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Azwel hadn't returned from the raid. And when he is found, he's in dreadful shape--frostbitten and lacerated and profoundly unconscious. And yet every once in a while he groans, his voice nearly gone, broken words about voices and the cold and the wind. He shivers no matter how many blankets are piled onto him.
Time passes, the Winter breaks, the Hospital is opened again, and Azwel is found and placed in a room where he lies silent under the monitors and amid the tubes and wires, motionless. And so many days later, his eyes ease open. He stares up at the (unfamiliar) ceiling, blinking quietly. With some difficulty he tracks his eyes right and left, taking in the room and the machines whose provenance he can only guess at. He's too weak to even object to their presence, much less detach them. A dull pain washes in and out like a confused tide, sometimes sneaking up on him, other times crashing over him. He stares at the machines for what feels like hours. It is, in reality, five minutes before his eyes fall shut again.
Time passes, hours into days, and he finds himself looking at that ceiling again. Progressively, with every breath, a burning pain steals into his nerves. Quite different to the ache and stab of injuries, muffled by drugs, this burns through all other sensation. It steals his breath and makes him shudder. He squeezes his eyes shut again and moans stringily. This is apparently enough to summon a nurse who, despite asking many questions, cannot find the source of Azwel's mounting pain because Azwel, himself, cannot. It's only after a dose of a painkiller that leaves him woozy that he can even puzzle it out, though he has to do so in the short intervals that he's awake.
It's the shards of the Cursed Sword and the Spirit sword or, more accurately, their absence, that's responsible. It takes Azwel far too long to explain why he needs them to the baffled medical staff but, eventually, they're brought to him. Maybe the staff understood what he was trying to say, maybe they were simply humouring him. But the moment the shards are brought to him he feels that terrible nerve pain start to recede.
He doesn't actually put the gauntlets on--that'd impede use of his hands far too much, especially in the weakened state he's still in. Rather, it is enough to simply place them nearby, on the table next to the bed. He's told the crystalline settings pulse with light when he sleeps, giving a low, quiet, rhythmic ringing sound.
They bring him food now that the portals are functional again. Sometimes he can even keep it down. They speak of the slow, steady receding of the Winter. He'll believe it when he sees it. They tell him Henry's parents had been found, that they'd gone from dimension to dimension looking for him. This, at least, brings a vague smile to Azwel's face. When the family stop in to thank him and to say goodbye, the little boy climbs up onto the bed and hugs him fiercely. "Goodbye, little one," he whispers, holding the child briefly before letting him go, letting him return to his family and his home.
It's for the best, really. A life like his isn't one to add a child to, no matter what any Outer Goddesses might say. Or maybe that's just the pain and weariness talking.
"Is he going to be all right?" Henry's mother asks softly once outside the room. She glances back in through the window, seeing the man has already fallen asleep, again, twitching in his dreams. Henry clings to her leg, looking up with round eyes at the scrub-clad albinoid nurse with her dark goggles and cloud of hair and short antennae.
The nurse gives a small sigh. "Eventually. It'll take a long time to recover from what he's been through." She doesn't mention what the scans found, this woman isn't family or anyone else on the patient's rather short contact list.
Henry and his family go home. Time passes and one day Azwel wakes up and notices something.
"It's gone," he murmurs. "That awful wind is... gone."
Time passes, the Winter breaks, the Hospital is opened again, and Azwel is found and placed in a room where he lies silent under the monitors and amid the tubes and wires, motionless. And so many days later, his eyes ease open. He stares up at the (unfamiliar) ceiling, blinking quietly. With some difficulty he tracks his eyes right and left, taking in the room and the machines whose provenance he can only guess at. He's too weak to even object to their presence, much less detach them. A dull pain washes in and out like a confused tide, sometimes sneaking up on him, other times crashing over him. He stares at the machines for what feels like hours. It is, in reality, five minutes before his eyes fall shut again.
Time passes, hours into days, and he finds himself looking at that ceiling again. Progressively, with every breath, a burning pain steals into his nerves. Quite different to the ache and stab of injuries, muffled by drugs, this burns through all other sensation. It steals his breath and makes him shudder. He squeezes his eyes shut again and moans stringily. This is apparently enough to summon a nurse who, despite asking many questions, cannot find the source of Azwel's mounting pain because Azwel, himself, cannot. It's only after a dose of a painkiller that leaves him woozy that he can even puzzle it out, though he has to do so in the short intervals that he's awake.
It's the shards of the Cursed Sword and the Spirit sword or, more accurately, their absence, that's responsible. It takes Azwel far too long to explain why he needs them to the baffled medical staff but, eventually, they're brought to him. Maybe the staff understood what he was trying to say, maybe they were simply humouring him. But the moment the shards are brought to him he feels that terrible nerve pain start to recede.
He doesn't actually put the gauntlets on--that'd impede use of his hands far too much, especially in the weakened state he's still in. Rather, it is enough to simply place them nearby, on the table next to the bed. He's told the crystalline settings pulse with light when he sleeps, giving a low, quiet, rhythmic ringing sound.
They bring him food now that the portals are functional again. Sometimes he can even keep it down. They speak of the slow, steady receding of the Winter. He'll believe it when he sees it. They tell him Henry's parents had been found, that they'd gone from dimension to dimension looking for him. This, at least, brings a vague smile to Azwel's face. When the family stop in to thank him and to say goodbye, the little boy climbs up onto the bed and hugs him fiercely. "Goodbye, little one," he whispers, holding the child briefly before letting him go, letting him return to his family and his home.
It's for the best, really. A life like his isn't one to add a child to, no matter what any Outer Goddesses might say. Or maybe that's just the pain and weariness talking.
"Is he going to be all right?" Henry's mother asks softly once outside the room. She glances back in through the window, seeing the man has already fallen asleep, again, twitching in his dreams. Henry clings to her leg, looking up with round eyes at the scrub-clad albinoid nurse with her dark goggles and cloud of hair and short antennae.
The nurse gives a small sigh. "Eventually. It'll take a long time to recover from what he's been through." She doesn't mention what the scans found, this woman isn't family or anyone else on the patient's rather short contact list.
Henry and his family go home. Time passes and one day Azwel wakes up and notices something.
"It's gone," he murmurs. "That awful wind is... gone."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-29 05:48 am (UTC)He rubs the side of his chest. "Still hurts a bit where that Fallen vandal got me. I got in a good shot at him, though."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-29 10:52 am (UTC)But for now he's going to fret at Kinner. "You've had that treated, I assume?" he asks, lifting an eyebrow. As though he has any room to talk, as he probably would have tried to walk this off were he conscious.