Original Ficlet, anyone?
This one is set in what I am tentatively calling the Aspects universe, and stars Sha-Dache, Tora, and Kaz. Aspects is a fantasy universe which at least starts out here in a vaguely medieval setting, albeit one that does not follow our exact timeline. (For one thing, the existence and common acceptance of magic changed quite a few things. More on that later.) Also, the active presence of a schizophrenic God((desse)s) who can't seem to decide if it loves its creations, hates them, or want to just go ahead and wipe them all out spices things up in more way than one.
This particular short story contains spoilers for the first planned story, but let's face it....Sha's name, and the scar on his face, is sort of a spoiler for the first planned story, and anyone who's read the Metaverse fics knows about those.
For those of you hoping for more lady zombies, I apologize; I had to get this one out while I was thinking about it.
Terms that you may need:
kasskein: The name of the tribe species of cat people that Kaz comes from. In full cat form, they look a little like a cross between an ocelot and an iriomote cat, only with a very long prehensile tail like a monkey, and with a whirling pattern on their coats that can't decide if it's rosettes or stripes.
The name is an Anglais (this world's term for English) loanword, derived from the phrase Cat's Kin or Cat Skin (which is what people in that part of the world call ALL cat people.) The kasskein basically adopted the phrase and rendered it in their own pronunciation and spelling. There are whole groups of people who no long remember the actual origins of the name.
Dual Aspected: The in-universe word for shape-shifter. It's not exactly true shape shifting, but that's the easiest term I can think of. Almost all dual aspected have an animal form and human form; in animal form, they have a slightly human look about them, and have noticeably more intelligent eyes than pure animals. In human form, they can never shape shift some little part of their animal form away. (For most of them, this means the ears and the tail; so both Kaz and Tora have the ears and tails of their respective alternative species at all times.)
Pure Human/Animal: Single aspected being, born into a line that can prove it has been pure for at least 7 generations. (Breeding on Aspects is a complicated subject thanks to the existence of shape shifters. And that's all I'm going to say about that for now.)
Heliopath: A fire mage berserker; one who has lost almost all control of their power, and gone so far around the bend mentally speaking that they see everything...EVERYTHING...as nothing but a source of fuel. Including themselves. But they have a nasty tendency to try and burn everything around them before really trying to burn themselves up. Tend to be missing eyelids, lips and the tips of their noses, as the soft bits burn first.
Are most dangerous minutes before death, because that's when they burn hottest and have the least amount of control. Burning hot to the touch, although who first got close enough to determine, and how they survived long enough to report it, is a question for the ages.
Pain and Laughter
or "Ow ow ow my freaking face ow"
Original Fiction from the Aspects Universe
Characters: Sha Dache, Tora Sai-yi, and Katsane
Word Count: 4,036
Warnings: Non-graphic discussion of 3rd degree burns, minor blood, some language. Story rambles a fair bit, and is in DESPERATE NEED OF EDITING. Was written very late at night. Was intended to be about 20 times lighter, but got dark in places. Sorry about that.
Summary:
It has been a month since Sha Dache successfully attacked and killed a fully fledged heliopath, and the effort nearly killed him, too. His extensive burns have finally started to heal somewhat, but Tora is beginning to worry that his spirit may be beyond repair. So, he does what any sensible concerned friend would do when dealing with deeply depressed burn ward patient; force him to spend a day Out in the Fresh Air Because It Is Good For You, Dammit. How could this possibly go wrong?
And can they even get Sha to cooperate with it?
Futhermore, will Tora ever learn to shoot a bow properly? (not in this fic.) Will Kaz ever stop laughing at him?
“I know you are awake.”
“No you don’t. No I’m not. Go ‘way.”
Tora stared down at the bandaged figure on the bed, a frown marring his otherwise handsome features. “You just answered me. I heard you. Kazzy boy here is my witness.”
The small kasskein, currently in feline aspect and lounging at the mage’s feet, glared up at the horse-man before curling up tighter, the tip of his tail brushing the end of his triangle nose. “Well, don’t be any rush to help me or anything, you stripey little flea-bait.” Muttered the horse.
The mage pulled his blanket up further around his nose. “Nonsense. I could very easily be talking in my sleep for all you know.”
“Oh, please, what do you take me for?” snapped the horse impatiently. “You don’t sound a thing like a sleeping person.”
“Pffft…shows what you know. I’ve read a bunch of stuff about people talking really clearly, walking around, and even responding to people and acting rationally, all while fast asleep. How do you know I’m not doing that now?”
Tora sighed deeply, and tried to focus on being patient.
…………………………………………
It had been well over a month since Tora and Katsane had first brought the fire mage in to the abbey, reeking of charred flesh and burnt hair. Weeks since the drama, and Sir Dasshon ne’ Drakeskin’s attempt to revolutionize the social order through treachery and fire. Weeks since the death of King Phillip, who’s throne was still being contested by his nearest relatives. Weeks since Tora had first learned the mage’s real name.
He was still having trouble thinking of him as Sha-Dache. (Seriously, what in frags name were his parents thinking, giving him such an outlandish name…)
Most of that time had been a constant stream of sleepless, anxiety filled nights, interspersed with long stretches of boredom and bedpans. The wounds were extensive….most of his chest above the naval, all up and down his arms, and his hands initially looked like a lost cause. His gloves had practically been fused to his fingers, and it was anyone’s guess if he’d ever be able to move them correctly ever again. And the one on his face…the place where the heliopath had slapped him. The burn covered most of his right cheek, right up to under his eyelid, and with the thumb mark going right alongside the inner corner of his eye.
“He’s lucky he didn’t lose the eye. If he manages to survive this, he’s going to have one hell of a weird looking scar.”
