slightly raised eyebrow is signal enough and translates well enough. Aster can’t help feeling like she’s being slightly scolded.
Oh lightning, it feels like Ro is doing it at her.
Oh. Oh shit. Ro.
“Relax, travoksa, your konira should receive my letter soon. You’re safe for now.”
Aster thinks she should probably sit up. It is a little bit undignified to be talking while lying down on a bed.
“How do you know Ro?”
The faerie’s amused. Aster doesn’t know how she knows, until she extends her magic again and realises that the faerie is using the lattices to show her emotions, even as her face doesn’t change.
“You’re faerie.”
Aster doesn’t say anything else for a moment while she tries to remember what happened. Obviously, something’s gone wrong but what exactly has gone wrong is a different matter for Aster to figure out.
“You broke two ribs and have severe to moderate burns damage around your legs, arms and back. You had an infection in your left leg which is going to leave a scar but has otherwise been treated. I would not advise moving your upper body yet.” The faerie says.
“I would advise not moving your head either. While the lacerations on your head have been treated, the blunt force trauma of your fall resulted in a concussion. Your senses are still recovering so I would not advise attempting any large degree of magic for at least a moon cycle. This is the second time you’ve woken from your induced coma, so you’ll still be experiencing mild nausea and some pain.”
Aster realises that the scratchy feeling she noticed when she woke up but dismissed was probably bandages.
“Thank you.”
The faerie nods. “Your guardians have been alerted and should be hear within a day. Syoril has already gone to guide them through the Pathways.”
The faerie smirks. “I daresay your human parent will find travelling along the Rainbow Path a fascinating experience. Hex has informed me that they used to be a physics professor.”
Aster wants to say something but feels herself drifting to sleep.
When she next wakes, it’s to Ro pressing a kiss to her forehead. Robin’s there too, but they’re talking to the faerie. The faerie’s voice is slightly accented, now that she’s noticing properly.
“-yes. Should expect full recovery within two moon cycles-“
“-you. When letter-“
“You okay?” Aster pulls away from trying to listen to the conversation between Robin and the faerie with the sudden urge to throw up.
“’m sorry.” Ro just shakes their head.
“You’re very lucky that the Guardian found you, you know. You could have died. I still can’t believe that you lucked yourself into getting the actual Guardian of the Pathways to find you.”
“She called me travoksa, Ro.” Aster remembers.
“Yeah, well, she’s got the right to. The Witch did raise her after all.”