@mallowofmuses || Continued from here.
“Thankfully, I believe such an issue should resolve itself, in time. Most occasions like this do so.” And yet her hand still touches over the opposing shoulder, pushing the pads under her fingers against the muscle and the ridge of bone it tethers to. It’s still sore, but sore in the repaired sense that she’s gotten used to, the unique sore to her people’s medicine. There are no bruises, not anymore. There is no damage. There is nothing under the skin to betray what had happened, and yet her nerves still tell her there should be something wrong, and so send warning signals all the way up to her brain, registering as an ache that she cannot place.
Not that she can blame her body, one of the few times when she can offer that sentiment. It’s... It’s an uncanny thing, to look at herself, and not even see a scar as proof to what happened. No raw skin, no stitches, no bandages. Not even any misplaced scales, nothing different from how she already was, from the way her body already looked.
Surreal doesn’t even cut it. She feels like she’s lying, even as she recounts the story to Oz, because she has no physical proof of any assassination attempt, or accident, or whatever the courts will decide this was. It’s functionally the same as her making it up, anyways, only her words to back herself up, only her memory, and her memory can’t even decide what it wants to do with this. Her mind keeps wanting to sort this as some strange nightmare, as something that she woke up from, but forgot that she had just been dreaming. Her guards can close ranks around her, the other royals can preen and bring it up and discuss international relations with her, her medical staff can fuss over her, but she can’t convince herself this isn’t merely another act in the play, that this isn’t just another scene that she has done and followed to every last word of the script, and she’s just playing her part as she should.
“To be quite honest, I believe it would be normal, to handle... such things, poorly.” She grasps, pulls onto the first words she can think of, and continues without thinking too hard about what’s coming to her mind. “Not everyone can be alike to myself, after all. You require steady nerves, and a calm head, and a plan, and of course not just anyone could handle something like that. Anyone else would crack under the pressure. And to think about how often things like this happen... No wonder us Vanderbilts have been set apart from the rest!”