Sha himself had been unconscious for most of the early treatment, a state that was all-too-frequently aided by potent draughts of some sort of evil smelling medicine. Left to his own devices, the mage would stare for hours, glassy eyed and unseeing, at the ceiling, sweating and muttering nonsense phrases to himself. When he slept un-drugged, it was a restless sleep filled with unpleasant dreams. Tora and Kaz had both been obliged to calm him a few times each on those occasions when he would up from some fever dream or another, and fall into a mindless panic because he’d once again forgotten where he was.
Also, with the bandages needing to be changed regularly, sometimes multiple times on the same day, it was considered to be far less painful for the patient if he was unaware of it. So they drugged him. Tora had spent many nights sitting by his bed, staring at the too-still form, silently willing him to keep breathing. Kaz rarely strayed far from the recovery room.
But now, against the odds, the extensive burns were finally starting to heal properly, and the bandages required less frequent changing. More importantly, the mage was spending more and more consecutive time awake and coherent, and the time he spent sleeping requiring almost no medication. He even, with a lot of help, had managed to get up long enough to use the privy; the effort always wiped him out, but it was still a step.
“He’s not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.” The head healer had informed them. “But we’ve progressed far enough that I can comfortably say that he has a chance at making a full recovery. I want to impress upon you that this is a miracle; frankly, the orderlies had a betting pool going on how long young Dasshon was going to survive, and most of the bets measured that time in hours. “
(Tora later found out that Lady Talya, the Crimson Dragon, won a substantial amount by being the only one gambling on the mage’s survival. As soon as he got a chance, he was going to send her flowers for that.)
“But he has shown a much strong will to survive than any of us could possibly have anticipated.”
Oh, just say it. You lot honestly think he meant to kill himself; even after the empath told you that it was more complicated than that, none of you wants to live in a world where someone might attack a full fledged heliopath like that with anything other than suicidal intentions. He swallowed as he thought this, and Kaz had quietly growled next to him. Truthfully, it was a little hard to not interpret Sha’s charge as a suicide attempt; he’s gone after the berserker with a pair of hunting knives, very limited mage craft training, and the clothes on his back for protection.
The one knife that had been recovered was barely recognizable, having been twisted and melted into so much metal slag. Tora didn’t have the heart to throw it away.
“Lady Merrim has made it clear to us that she will be taking Dasshon in as soon as he is well enough to travel, which…simplifies things somewhat.”
(Because otherwise he would have nowhere else to go; he has no real position, and the only relatives that actually give a damn about him are murderous back stabbers. Tell me, if we hadn’t been here…me, Kaz, Lady Merrim, and Crimson Red, could you have measured the amount of time it took you to hand him, burns and all, over to the Order to be tried for treason in hours, minutes, or seconds? Would you have waited for the empathy and the other Speakers to vouch for him? Tora barely managed to keep himself from saying it aloud. It wouldn’t have done any good, and would not have reduced her not entirely unreasonable mistrust.)
“But it will still be some time before I think he will be stable enough for that kind of travel. So, my real question, for both of you, is this: given that you are neither of you blood relatives, and under no REAL obligations…”
(Tora had been forced to surreptitiously grab Kaz by the back of the shirt to keep him from leaping at her with all his claws out. He almost let him. )
“I am once again asking you if the two of you are willing to continue to be responsible for him during this period.”
Kaz had merely nodded once, slowly and deliberately. He didn’t blink once. Tora grinned tightly.
“Someone has to. Might as well be us, seeing as we’re just crazy enough to want him to survive.”
……………………………………………..
Still, in all of that time, apart from the occasional trip to the privy, Sha had not done anything more active than sit up in bed. He rarely spoke unless spoken too first, hadn’t once smiled or shown anything other than a wooden blank expression, and didn’t even seem interested in reading. This was the same mage that would forget to eat or sleep if caught up in a bit of well written history, and used to spend all of his time in the saddle with a book in his lap*.
Frankly, Tora was beginning to seriously worry. It was one thing for him to physically recover; what if he never fully healed mentally? He had expressed this fear to the empathic mind healer the day before, and gotten an amused smirk for his pains.
“Oh, don’t give me that look.” Scolded the blindfolded man.* “I’ve been keeping a better track of his mindscape than you could ever hope to. He’s not so far gone in that area that he can’t recover in time, but how soon that happens is ultimately down to him. You can’t speed that up by fretting over him like this.”
Tora didn’t even bother asking the blind man how he knew what kind of face he was making, and pressed on arguing. “But he just lays there so much. That can’t be good for him on any level. And he’s not acting like himself at all. I…you can’t tell me there is absolutely nothing I can do!”
“Oh, hark to the youngster who knows my job better than I do.” Said the empath in a sing-song voice. “I never said you couldn’t do anything, I said fretting like this will do no good. It may ultimately down to him, but there is no reason why you can’t give him a gentle shove towards recovery. Or a not so gentle one. Opposition can do you a world of good.”
*Tora shuddered to think what would have happened if the mage had gone for a less intelligent mount.
**Alden, the empathic healer, was brought up in the tradition that stated that ‘the eyes can lie, and a true empaths powers can never come to full fruition while over dependent on the misleading burden than is sight.’ So in order to relieve their most promising youngsters of such a burden, they ritually plucked their eyes out and sewed the lids shut.
“Too bad no one realized that the guy who wrote that was pants-on-head crazy until a year after my ceremony.” Alden said once. “It would make chucking things at you lot so much easier.”
Alden was a good mind healer, but the list of qualifications for that apparently didn’t include being particularly personable.
…………………………………………………………
Opposition for him or for me? Tora sighed, and spoke again to the huddled form. “Look, I’m not bah-ing*** over this with you. I’m going out to the archery range to practice with the long bow.”
Kaz snickered. Tora shot him a glare.
“And I think it might do you some good if you came out with me and at least sat on the sidelines for a while. Change of scenery, yeah? Get out into the sunshine for a bit. Healers said you should be hale enough to do that much, ‘slong as you don’t move around too much, or do something stupid like get wet.”
“And how do you propose I get all the way out to the archery field?” came the dry, slightly hoarse from disuse voice. “I believe that falls under the heading of ‘moving around too much.’”
