Never
“Advisory: Vital signs are outside of accepted parameters. Stress fracture in left tibia requires rest. It is inadvisable to continue work functions at this time.”
The newly-repaired magitek bit chirped, as though it hadn’t laid in dust and dirt and sand for nearly two weeks, trampled by hapless adventurers and beasts alike before it was recovered. The woman it warned seemed more than content to ignore its warnings, standing over a nearly-completed project: the reforging and augmentation of a superior officer’s sword.
“Alert: Health advisories are programmed to repeat every thirty seconds until acknowledgement is received.”
“Acknowledged,” came the distracted reply. Corelyn’s right leg had begun hurting to match the left, having had most of her weight on it for hours.The other was splinted, having sustained a stress fracture in the past week, along with the innumerable other minor wounds inflicted during her time with Neilas.
“Bit, engage silent mode,” she said, and the circling contraption let out a soft click in acknowledgement.
With a sigh, she adjusted her stance, letting the blade sit on the workbench as she turned down the heat on Safehouse Aurum’s magitek forge. Reaching for the crutch that leaned against the wall nearby, she propped it under an arm and hobbled across the room and toward the bunks where her commanding officer, Centurio Aelius quo Sanguis, slept. The man had taken a nasty kick to the head that left him severely concussed during the fight with her former Tribunus and long-gone lover.
Try as she might, the guilt still ravaged her. If not for her, would he have still gone mad? It had all started because of her, had it not? Her father fell ill, and her mother returned home to tend to him, leaving an important project untended and without significant leadership. This had been moons ago, and even then, she knew something was wrong with Neilas. It had been years since she saw him last, since she ended their nigh-four-year relationship to run away with the military to far-flung corners of the star. His eyes had grown cold, his demeanour hard and conflicting.
Once Project Anima was complete, she knew him for the monster he had truly become. Constant torture was all she knew for moons, strapped to a machine that deprived her of her senses as she hallucinated, hours every day spent out of her mind and delirious. He spent so much effort on twisting her mind, making her fear him, making her terrified to disobey. He even drugged her, especially when in public, to make her more obedient and silent.
That had all come to an end when the Senator’s Ball was held in Castrum Aquilonis. After so much time spent garnering information in the time where she was not held prisoner, she had managed to convince him to attend with her. Through the drug-addled haze, she had slipped hints that she was in danger, adding to the suspicion generated by her frequent absences and strange behaviour. After a conversation between herself, Neilas, and the Primus Frumentarius in charge of the Fustuarium initiative, Zheng goe Diremite, Neilas stole her away in a fury, enraged by comments made. Not long after, he sent her back to apologise, ordering her to make a fool of herself in the process, to make herself look pathetic and worthless, because, he had said, she was. Cleverly, she stole away with a bug that she’d discovered in the gun he had “gifted” her, planting it in her dress’s collar.
After she had been discovered with a bug, she was held in what was officially indefinite detainment, but in an operational capacity, until Project Anima was released to her specifically for field testing, and then small-scale distribution. This had gone well for a moon or two, until Neilas showed up again, intent on either taking her or killing her - it hadn’t mattered at that point. Though she drove him off the first time, not weeks later, he tried again, his trio of Imperial Shadows making quick work of kidnapping her.
The week that followed was pain like she had never known, even following her escape from Carteneau. At random intervals throughout the day, the man would walk into the room in which she was held and would savagely beat her, torture her, break her in every way he could. Every time, he was angrier and more unhinged, until he began raving about the loss of his position, the trouble she had caused for him, how he knew he would be the Fustuarium’s next target. He hadn’t had enough time, he’d said, because she forced his hand, manipulated him. It was her fault that Zheng had been alive and was coming for him, that blood would be on her hands. She didn’t expect literally until he began beating her with his armour on.
When the day came that the rescue party arrived, more to take down a corrupt and insane former Tribunus than to rescue her, she’d found, Neilas had left her in a rage, hissing curses about them having been early, about his Shadows being dead or worse, and traitors, even amongst his own, adding to the sins she, herself, bore.It had gone past the point of intelligible, and in his rage, he had left her unbound and alone in that room while he and his men had engaged the Fustuarium. He left her alone and unguarded in his madness, and she took the opportunity. Though covered in blood, bruises, open wounds, and practically crawling on a broken leg, she made her way to the firs tplace that came to mind.
“I should... hope,” she said, wearily, her head still ringing from the beating she had only just endured, “that those out there... are who I expect. If so... come on in. Finish this. Kill him. Please.” She never thought she would beg for the death of the man she had once loved, but this wasn’t any way to honour his memory. She wasn’t even sure if he ever was who she thought, and she found herself questioning her ability to judge character. She used the announcement system in the control room to plead for help from those fighting outside. She couldn’t see or hear them, but not long after, she’d begun to hear Neilas’s frantic, insane screaming as he pounded on the door in a rage, as if to break through the magnetically-locked ballistic doors.
Explosions, fighting in the hall, vague yelling and banging on the door, and the sound and smell of fire overwhelmed her senses, and she succumbed once again to unconsciousness for a time. The banging on the door began again, though, and she was roused at the calls of familiar voices, yelling her name. Though she barely had a shred of strength, she opened the door... and in they came. She felt arms around her, and then...
In he came. A tall, wiry elezen in black, white and gold, sunglasses, and that silly, silly blonde mullet. She was hallucinating again from the pain. She had to be. She wasn’t though. He spoke to her, began to heal her. The pain receded just long enough for her to forget her injuries - to forget the leg that Neilas had broken in his rage, lashing out with a kick that sent her vision exploding into stars. She didn’t care. It was Aioux. Tears flooded her eyes, unbidden but unrestrained, and she began sobbing harder, only then realising she had been crying at all. She clung to him, mind very briefly unclouded, and she began to recognise the voices around her.
Iulius. Adelia. Aelius. Apollon. Aurelia - both Aurelias: her student, Iulius’s girlfriend, the young Lucius, and the self-titled Fabrum with whom she’d discovered a fleeting interest, Aurelia Domna. There were other voices she didn’t recognise, but then she knew the last: Zheng.
Orders were given to search the facility, to take every last bit of information available, then lock the place down indefinitely. It brought her back to her situation at hand: she was standing on a broken leg. She stumbled backward into the control room’s chair again, pain tinting her vision red and causing her consciousness to flicker. She vaguely remembered more healing... and then being carried away.
By the time she awoke, she was in the Safehouse again. In the Goblet, beneath the Gold and Glory company house where she’d begun to spend so much time, she was safe again. The throbbing pain in her leg assured her of that. Her hallucinations were always an escape from the pain; they had never borne it, and never so poignantly. She laid back, listening to the voices of those she had heard bells before - all gathered either in the bunk room or outside. Many people were, like her, in a bed, resting, Aurelia Domna in one just next to her. Outside, she listened to Iulius and his awkward dealings with his Aurelia. It was all so confusing and annoying to get them mixed up like that, she had thought, and she started to laugh softly, tears well in her eyes despite the humour.
She would have a lot of thinking to do, and a lot of healing, both physically and otherwise. But she was safe. And she would never let herself be swept up by some mad, corrupt villain again - she swore it.
Never again.
