Another Way

Chapter 10: Birthright

It only took a few shambled steps for Sue to realize just how utterly exhausted her training session had left her, her expression turning into a pained grimace as she began attempting to move forward, arms and mind alike feeling raw and sore, with the rest of her not faring all that much better either. Part of her began to worry about even being able to make it back into Willow's little medic hut, the wisps of panic being added to the stirring pot of negative feelings inside her head only making basic movement even harder.

And it wasn't even the only worry on her mind either, most of it occupied by fears that she had somehow caused Solstice's reaction in some way she couldn't place and that the rest of this place would know in not too long. Entirely baseless fears at this point no doubt, ones she rationally ought to know were little more than empty paranoia, but also ones that exhaustion breathed a whole new life into, the awareness of her abject weakness not helping either.

What did she do?

What did I do?

Why does it hurt so much?

A louder noise coming from someplace near, somewhere between a whisper and a crackle of flames, took Sue out of her mental muck momentarily, a sensation of clear worry emanating from a creature whose appearance was so baffling it had briefly derailed the pity wagon on her train of thought. She might've mentally accepted the existence of ghosts by now, the one she had some actual interaction with even turning out to be much sweeter than her prankster facade might've suggested, but with Hazel in mind a bed sheet ghost was the last creature she expected to see here, if it even was one. Whatever it might have actually been, it was covered by a big off-white piece of fabric and could levitate, with no extremities supporting it off the ground that she could see. It had a large point at its top that its bed sheet-like cover draped from and... appeared to be glowing, cold light illuminating the fabric below a certain point while not shining any clues at all as to what the creature actually looked like.

As distracted as she might've gotten by the stranger's appearance, another of those worried sounds coming from it took her out of her pondering while making her realize just how messed up she must've looked at the moment. A painful movement of her free hand to feel out her own face revealed it to be sodden with tears, and a look behind her made it clear that despite only managing to make it a dozen meters or so she couldn't even hold a straight path for that long, the sum total pretty close to looking like misery incarnate.

The briefest of attempts to repeat the freshly practiced telepathy only made a burning outburst of pain join the rest of the unwelcome company under her skullcap, intense enough to make Sue momentarily lose her balance. The Forest Guardian was left leaning on a side of a wooden building to keep herself standing while the pain receded, the bed sheet covered stranger becoming even more alarmed at the sight.

"D-don't whorry, I-I'll be-"

Before she could finish her sentence, a soft woosh coming from where the they stood made it clear that her attempted interlocutor had departed somewhere, and as little as the once human felt capable of pushing forward on her own, she most decidedly did not want to wait here for them to come back with company, not so close to Solstice's outpouring of despair.

Onward, onward, onward.

With a painful wiping of tears from her face and a determined grunt, the Forest Guardian took off again, blindly turning inwards into the village as she clenched her mobility tool even harder, painful winces accompanying her every step growing weaker and weaker with each and every one. She felt an occasional worried glance fall on her every once in a while but ended up not acknowledging them at all beyond pushing on even harder, the last of the tears drying up, leaving her with just burning determination desperately trying to hold her exhaustion at bay. And hold it did- for a while at least, the pain sapping it fast, quickly turning each step wobblier and wobblier as Sue's plan changed on the fly to just finding someplace to sit down now that she was sufficiently far away from the mayor's tent that the rest of village could drown her out.