“Please; like I can’t carry you easy enough. You were light even before you tried to attack a crazed fire berserker thing with your teeth, and half your muscle hadn’t been slept away then. “
The mage winced. He wasn’t so out of it that he wasn’t aware of how emaciated he’d become. Truth be told, it was one of the reasons he didn’t want to go outside. “No, I think I’ll stay here. Sunshine is depressing****.”
“Oh, give over.” Said Kaz, suddenly joining the discussion. “You really should come, Dachi. Tzora here ‘ry…ssssr…Trying to hi’ anything with a bow and arrow issss for laughin’. The only thingssss in danger are those tha’ are behind him. Or righ’ above.”
“Ooooh, look at you, getting a single hard ‘t’ in there, well done!” snapped Tora. “Now try it again without all the bloody hissing next time, and we’ll have made some actual progress!”
Sha actually pushed himself into a sitting position (wincing visibly, as he had to use his still bandaged hands to do it), and stiffly placed a finger over the kasskein’s mouth before he could say anything in response. “Ok…IF I consider agreeing to let you carry me outside for a bit, do you to promise to not get into a fist fight while standing over me?”
“It’s a deal!” Said Tora with a grin, throwing the covers back, and scooping the mage up as carefully as he was able. Kaz jumped to the floor with a rude and untranslatable curse, just managing to keep from getting buried in the sheets.
“Wait, wait, I said I’d think about it, put me down!” yelped Sha, flailing uselessly as he was thrown over Tora’s shoulder like an under-stuffed sack of potatoes. “Damn you, horse, put me down this instant!”
“Surely you’ve thought about it by now?” said the horse as he gave the mage’s skinny rump a playful swat. “Come on, we’re wasting daylight!”
“But I’m not dressed! I haven’t bathed! DON’T YOU DARE MAKE ME GO OUT THERE LIKE THIS!”
***bah---derived from the word ‘debate’, is a slang term for ‘arument’, and is used mostly to refer to arguments that the listener believes are worthless and will ultimately go nowhere. See uni-bah (unicorn debate), fee-bah (phoenix debate), or pict-bah (pictsie debate) for varying degrees of pointless arguments.
****The sad part is that he isn’t just making an excuse here. Sha-Dache genuinely did find sunny clear days to be depressing for a variety of reasons, the main one being that all of the worst things that had ever happened to him in his life, through some cruel twist of fate, had happened on gloriously sunny days.
“My life has no fragging sense of narrative. In any decent story, the bad stuff happens on stormy, grey nights, but no, all my shit days have to happen when it’s pleasant out.” He’d muttered once while drunk, and then prepared to expound upon exactly why he believed this.
The group at the table next to him had (most of them trying not to cry), wound up offering to pay him provided he agreed never talk about his childhood ever again. Or at least not where they could hear about it.
……………………………………………………………
“I hate you so much right now.” Said Sha, bandaged arms crossed over bandaged chest as he attempted to cover as much of himself as he could. He was only wearing bandages and loose cloth trousers, and was feeling more than a little exposed.
“You’ll get over it, I’m sure!” said Tora, as he strung his long bow. It was an impressive weapon; made for horse archers rather than pure human archers, it was half again bigger than a normal long bow, and even a seasoned archer would have just about needed specialized equipment to prep it. Tora was bending it into place one-handed, his other hand notching the bow string; he wasn’t even straining to do it.
“Why did you put me up here, anyway?” asked Sha, indicating his seat; a very large fence post, only a few feet away from the archery range. It looked as if somebody had, in putting up the fence, had decided to just cut a very old tree down to size and sand it a bit rather than build around it or completely remove it. It wasn’t a bad seat, being fairly wide, but it was also pretty tall. And it wasn’t the height that bothered him…if he hadn’t been worried about re-injuring his hands, he wouldn’t have thought twice about jumping down and risking the walk back to the infirmary.
“So you wouldn’t try and run off as soon as I put you down, of course.” Laughed the horse, as he notched an arrow to the string.
“I hate you so much right now.” Kaz gave a quiet little laugh, causing Sha to turn towards him. “What do I have to bribe you with to get you to scratch him for me?”
Kat made a rude noise and babbled something that Tora couldn’t understand.
“Do I want to know what he said?”
“Heh, nothing that shocking. All he said was ‘like you have to bribe me to get me to claw the idiot?’”
“Wha…OUCH!” Kaz stepped back and casually licked at his claws while Tora nursed his scratched leg and swore. “You little…gaaah! Did you really have to GOUGE me like that?”
“Tsora is whiner.”
“Tora! Tora! With a hard ‘tuh’ sound! It’s not that difficult!”
Sha made an amused little noise deep in his throat, his lips twitching faintly upward. “Kaz, lay off and apologize, I wasn’t being serious when I said that.”
“Why assssssk if you don’ mean?” Fussed the little kasskein, pulling out a knife and going to an empty target to practice his throws.
“Oh, you weren’t being serious, and the little brat still gouges me! And note that he doesn’t apologize!” snapped Tora, angrily binding the scratch.
“I’ll talk to him later, I promise. Now get to practicing; the sooner you finish, the sooner I can get back inside.”
Tora muttered and got into position.
He wasn’t a completely bad archer, per se. Oh, he was raw as heck, and still a clear beginner, but his stance was decent, he could get the arrow to leave the bow at a reasonable speed, and was capable of actually reaching the targets. He didn’t snap himself or scrape his skin off with the bowstring the way some careless first timers might. He even managed to hit the target once, very near the center.
The problem was that he hit almost everything else around the target before even coming close. The trees behind the target, the ground to the side and behind the target, and a fair number of the targets next to his target were all littered with arrows. The one in front of him had exactly one.
Kaz was pointing at him and laughing loudly.
“Shut up! I’m really new at this, and it’s harder to aim than it looks!” snarled Tora.
