The sick tent

Sorry...

You know that "oh shit" feeling you get when you do something that you didn't think through. Like when you are talking to someone and say the wrong thing. The type of guilt that resurfaces when you are trying to sleep and your brain decides to be a bitch at 9 pm.

Yeah that's how WX-78 was feeling.

What's even worse was that this feeling was entirely foreign to them. They never thought back on a decision they made, that was a very organic thing to do, and they were above thinking about "what ifs"

Well they were supposed to be above that but... not this time, this time for some reason their was a sinking feeling inside them, a heavy feeling that made them writhe and wish they made a better decision.

Wormwood was... annoying to say the least, but he's just as annoying as literally any organic, heck even less sometimes. They had enough in common for them to not hate them as their minion, unlike a large proportion of others. For one of their most loyal minions they caused a unwarranted amount of harm.

They looked over to the passed out plant. The fearful expression was gone but somehow still lingered, like the smell of smoke even when the fire was put out.

He deserved an apology, or at least an explanation.

They didn't want to be like him.

-—————

Wormwood woke up groggy and stiff. He rolled himself over and tried to sit up.

Do you know how hard it is to get up without hands. It's not really but it is kinda awkward.

He swivelled to turn to the center and

Oh, WX. Huh...

WX kinda looked a tad alarmed at Wormwood's awaking. Wormwood was honestly just varying degrees of confused and nauseous from being you unconscious for more than an hour.

Wormwood lifted his now stick of an arm to give a small wave out of habit but in doing so took the one thing keeping him upright and ended up face-planting on the mat with a sound that honestly made the landing sound much worse than in actual was.

They probably should have gotten back up to show that they were okay, but its harder to get back up from a face-plant with no arms compared to laying on you back, and honestly, they just didn't wanna, its been a long week and the stumps of where their arms hurt. And even though they could usually regrow limbs faster than most, the cut was way more than what they usually took off when making living logs.

WX was alarmed by his sudden fall, and rushed to help him, saying something. but he didn't understand much, nor try. If it truly mattered then he was pretty sure it would be said at literally any other time.

Or not, considering its WX who's saying stuff, and they didn't tell him anything about cutting off their arm. Like maybe if they asked he could have given them some pointers on how to not make it take so long to heal? Considering how they have cut off their own arm at least a couple hundred times for the good of the camp, he among literally everyone would know how to cut off his own arm.

WX lifted them up by their leafy mane, saying something in a surprising quiet voice, given who was actually talking. They had a softer expression than that of what they normally held, more sympathetic, even if it was only a 2 degree change.

Wormwood was already nodding off, and leaned to put a head on their shoulder, to which WX suddenly voiced their protest for a second, before stopping and calming down. Wormwood nuzzled into them humming slightly.

After a long couple of weeks Wormwood had gotten at least a little bit of relief in knowing that the blight wouldn't hurt him anymore.

After so long, there was peace, and there was quiet in Wormwood's mind.