Innocent

~17~Xki

I groan into Azalea's neck when there's a knock at the door.

"What?" I yell at the door.

There is a slight pause, "Do you know where Azalea is?"

I look to Azalea and she slightly stiffens under my gaze, "I need to go talk to him," she whispers to me.

"Why is Varin looking for you?" I whisper back.

She looks to the door then back at me, "I made a deal with him."

I pull her pants back on and tell her to go deal with him then come back.

After she leaves the room I rush to the door to hear what they're talking about. I am slightly confused when I hear words that I am unfamiliar with.

"¿Estás bien?" I hear Varin say.

"Si estoy bien. Lo siento, es posible que no pueda cumplir mi parte del trato esta noche." Zalea responds.

He laughs, "No, me conseguiste a la chica. Ella está en mi habitación ahora mismo, sólo quería asegurarme de cumplir con mi parte del trato."

Zalea sounds approving, "Bien por usted. ¿Hay algo más que usted necesite?"

After that I leave the side of the door, it's useless, I have no idea what they're saying.

A couple minutes later Zalea returns, "Hey, sorry about that."

"What deal did you make with him?" I ask.

"Can't tell you, sorry." she says.

"Why?"

"Because." she bites back,

I wait a little, "Fine. Are you going to sleep?"

She looks towards the bed, "Yes, which side do you want?"

"You can choose, I don't care."

She just nods and goes to the right side of the bed, the side closer to the window that she is now opening. She looks back at me, I send her a questioning glance that chooses to ignore.

I don't know why I thought I could do this in the first place.

I watch Zalea's actions very closely. I don't want to miss something important that I could use to my advantage, why would I need an advantage, I don't know, she's about to die so I don't really have a use for advantages.

She flops down flat onto her stomach She makes the weirdest sound I have ever heard, it's the mix of a moan, groan, wince, and gag. It's so weird that I slightly flinch at the sound. Immediately after she makes that sound she leaps from the bed towards the bathing room, I follow right behind her.

Zalea is heaving up her stomach into the toilet, she slightly pulls away, I touch her forehead to see if she has a fever, at the contact Zalea leans back over the bowl and heaves up even more stomach acid.

How is it even possible to throw up this much?

After she stops heaving for the second time I say, "You have SPD?"

"How do you even know what that is?" she says.

"My old friend, Princess Lea had it." Zalea stiffens at the name.

She clears her throat, "Do you actually know what SPD means or do you just know what it is?"

I puff up my chest, "Of course I know what it is." Zalea raises an eyebrow, "Sensory Integration Dysfunction, a condition where the brain has trouble receiving and responding to information that comes in through the senses, leading to difficulties in processing and integrating sensory information appropriately, also known as SPD" I smile at her.

"I guess you do know your facts," she huffs looking away, "Is that why you knew I have koumpounophobia?"

"So you do have koumpounophobia," she nods, "Princess Lea also had koumpounophobia." I pause, "Would you like me to state my knowledge on this topic too?"

She smiles an itty bitty smile, "It's just cute to know that you learned all these things for your friend." her smile disappears as she clears her throat, "A necklace."

I'm confused, "I'm sorry, what?"

"A necklace, the reason why Lea had koumpounophobia, she was forced to wear a tight collar around her neck until she was five year old, she didn't know she hated it until it was removed then replaced," Azalea isn't even looking at me anymore, she's looking somewhere else, "The necklace had a small brown stone at the center, it was the same color of her eyes," she finally meets my eyes, "She hated that necklace so much."

A single tear falls from her eye, she wipes it away immediately. She looks down at her hand that is now wet with her tear, she looks confused.

"Are you alright?" then another thought comes up, "How did you know all that?"

She stiffens, "You forget Lea was my friend too."

She starts to stand, "How did you get the fear?"

She looks up at me as if she were about to respond but she slips and I catch her around the waist. She winces and her arms wrap around her torso as she drops back down to the toilet to start heaving, again.

~~~

I order some food for Azalea when I leave the room, heaving up the little amount of food you had then not having anything to eat has got to suck.

When I come back upstairs with the food Zalea is already in bed, fast asleep. I walk to her side and leave the tray there for when she awakes.

I go to the bathing room to take another bath but this one will have to be a cold one, my body has still not forgotten what we were so close to doing earlier.

She was still considered to be drunk, the consent was probably a spur of the moment thought. She would never actually want that kind of relationship with the person that is taking her to her death, closer each day. Her being drunk is probably the only reason she showed no reaction to me touching her neck, why would she let me touch her neck. The sounds she made when I kissed her neck are burned into my brain. Her neck. Koumpounophobia. Why would she know that about Lea when I didn't? Why did she slip at such an inconvenient time? Why must hse be so perfect but so wrong at the same time?

I exit the bath and put some new clothes on. I go to my side of the bed, comforted by the sound of Azalea breathing softly, alive.

As long as she breaths, she's alive.