“That’s…wow.” Said Sha, his eyes looking a little less dead than they had a few hours ago. He had one hand over his mouth. “That’s weirdly impressive. I still don’t know how you got the target three spaces down from you. Are you quite sure I’m safe up here?”
“You shut up, too. Like you could do any better!” Tora stalked up to the end of the range and re-gathered his arrows, ears flat against his head.
“He couln’ be any worssssssse!” howled Kaz.
“I wouldn’t go that far, Katsane.” Muttered Sha. “I’d be hard pressed to even hold the arrow at the moment, much less pull it back and aim.”
“Ssssssaaaa, then Tsora is more archer than injured mage half his ssssssize. Thissssss, I give him.” He then dodged as the horse took a swipe at him with the bow. “Is only way you can ussssse, yessssss?”
“Least I can speak Anglais better’n you. I don’t sound like a fragging idiot every time I open my mouth.”
“…Tora, he started learning it less than 12 months ago. You’ve been speaking it most of your life. That…that really isn’t something you should be bragging about.”
“Hey, if he can make fun of my crappy arrow shooting, which I took up less than a month ago, then his crappy Anglais is fair game.”
“I can use weapon.” Said Kaz with a smirk, bringing out a small hunting bow. “Also, I can ssssspeak good in my own language. Whaaaaassss issss your excussssse?” He took aim and shot. Against the laws of narrative, it wasn’t a bulls eye. But it was pretty damn close.
Tora gritted his teeth, and grimly took aim.
Five quivers later, he’d only successfully landed 7 shots anywhere near the center, and only about half his total shot had even hit the right target. Kaz, on the other hand, was consistently hitting the center dot with nearly every shot, and had landed more than one perfectly. Unnoticed behind them, Sha had both his hands pressed against his mouth; his green eyes were dancing with suppressed laughter. It was only a matter of time.
Tora was fed up with Kaz at this point. He waited until the kasskein was taking his next shot. Creeping up behind him, he reached out; just as the cat boy was about to let go of the arrow, he grabbed his long, twitching tail at the base, and gently, almost caressingly, ran his hand down the length.
Kaz yowled and reflexively let go of the arrow; it soared up into the air, almost vertically, and landed several feet away…behind them. Tora let out a whoop of laugheter, and just managed to dodge when Kaz turned around and took a swipe at him.
It might have turned into a real fight then if Sha hadn’t chosen just that moment to screech in pain.
They were both at his side before they fully realized that they had started running; Kaz was obliged to climb the post and carefully sit next to him.
Sha was bent over almost double with laughter, intercut with quite little ‘ows’. His face was in his hands, and he wouldn’t look up.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” said Tora, placing his one hand on his back. “Sha, look at me! What happened?”
“Haaaa ha haaa ow ow ow ow heee heee…” gasped the mage. “N…no…it’s…it’s really nothing…but…ahh hah hah owowowowowowow you two…aaaaaa.”
Tora finally succeeded in getting Sha to lift his head slightly, and he swore quietly when he saw it. The mage had tears poring down his cheeks, and he had his fingers pressed to either side of his mouth, apparently trying to keep them in place. The bandages on his face had a spreading red stain blossoming on them. Kaz made a distressed noise.
“I…it’s just that it really…heee hee ow, really hurts to smile right now, an…and I can’t stop…” explained the mage between gasps.
“Bloody frag, Sha, what am I going to do with you.” Muttered Tora, rubbing his hand gently up and down Sha’s back. (It was one of the few places that he knew was safe to touch.) “Kaz…go get one of the healers, and warn them that we need to do another bandage change? Tell him the one on his face reopened.”
“Oh noooooo….” Moaned the mage; even through laughter, he managed to sound distressed.
Kaz had already switched aspects, and was running off in feline form, his tail held high. It only occurred to Tora later, after he got an earful from the irritated healer, that Kaz’s less than perfect grasp of the Anglais tongue got even worse when he was upset. At the time, he was too busy gently hugging the huddled mage, making quiet noises of comfort.
Sha-Dache, for his part, had finally calmed down enough that he was no longer having to fight the urge to smile. He didn’t take his hands from his face, though.
“I am so, so, so sorry.” Muttered Tora over and over again, almost to himself, as he very carefully lifted the mage. “Should never have forced you to…”
Sha shook his head. “No, no, don’t…it’s…don’t apologize for that. You didn’t…we didn’t know that would happen. ‘Sides…it was worth it.”
“What was?”
Sha giggled quietly. “That last shot…Kaz’s last shot. Totally worth the pain, seeing that.”
“Heh…fragments, yes.” He hugged the mage a little tighter, walking as carefully as he could.
………………………………………..
Overall, it took Sha several more months to completely recover from his wounds, and even longer to proper recover the use of his fingers. (His handwriting was never the same after.) But almost everyone agreed that it was after that day that he really made a turn for the better.
He started to read again the next day, his face lost the wooden look, and he even started to voluntarily talk to people more. He was still having nightmares, but they were far less frequent. Heck, he even voluntarily asked to go outside every so often, and started to act like he cared about getting better enough to do it on his own.
Only a new rule had to be implemented, and was in place almost up to the point when the bandage on his face was finally ready to come off:
No making the fragging mage smile, ok?
Note: I based the punchline (if you can call it that) of this story off of something that happened to me in real life. It was right after I had dental surgery done on my gums...there was a period of about a week and a half or so where I could not risk laughing or smiling too much, or I risked pulling the stitches out. So, of course, as soon as I was well enough to get out of bed, I kept running into people...who kept on insisting on telling me jokes.
Everything seemed so much funnier just because I wasn't allowed to laugh. Cue me huddling over a lot and holding the sides of my mouth, trying my damnedest to keep from smiling too big. Eventually, mom started to warn people to not make me laugh.
This somehow lead to me wondering what might happen if someone had a healing wound right next to their mouth. That's when I got the mental image of Sha holding his mouth, laughing, crying, and muttering ow all at the same time...
