#anyway I’ve said it in game but for you plebs: Sunny’s just out here healing by rubbing bits of whatever into her body

[casualnepotism]

It’s true, it is. I’m not practicing trancing. On instinct, my body turns away to hide the grimace my face is forming at the half-lie. I know it’s as good a tell, apa tells me so every time, but I can’t help it.

My entire body hurts so much. Every bruise on my body is feels self-inflicted. The flames across my chest sear deeper with every breath like they’re branding my actual fuckin lungs. Even my head is pounding, still trying to see through seven sets of fuckin.. ghost eyes; ghost eyes that suddenly don’t exist anymore and now I can’t tell which amount of eyes is worse. My leg screams in frustration, spiking out from the spider bite despite whatever Maelo did to it.

Whatever Maelo did to it.

Whatever Maelo did to it.

Because he’s alive again.

Alive and trying to help. To fix things. Trying to fix our mess when we made it and making everything worse I mean look at Kana and Ace they’re so angry and hurting so much which means so are Cog and Adiane and Dennis is so brave but I know he’s hurting and scared and needs our help and I know he doesn’t care but Jack keeps wanting to talk and I don’t know what I’m going to say I just need to see Nilos and I feel bad cause I’m happy to see Maelo he was my friend he still is he helped me bury-

I said something. I know I did cause he would’ve followed me over here if I hadn’t. I must have said something. The thought follows, as Wol says. Which means I must have also walked over here. Makes sense: I was next to Maelo a second ago and now I’m leaning heavily against some dragon bones. It’s covered in goo but, hey, so am I. Besides, I can see everyone from here.

Everyone is safe. They’re fighting. That’s normal. They’re alive. My hand feels gently along my legs, on autopilot picking up a bone shard to root around in various stabs and rips, making sure there’s nothing big in there that shouldn’t be. Bone discarded, they start pressing harder, pushing bones and muscles back into place. Rubbing circles on new knobbly bits until they feel smooth. The process repeats on my arms.

My hands.

My chest.

My back.

My spine.

My neck.

My skull.

The bruises will fade in time, I’ve learned. Usually. Anything inflicted by one of these gods will stay. The scars and burns and colored marks have always stayed, but that’s good for business.

It’s good. I think. This way of fixing myself after a fight. No one’s noticed, and when they look they don’t care. Ace thinks I’m just rolling my muscles out after a workout. He’s not wrong. It’s relaxing, at any rate. I feel better afterwards. My chest is tighter, every step hurts, and the fuckin pressure behind my eyes is getting worse, but this slows it down. I’m fine.

A quick thirty minutes, and I can go again. I can do this all day.

I haven’t slept since we woke up. I can’t afford to. I don’t have the time. None of us do, but the others get their rest in. I make sure of it. They need their magic back. They need to be ready for the end. Cog needs to be ready-

I didn’t lie. I’m not practicing my trance. I remember trancing. It wasn’t this. It wasn’t. When this is all over, I’ll trance again, under the cherry blossom tree in the backyard, just like we did way back when. It’ll be nice, I think. My entire body won’t be hurting.

It won’t be this.

I. I won’t be this.