madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-anxiety before the storm-

Teqi was in excruciating pain.

Only thing was, she wasn't sure why. She was used to it, obviously, but usually she had an idea of why her body was aching and her muscles were groaning when she even thought about moving them, and her eyes were glued shut with what must have been tears.

Then she felt the cold plastic feel of an infirmary bed and the panic that had gripped her body as soon as she could put together a thought faded into white noise in her mind. When she tried to open her eyes, only one was able to.

Slightly concerning, but the pain was more prominent, so she peered around the room with her right eye. Or maybe it was her left. She couldn't tell. "Will? Solace, dude, where are you?"

"Uh oh," she heard someone murmur. "Who's Will? ... Has she gone crazy?"

Teqi felt the presence of someone on her left, at least she assumed it was her left. She couldn't see them, but by the time she registered that there was someone next to her, she was already wondering why their aura was so confusing. It kept changing into something else, as if it was fluid. A dark red, but it kept wavering like a flame.

"Annabeth will be angry if she comes back and Teqi's already gone mad," Hazel sighed. Now that was someone that she could finally see without moving her head. Hazel peered down at her with a curious frown, her dark curls brushing against Teqi's forehead. She looked into her golden eyes for a moment and then sat up quickly.

"The sphere- The- It- I-" Teqi choked out, looking around the infirmary with a start. Frank was the one beside her, which explained the changing aura. "Huh?"

"We got out," Hazel explained. "Except you were stabbed in the eye. You're half blind now, by the way."

"Oh." Teqi breathed, her eyes- eye wide in shock. That explained the burning pain in her right eye, and why when she tried to move it, it wouldn't. Her face dropped, "is it there? Like, is my eyehole empty? Oh my gods what the holy-"

"Leo wouldn't let us see," Frank explained, passing her a glass of water slowly. Teqi downed it and then scanned the room. She felt her chest tighten with anxiety as she surveyed the neatly made beds and boxes of supplies that hadn't been put back into their correct places since the pirates attacked.

"He's getting Coach to take us to where Nico is, like, actually..." Hazel said quietly. "It was a trap, Gaea sent us there, well, the giants did. Moved his sword so I would follow...We walked right into a trap..."

"That's kinda our specialty," Teqi muttered, too tired to do something about the way Hazel's voice cracked, and dug through a small white crate on the end of the bed. She pulled out a packet of pills, painkillers, and swallowed three of them dry. The remaining seven, she decided to tuck into her pouch, and they promptly vanished.

On second thought, she grabbed a few more supplies and shoved them in there as well. She didn't know what to expect when they got to the twin giants lair. Frank peered at her, "does it hurt?"

"Like a butt cheek on a stick," Teqi said through gritted teeth, not wanting to elaborate on the spikes of pain that made her hands sweat and black dots appear in her skewed vision. "But, I've fallen out of a chariot, then from a flying dragon, and then again into a pit of lasers, been turned into a gold statue, fallen off an ice bridge, then out of the sky gods palace completely, then-"

Teqi blinked once, deciding to stop talking when she saw the looks that she was getting. She wobbled out of the bed and then had to sit back down on it immediately. Her head hurt. "Now that I'm thinking about it, I should probably stay out of the sky all together."