Blerg. Leave it to me to write a story that takes place between two stories that I haven't finished writing yet. Anyways, it's way to late, and I'm going to bed.
I guess I'll come back and correct stuff later. Or delete this entry. Whatever.
This particular short story contains spoilers for the first planned story, but let's face it....Sha's name, and the scar on his face, is sort of a spoiler for the first planned story, and anyone who's read the Metaverse fics knows about those.
For those of you hoping for more lady zombies, I apologize; I had to get this one out while I was thinking about it.
Terms that you may need:
kasskein: The name of the tribe species of cat people that Kaz comes from. In full cat form, they look a little like a cross between an ocelot and an iriomote cat, only with a very long prehensile tail like a monkey, and with a whirling pattern on their coats that can't decide if it's rosettes or stripes.
The name is an Anglais (this world's term for English) loanword, derived from the phrase Cat's Kin or Cat Skin (which is what people in that part of the world call ALL cat people.) The kasskein basically adopted the phrase and rendered it in their own pronunciation and spelling. There are whole groups of people who no long remember the actual origins of the name.
Dual Aspected: The in-universe word for shape-shifter. It's not exactly true shape shifting, but that's the easiest term I can think of. Almost all dual aspected have an animal form and human form; in animal form, they have a slightly human look about them, and have noticeably more intelligent eyes than pure animals. In human form, they can never shape shift some little part of their animal form away. (For most of them, this means the ears and the tail; so both Kaz and Tora have the ears and tails of their respective alternative species at all times.)
Pure Human/Animal: Single aspected being, born into a line that can prove it has been pure for at least 7 generations. (Breeding on Aspects is a complicated subject thanks to the existence of shape shifters. And that's all I'm going to say about that for now.)
Heliopath: A fire mage berserker; one who has lost almost all control of their power, and gone so far around the bend mentally speaking that they see everything...EVERYTHING...as nothing but a source of fuel. Including themselves. But they have a nasty tendency to try and burn everything around them before really trying to burn themselves up. Tend to be missing eyelids, lips and the tips of their noses, as the soft bits burn first.
Are most dangerous minutes before death, because that's when they burn hottest and have the least amount of control. Burning hot to the touch, although who first got close enough to determine, and how they survived long enough to report it, is a question for the ages.
Pain and Laughter
or "Ow ow ow my freaking face ow"
Original Fiction from the Aspects Universe
Characters: Sha Dache, Tora Sai-yi, and Katsane
Word Count: 4,036
Warnings: Non-graphic discussion of 3rd degree burns, minor blood, some language. Story rambles a fair bit, and is in DESPERATE NEED OF EDITING. Was written very late at night. Was intended to be about 20 times lighter, but got dark in places. Sorry about that.
Summary:
It has been a month since Sha Dache successfully attacked and killed a fully fledged heliopath, and the effort nearly killed him, too. His extensive burns have finally started to heal somewhat, but Tora is beginning to worry that his spirit may be beyond repair. So, he does what any sensible concerned friend would do when dealing with deeply depressed burn ward patient; force him to spend a day Out in the Fresh Air Because It Is Good For You, Dammit. How could this possibly go wrong?
And can they even get Sha to cooperate with it?
Futhermore, will Tora ever learn to shoot a bow properly? (not in this fic.) Will Kaz ever stop laughing at him?
“I know you are awake.”
“No you don’t. No I’m not. Go ‘way.”
Tora stared down at the bandaged figure on the bed, a frown marring his otherwise handsome features. “You just answered me. I heard you. Kazzy boy here is my witness.”
The small kasskein, currently in feline aspect and lounging at the mage’s feet, glared up at the horse-man before curling up tighter, the tip of his tail brushing the end of his triangle nose. “Well, don’t be any rush to help me or anything, you stripey little flea-bait.” Muttered the horse.
The mage pulled his blanket up further around his nose. “Nonsense. I could very easily be talking in my sleep for all you know.”
“Oh, please, what do you take me for?” snapped the horse impatiently. “You don’t sound a thing like a sleeping person.”
“Pffft…shows what you know. I’ve read a bunch of stuff about people talking really clearly, walking around, and even responding to people and acting rationally, all while fast asleep. How do you know I’m not doing that now?”
Tora sighed deeply, and tried to focus on being patient.
…………………………………………
It had been well over a month since Tora and Katsane had first brought the fire mage in to the abbey, reeking of charred flesh and burnt hair. Weeks since the drama, and Sir Dasshon ne’ Drakeskin’s attempt to revolutionize the social order through treachery and fire. Weeks since the death of King Phillip, who’s throne was still being contested by his nearest relatives. Weeks since Tora had first learned the mage’s real name.
He was still having trouble thinking of him as Sha-Dache. (Seriously, what in frags name were his parents thinking, giving him such an outlandish name…)
Most of that time had been a constant stream of sleepless, anxiety filled nights, interspersed with long stretches of boredom and bedpans. The wounds were extensive….most of his chest above the naval, all up and down his arms, and his hands initially looked like a lost cause. His gloves had practically been fused to his fingers, and it was anyone’s guess if he’d ever be able to move them correctly ever again. And the one on his face…the place where the heliopath had slapped him. The burn covered most of his right cheek, right up to under his eyelid, and with the thumb mark going right alongside the inner corner of his eye.
“He’s lucky he didn’t lose the eye. If he manages to survive this, he’s going to have one hell of a weird looking scar.”
Sha himself had been unconscious for most of the early treatment, a state that was all-too-frequently aided by potent draughts of some sort of evil smelling medicine. Left to his own devices, the mage would stare for hours, glassy eyed and unseeing, at the ceiling, sweating and muttering nonsense phrases to himself. When he slept un-drugged, it was a restless sleep filled with unpleasant dreams. Tora and Kaz had both been obliged to calm him a few times each on those occasions when he would up from some fever dream or another, and fall into a mindless panic because he’d once again forgotten where he was.
