Private Midnight in a Perfect World

[Colette]

A dull pain throbbed against her temples. The sound of her heartbeat grew steadier by the moment until eventually Colette woke up in darkness. She panicked for a moment. She knew this wasn't death, but it certainly reminded her of the closest she'd ever gotten to tasting it.

The world slowly faded into reality in different shades of grey. Shapes meant vision, vision meant life. She felt her heart beat with a steadily calmer pace. She was okay, she was safe, and more than that she wasn't alone. Her hand grabbed at the blanket on her bed to gently lift it off of herself. Her feet touched the ground with a gentle tap, hand rubbing at strangely tired eyes as she sighed to herself.

"Hello?" She grumbled at the figure in the window. Her freshly awoken legs dragged her bare feet across the ground, brushing the fabric of her medical wear together with a quiet hiss.

Blurry as it was, she could make out the shape of Theed through the window. Given the dark it must have been somewhere around midnight or sometime in the hours between night and dawn. Colette leaned against the windowframe and let out a tired groan.

"How long was I out?"

Ala Quin

 

[Ala Quin]

Her back hurt.

It was all part of the process. Ala had always felt what she had been told was "residual sympathy pains" from intense healing attempts. Whatever it was, it made her feel her age. She had groaned no less than five times in the last few minutes.

When Colette stirred, Ala had simply watched to make sure that her fellow council member did not slip or fall. Had Colette done so, Ala could have been there to catch her before she hit the ground. Even if she had groaned while doing so.

"About four minutes longer than myself," Ala said with a muted smile.

She offered a quick appraisal of Colette's state. "You look like crap...but I feel like crap...so we are probably about even..." Her eyes sparkled with half-energised mischief as she sidled up beside Colette and rested her hand on her shoulder.

"Seriously though, you doing alright?" Ala said, eyes searching beyond whatever assurances Colette might offer, "that was some pretty gnarly stuff we encountered."

| Colette |​

 

[Colette]

Ala Quin

"I'm fine." Colette said and continued to look out the window. "I don't remember much other than a brief moment of relief that what I was about to collapse into wasn't dark bile from the abyss — just vomit."

The smell in this room was all too familiar. It was sterile, safe, and utterly devoid of character. At least it felt better than the ground had roughly a hundred seconds ago. Or rather, what felt like a hundred seconds ago.

A hand trailed along the cheek that had planted itself in that puddle. It had been washed thoroughly, that much was certain.

"I remember holding your shoulder." Colette frowned. "Immediately getting washed over with this—"

"This weird feeling of dread, and remorse as if I had lost something close to me. Anxiety, and panic. Things that I usually manage to keep under control." She turned to catch the glimpse in Ala's eyes. "What did we encounter?"

 

[Ala Quin]

It was only with Colette's recounting that Ala felt the missing pieces of her memory fall into place. Gnarly, indeed. She had remembered some of the sights, sounds...but not the key that unlocked the door to their shared trauma.

Her smile faltered. "That was me..."

How much she should open up was still hard to know. She was Grandmaster. Did that mean she was responsible to maintain a facade of infallibility? Or should she express how deeply Lorn's departure had effected her?

"...I apologise for what you were subjected too."

Her attention was directed out over the city of Theed. Even at night, the city was alive. And impossibly more beautiful. Despite this, Ala felt her ability to appreciate it all to be...diminished.

"A recent loss has opened old wounds."

| Colette |​

 

[Colette]

Ala Quin

Did she mean Lorn by 'recent loss' or not? Colette shot a half-worried, half-sympathetic look at Ala for a moment before she gazed out upon Theed again.

"Don't worry about it." She said and shrugged. "It takes a lot to kill me, apparently. Nothing a few breathing exercises and meditation won't fix in the long run." Colette stammered for a moment at the realization. "F-for me, I mean."

The quartermaster cleared her throat and looked back over at her bed. The air in this place was horrid.

"Wanna get out of here?" She asked and turned back to Ala. "I know a decent sushi place not too far from here, and frankly I've had seen enough of hospitals to last a lifetime."

"It would be a good chance to get to know each other better."