Bringing Tabby along with you to the climax when you’ve romanced Kaneeka is so funny, because there hasn’t been an opportunity to explain that you and Kaneeka are a thing yet, and she just gets to stand there and watch as you two make out.
Prompt: Chronic Pain (aka wing whump and amputation woes). TW for PTSD, references to branding and torture.
Takes place at some point vaguely during Salem's recovery! Post Kayo but pre-wings returning.
Trade with @aloafofbreadwithanxiety ^_^
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Salem's back hurts.
Maybe that's not quite right. It isn't exactly her back so much as two specific spots on her back. They never really stop hurting.
They never stop feeling empty.
When she wakes in the morning and stretches deeply, she feels muscles flex and burn that have sat unused for too many years. There should be weights there, balancing her every step and movement.
But they are missing. And so the pain never really fades.
There is pain in other places, of course. Her arms, her lower back, her shoulders... some days it is so bad she can barely get out of bed.
[Not that she ever stays there. A constant need to be useful, to be helpful lest she be discarded, chases her downstairs more often than not.]
But none of them are as everpresent- as significant. None of them can send her spiraling into a panic with a thought. None of them are still there even after hours of brutal training, stretching her body to the limit until her bones ache and her muscles scream for relief, they burn and sting like fresh wounds.
None of them are constant reminders of the worst betrayal of her lives.
Every time she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she has to blink before it shatters, before he's carving runes into her with the jagged shards of glass.
She has to turn her head away before she sees his ghost lurking behind her.
Some days, he follows her with every step, a phantom hand on her shoulder, the small of her back, an arm around her shoulder. She has to resist the urge to snap at the air, to turn and swat at nothing. Others, he is not there, but he possesses everyone around her instead- a quirk of the lips, an eye roll, a hand movement that makes her stiffen and mumble an excuse to leave the room.
Sometimes she wonders if they're all juat blind; that they don't see it. Every gesture, a veiled threat. Every word, a hidden warning.
Is she going crazy?
Are they?
When he smiles, the ground shakes beneath her feet.
But every once in awhile, she wakes up to that same ache, stares up at the white ceiling, and she is blissfully alone. It feels like a gift, like a precious thing to cradle in her hands and cherish before it burns away to nothing. Like everything else does.