Also, with the bandages needing to be changed regularly, sometimes multiple times on the same day, it was considered to be far less painful for the patient if he was unaware of it. So they drugged him. Tora had spent many nights sitting by his bed, staring at the too-still form, silently willing him to keep breathing. Kaz rarely strayed far from the recovery room.
But now, against the odds, the extensive burns were finally starting to heal properly, and the bandages required less frequent changing. More importantly, the mage was spending more and more consecutive time awake and coherent, and the time he spent sleeping requiring almost no medication. He even, with a lot of help, had managed to get up long enough to use the privy; the effort always wiped him out, but it was still a step.
“He’s not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.” The head healer had informed them. “But we’ve progressed far enough that I can comfortably say that he has a chance at making a full recovery. I want to impress upon you that this is a miracle; frankly, the orderlies had a betting pool going on how long young Dasshon was going to survive, and most of the bets measured that time in hours. “
(Tora later found out that Lady Talya, the Crimson Dragon, won a substantial amount by being the only one gambling on the mage’s survival. As soon as he got a chance, he was going to send her flowers for that.)
“But he has shown a much strong will to survive than any of us could possibly have anticipated.”
Oh, just say it. You lot honestly think he meant to kill himself; even after the empath told you that it was more complicated than that, none of you wants to live in a world where someone might attack a full fledged heliopath like that with anything other than suicidal intentions. He swallowed as he thought this, and Kaz had quietly growled next to him. Truthfully, it was a little hard to not interpret Sha’s charge as a suicide attempt; he’s gone after the berserker with a pair of hunting knives, very limited mage craft training, and the clothes on his back for protection.
The one knife that had been recovered was barely recognizable, having been twisted and melted into so much metal slag. Tora didn’t have the heart to throw it away.
“Lady Merrim has made it clear to us that she will be taking Dasshon in as soon as he is well enough to travel, which…simplifies things somewhat.”
(Because otherwise he would have nowhere else to go; he has no real position, and the only relatives that actually give a damn about him are murderous back stabbers. Tell me, if we hadn’t been here…me, Kaz, Lady Merrim, and Crimson Red, could you have measured the amount of time it took you to hand him, burns and all, over to the Order to be tried for treason in hours, minutes, or seconds? Would you have waited for the empathy and the other Speakers to vouch for him? Tora barely managed to keep himself from saying it aloud. It wouldn’t have done any good, and would not have reduced her not entirely unreasonable mistrust.)
“But it will still be some time before I think he will be stable enough for that kind of travel. So, my real question, for both of you, is this: given that you are neither of you blood relatives, and under no REAL obligations…”
(Tora had been forced to surreptitiously grab Kaz by the back of the shirt to keep him from leaping at her with all his claws out. He almost let him. )
“I am once again asking you if the two of you are willing to continue to be responsible for him during this period.”
Kaz had merely nodded once, slowly and deliberately. He didn’t blink once. Tora grinned tightly.
“Someone has to. Might as well be us, seeing as we’re just crazy enough to want him to survive.”
……………………………………………..
Still, in all of that time, apart from the occasional trip to the privy, Sha had not done anything more active than sit up in bed. He rarely spoke unless spoken too first, hadn’t once smiled or shown anything other than a wooden blank expression, and didn’t even seem interested in reading. This was the same mage that would forget to eat or sleep if caught up in a bit of well written history, and used to spend all of his time in the saddle with a book in his lap*.
Frankly, Tora was beginning to seriously worry. It was one thing for him to physically recover; what if he never fully healed mentally? He had expressed this fear to the empathic mind healer the day before, and gotten an amused smirk for his pains.
“Oh, don’t give me that look.” Scolded the blindfolded man.* “I’ve been keeping a better track of his mindscape than you could ever hope to. He’s not so far gone in that area that he can’t recover in time, but how soon that happens is ultimately down to him. You can’t speed that up by fretting over him like this.”
Tora didn’t even bother asking the blind man how he knew what kind of face he was making, and pressed on arguing. “But he just lays there so much. That can’t be good for him on any level. And he’s not acting like himself at all. I…you can’t tell me there is absolutely nothing I can do!”
“Oh, hark to the youngster who knows my job better than I do.” Said the empath in a sing-song voice. “I never said you couldn’t do anything, I said fretting like this will do no good. It may ultimately down to him, but there is no reason why you can’t give him a gentle shove towards recovery. Or a not so gentle one. Opposition can do you a world of good.”
*Tora shuddered to think what would have happened if the mage had gone for a less intelligent mount.
**Alden, the empathic healer, was brought up in the tradition that stated that ‘the eyes can lie, and a true empaths powers can never come to full fruition while over dependent on the misleading burden than is sight.’ So in order to relieve their most promising youngsters of such a burden, they ritually plucked their eyes out and sewed the lids shut.
“Too bad no one realized that the guy who wrote that was pants-on-head crazy until a year after my ceremony.” Alden said once. “It would make chucking things at you lot so much easier.”
Alden was a good mind healer, but the list of qualifications for that apparently didn’t include being particularly personable.
…………………………………………………………
Opposition for him or for me? Tora sighed, and spoke again to the huddled form. “Look, I’m not bah-ing*** over this with you. I’m going out to the archery range to practice with the long bow.”
Kaz snickered. Tora shot him a glare.
“And I think it might do you some good if you came out with me and at least sat on the sidelines for a while. Change of scenery, yeah? Get out into the sunshine for a bit. Healers said you should be hale enough to do that much, ‘slong as you don’t move around too much, or do something stupid like get wet.”
“And how do you propose I get all the way out to the archery field?” came the dry, slightly hoarse from disuse voice. “I believe that falls under the heading of ‘moving around too much.’”
