GODSENT | reyge

3-3; innocent, but i serve my time

Reyna wakes to a dull throb in her chest, where her Radianite heart sits, whirring, clunking with the metal that holds everything together. Her head feels heavy, fuzzy, like something had firmly clocked her across the temple. Her mouth tastes funny, too, lips dry and cracked from...goodness knows how long of not being used.

The bed is cold. Reyna recognises this temperature setting — of course Sabine would do something with the data she had gathered with her experimentation on Radianite body parts, the culmination of her time with Kingdom.

The sheets fold under her aching hands as she relaxes into them, into the familiar chill. It isn't an unpleasant thing, she surmises. Better than the heat that had engulfed her the last time she was conscious, at least.

If there was one thing she hated about her Radiance, it would be this: the dull ache and fire in her bones, heart and body, a stark reminder that she's mortal, despite everything. Despite her power.

Lucia would know what to do. She always had a way of assuaging Reyna's fears, was the only thing that kept her sane throughout their imprisonment at Kingdom. The experiments had done little to dampen her spirit, and if only Reyna had half her strength — that, then, will be true power.

She wants her sister back. Her dear sister, who lays in her own ward a few doors away. Yes, she had life energy. She grasps at her chest. The device is gone.

"You have quite the susceptiveness to collapsing."

Reyna snaps to clarity a little faster than she would have hoped was obvious to the owner of the soft, amused voice. Sage looks...better. Tired, still, but there are no visible wounds on her body, much of her hair tied up in its usual ponytail.

"I have figured that to be the case ever since I joined the Protocol," Reyna croaks. Her throat is terribly itchy.

Sage tries not to let a smile break through and stands to retrieve the half-full water jug at her bedside. A plastic cup is pressed into Reyna's sore hands soon after.

The water does help the words come out easier. "How long...?"

Sage slides gracefully back into her seat, clasps her hands in her lap. "A week."

Her downtime hasn't changed, then. Reyna inhales deeply.

"Has the life energy I've harvested been given to Lucia?" she asks, finding it a tad easier to speak now.

"Viper has done the courtesy."

Reyna bites down an instinctive insult and nods instead. One less thing to worry about. There are other things, of course, but she cannot bring herself to ask them now.

Luckily for her, Sage reads her mind.

"You did well last week. The Collider's integrity has been preserved," Sage says all this diplomatically. "Kingdom retreated. It can't be said that they will not return, however."

Reyna would be surprised if they didn't. They were always pests like that, sinking their claws in and refusing to let go of what is theirs. There's a reason why there's an even bigger target on the Protocol than any of the agents here might actually realise — Dr. Sabine, Klara, Reyna and Lucia? All previous valuable assets that have weaselled their way out of Kingdom's control. Not to say that she knows much about why Sabine and Klara are here, though. Not that she's bothered to ask, even.

Avoiding them is always easier. She feels her anger spill from its tightly-bottled jar every time she sees the calculative way Sabine's bright green eyes would rake over her, or how Killjoy would stare at her like something in a petri dish time and time again.