They woke to pain and gasping breaths. Critter lay on the cool stone floor, every inch of them aching. Their breaths slowly evened out and they rolled onto their front, moaning quietly. They looked themself over, finding cracked scales around bruised points of impact from their fall down the stairs. They reached up to feel around their neck where they had been choked and found some missing scales along with the cracked ones. Critter closed their eyes again, moving each limb, tail first, then legs then arms. When they reached their left wrist they yelped as the bones slid. The yelp trailed to a whimper as they heard the door open at the top of the stairs. The footsteps were slow, steady, and it took almost a full minute for them to reach the bottom of the stairs. Feet came into view, then legs then Lyla’s face as she crouched down to look them over.
“You’re going to have to clean your act up by the weekend. I won’t have you embarrassing me.” She stroked a finger over their crest, which was just as bruised as the rest of them. They suppressed a moan of pain, hoping that maybe if they were quiet and didn’t fight she wouldn’t hurt them more.
Please don’t hurt me more.
She continued stroking them, down their back and over their shoulders. She was being gentle, only touching lightly, never pressing, but it still hurt and they shuddered.
“I’ll be bringing you upstairs more, keeping you down here won’t do you any good.” She trailed down their left arm, they stiffened as she approached their wrist. “But you run like that again and the consequence will be much worse than being thrown down the stairs.”
She reached their wrist and they flinched then trilled loudly as she tightened her grip around the broken bone.
“I’ll give you one chance to quiet that down.”
They were already whimpering, the trill over, and that was shoved back down their throat as fast as they could. Lyla released their wrist and they held back a whine.
“Better. I’ll call Doctor Gregor to set that, can’t have it healing wrong.”