“Please; like I can’t carry you easy enough. You were light even before you tried to attack a crazed fire berserker thing with your teeth, and half your muscle hadn’t been slept away then. “
The mage winced. He wasn’t so out of it that he wasn’t aware of how emaciated he’d become. Truth be told, it was one of the reasons he didn’t want to go outside. “No, I think I’ll stay here. Sunshine is depressing****.”
“Oh, give over.” Said Kaz, suddenly joining the discussion. “You really should come, Dachi. Tzora here ‘ry…ssssr…Trying to hi’ anything with a bow and arrow issss for laughin’. The only thingssss in danger are those tha’ are behind him. Or righ’ above.”
“Ooooh, look at you, getting a single hard ‘t’ in there, well done!” snapped Tora. “Now try it again without all the bloody hissing next time, and we’ll have made some actual progress!”
Sha actually pushed himself into a sitting position (wincing visibly, as he had to use his still bandaged hands to do it), and stiffly placed a finger over the kasskein’s mouth before he could say anything in response. “Ok…IF I consider agreeing to let you carry me outside for a bit, do you to promise to not get into a fist fight while standing over me?”
“It’s a deal!” Said Tora with a grin, throwing the covers back, and scooping the mage up as carefully as he was able. Kaz jumped to the floor with a rude and untranslatable curse, just managing to keep from getting buried in the sheets.
“Wait, wait, I said I’d think about it, put me down!” yelped Sha, flailing uselessly as he was thrown over Tora’s shoulder like an under-stuffed sack of potatoes. “Damn you, horse, put me down this instant!”
“Surely you’ve thought about it by now?” said the horse as he gave the mage’s skinny rump a playful swat. “Come on, we’re wasting daylight!”
“But I’m not dressed! I haven’t bathed! DON’T YOU DARE MAKE ME GO OUT THERE LIKE THIS!”
***bah---derived from the word ‘debate’, is a slang term for ‘arument’, and is used mostly to refer to arguments that the listener believes are worthless and will ultimately go nowhere. See uni-bah (unicorn debate), fee-bah (phoenix debate), or pict-bah (pictsie debate) for varying degrees of pointless arguments.
****The sad part is that he isn’t just making an excuse here. Sha-Dache genuinely did find sunny clear days to be depressing for a variety of reasons, the main one being that all of the worst things that had ever happened to him in his life, through some cruel twist of fate, had happened on gloriously sunny days.
“My life has no fragging sense of narrative. In any decent story, the bad stuff happens on stormy, grey nights, but no, all my shit days have to happen when it’s pleasant out.” He’d muttered once while drunk, and then prepared to expound upon exactly why he believed this.
The group at the table next to him had (most of them trying not to cry), wound up offering to pay him provided he agreed never talk about his childhood ever again. Or at least not where they could hear about it.
……………………………………………………………
“I hate you so much right now.” Said Sha, bandaged arms crossed over bandaged chest as he attempted to cover as much of himself as he could. He was only wearing bandages and loose cloth trousers, and was feeling more than a little exposed.
“You’ll get over it, I’m sure!” said Tora, as he strung his long bow. It was an impressive weapon; made for horse archers rather than pure human archers, it was half again bigger than a normal long bow, and even a seasoned archer would have just about needed specialized equipment to prep it. Tora was bending it into place one-handed, his other hand notching the bow string; he wasn’t even straining to do it.
“Why did you put me up here, anyway?” asked Sha, indicating his seat; a very large fence post, only a few feet away from the archery range. It looked as if somebody had, in putting up the fence, had decided to just cut a very old tree down to size and sand it a bit rather than build around it or completely remove it. It wasn’t a bad seat, being fairly wide, but it was also pretty tall. And it wasn’t the height that bothered him…if he hadn’t been worried about re-injuring his hands, he wouldn’t have thought twice about jumping down and risking the walk back to the infirmary.
“So you wouldn’t try and run off as soon as I put you down, of course.” Laughed the horse, as he notched an arrow to the string.
“I hate you so much right now.” Kaz gave a quiet little laugh, causing Sha to turn towards him. “What do I have to bribe you with to get you to scratch him for me?”
Kat made a rude noise and babbled something that Tora couldn’t understand.
“Do I want to know what he said?”
“Heh, nothing that shocking. All he said was ‘like you have to bribe me to get me to claw the idiot?’”
“Wha…OUCH!” Kaz stepped back and casually licked at his claws while Tora nursed his scratched leg and swore. “You little…gaaah! Did you really have to GOUGE me like that?”
“Tsora is whiner.”
“Tora! Tora! With a hard ‘tuh’ sound! It’s not that difficult!”
Sha made an amused little noise deep in his throat, his lips twitching faintly upward. “Kaz, lay off and apologize, I wasn’t being serious when I said that.”
“Why assssssk if you don’ mean?” Fussed the little kasskein, pulling out a knife and going to an empty target to practice his throws.
“Oh, you weren’t being serious, and the little brat still gouges me! And note that he doesn’t apologize!” snapped Tora, angrily binding the scratch.
“I’ll talk to him later, I promise. Now get to practicing; the sooner you finish, the sooner I can get back inside.”
Tora muttered and got into position.
He wasn’t a completely bad archer, per se. Oh, he was raw as heck, and still a clear beginner, but his stance was decent, he could get the arrow to leave the bow at a reasonable speed, and was capable of actually reaching the targets. He didn’t snap himself or scrape his skin off with the bowstring the way some careless first timers might. He even managed to hit the target once, very near the center.
The problem was that he hit almost everything else around the target before even coming close. The trees behind the target, the ground to the side and behind the target, and a fair number of the targets next to his target were all littered with arrows. The one in front of him had exactly one.
Kaz was pointing at him and laughing loudly.
“Shut up! I’m really new at this, and it’s harder to aim than it looks!” snarled Tora.
“That’s…wow.” Said Sha, his eyes looking a little less dead than they had a few hours ago. He had one hand over his mouth. “That’s weirdly impressive. I still don’t know how you got the target three spaces down from you. Are you quite sure I’m safe up here?”
“You shut up, too. Like you could do any better!” Tora stalked up to the end of the range and re-gathered his arrows, ears flat against his head.
“He couln’ be any worssssssse!” howled Kaz.
“I wouldn’t go that far, Katsane.” Muttered Sha. “I’d be hard pressed to even hold the arrow at the moment, much less pull it back and aim.”
“Ssssssaaaa, then Tsora is more archer than injured mage half his ssssssize. Thissssss, I give him.” He then dodged as the horse took a swipe at him with the bow. “Is only way you can ussssse, yessssss?”
“Least I can speak Anglais better’n you. I don’t sound like a fragging idiot every time I open my mouth.”
“…Tora, he started learning it less than 12 months ago. You’ve been speaking it most of your life. That…that really isn’t something you should be bragging about.”
“Hey, if he can make fun of my crappy arrow shooting, which I took up less than a month ago, then his crappy Anglais is fair game.”
“I can use weapon.” Said Kaz with a smirk, bringing out a small hunting bow. “Also, I can ssssspeak good in my own language. Whaaaaassss issss your excussssse?” He took aim and shot. Against the laws of narrative, it wasn’t a bulls eye. But it was pretty damn close.
Tora gritted his teeth, and grimly took aim.
Five quivers later, he’d only successfully landed 7 shots anywhere near the center, and only about half his total shot had even hit the right target. Kaz, on the other hand, was consistently hitting the center dot with nearly every shot, and had landed more than one perfectly. Unnoticed behind them, Sha had both his hands pressed against his mouth; his green eyes were dancing with suppressed laughter. It was only a matter of time.
Tora was fed up with Kaz at this point. He waited until the kasskein was taking his next shot. Creeping up behind him, he reached out; just as the cat boy was about to let go of the arrow, he grabbed his long, twitching tail at the base, and gently, almost caressingly, ran his hand down the length.
Kaz yowled and reflexively let go of the arrow; it soared up into the air, almost vertically, and landed several feet away…behind them. Tora let out a whoop of laugheter, and just managed to dodge when Kaz turned around and took a swipe at him.
It might have turned into a real fight then if Sha hadn’t chosen just that moment to screech in pain.
They were both at his side before they fully realized that they had started running; Kaz was obliged to climb the post and carefully sit next to him.
Sha was bent over almost double with laughter, intercut with quite little ‘ows’. His face was in his hands, and he wouldn’t look up.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” said Tora, placing his one hand on his back. “Sha, look at me! What happened?”
“Haaaa ha haaa ow ow ow ow heee heee…” gasped the mage. “N…no…it’s…it’s really nothing…but…ahh hah hah owowowowowowow you two…aaaaaa.”
Tora finally succeeded in getting Sha to lift his head slightly, and he swore quietly when he saw it. The mage had tears poring down his cheeks, and he had his fingers pressed to either side of his mouth, apparently trying to keep them in place. The bandages on his face had a spreading red stain blossoming on them. Kaz made a distressed noise.
“I…it’s just that it really…heee hee ow, really hurts to smile right now, an…and I can’t stop…” explained the mage between gasps.
“Bloody frag, Sha, what am I going to do with you.” Muttered Tora, rubbing his hand gently up and down Sha’s back. (It was one of the few places that he knew was safe to touch.) “Kaz…go get one of the healers, and warn them that we need to do another bandage change? Tell him the one on his face reopened.”
“Oh noooooo….” Moaned the mage; even through laughter, he managed to sound distressed.
Kaz had already switched aspects, and was running off in feline form, his tail held high. It only occurred to Tora later, after he got an earful from the irritated healer, that Kaz’s less than perfect grasp of the Anglais tongue got even worse when he was upset. At the time, he was too busy gently hugging the huddled mage, making quiet noises of comfort.
Sha-Dache, for his part, had finally calmed down enough that he was no longer having to fight the urge to smile. He didn’t take his hands from his face, though.
“I am so, so, so sorry.” Muttered Tora over and over again, almost to himself, as he very carefully lifted the mage. “Should never have forced you to…”
Sha shook his head. “No, no, don’t…it’s…don’t apologize for that. You didn’t…we didn’t know that would happen. ‘Sides…it was worth it.”
“What was?”
Sha giggled quietly. “That last shot…Kaz’s last shot. Totally worth the pain, seeing that.”
“Heh…fragments, yes.” He hugged the mage a little tighter, walking as carefully as he could.
………………………………………..
Overall, it took Sha several more months to completely recover from his wounds, and even longer to proper recover the use of his fingers. (His handwriting was never the same after.) But almost everyone agreed that it was after that day that he really made a turn for the better.
He started to read again the next day, his face lost the wooden look, and he even started to voluntarily talk to people more. He was still having nightmares, but they were far less frequent. Heck, he even voluntarily asked to go outside every so often, and started to act like he cared about getting better enough to do it on his own.
Only a new rule had to be implemented, and was in place almost up to the point when the bandage on his face was finally ready to come off:
No making the fragging mage smile, ok?
Note: I based the punchline (if you can call it that) of this story off of something that happened to me in real life. It was right after I had dental surgery done on my gums...there was a period of about a week and a half or so where I could not risk laughing or smiling too much, or I risked pulling the stitches out. So, of course, as soon as I was well enough to get out of bed, I kept running into people...who kept on insisting on telling me jokes.
Everything seemed so much funnier just because I wasn't allowed to laugh. Cue me huddling over a lot and holding the sides of my mouth, trying my damnedest to keep from smiling too big. Eventually, mom started to warn people to not make me laugh.
This somehow lead to me wondering what might happen if someone had a healing wound right next to their mouth. That's when I got the mental image of Sha holding his mouth, laughing, crying, and muttering ow all at the same time...
Blerg. Leave it to me to write a story that takes place between two stories that I haven't finished writing yet. Anyways, it's way to late, and I'm going to bed.
I guess I'll come back and correct stuff later. Or delete this entry. Whatever.