Nobody's Servant 1.0

Belonging

"So what's the news?" Yhana calls, craning over a tetrad of guards.

From all the way down the hallway, I reply, "There's a lot to go over. ...It's better said any other way than this though."

I've got four guards to myself as well. They keep us several paces apart, on our own respective side of the arbitrary delineation between public and secure areas of the palace, the wavelike motif of the stonework in between only adding to the sense of distance.

"Don't keep me waiting too long. This is your last session, right?" she continues. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, making no effort to actually pass the line of vigilants but it keeps their veiled heads swishing to follow all the same.

Yhana, for all her efforts, has been scarce, permitted in the palace as a guest of Nym's, but barred from the secure sectors following her last diagnosis, just as I've been barred from leaving them until I am cleared. Her insistence that she guard me has amounted to little more than particularly insistent loitering in the end but I'm appreciative of her company. Even at several paces apart.

"I think so?" It comes out like a question, and it might as well be. Over the past few days, my sessions with Nym had been much less conversational. I think we were both still thinking about what we'd done at the first one. At the very least, I certainly was.

"If that's changed, I don't know, he hasn't really been chatty."

"Nym? That doesn't sound like him at all," Yhana remarks. One of the guards very nearly breaks their stoic veneer with a suppressed snort but they permit themselves no more when the other three in the line give them a glance.

"Yeah, that's uh... that's to do with the news," I clarify.

For what it's worth, I hadn't been very chatty either. Neither Nym nor I had the nerve to bring it up, let alone reinitiate his exploration of my body where we left off. Not that I'd have had the strength for that. The entire inside of my mouth is black now, my ectoplasmic decay systemic, and yet I hold my shape. At times I even think I could probably go without coagulant indefinitely, but the weight of my fatigue makes a compelling argument against that. Gelatinous muscle tugs at springy bone. If these vigilants actually had any problem with me being here, I would not be able to resist their force.

"I'll be eagerly waiting," Yhana says, fingers tenting. "Right here."

"You really don't have to," I insist.

"But I will."

"It's a nice gesture but... home?"

She shrugs, her grin breaking just long enough to let some concern come through. "It's a mess out there and you're the one with the Warden escort."

"...You know, fair."

"Besides," she continues, her smile renewing, "I've got news for you too."

"...Yeah?"

"Yeah!" she echoes. "Go finish up, I'll tell you when they let you leave."

Surely to the relief of the vigilants, she backs down, clasping her hands in farewell and returning to the lobby they face. There aren't really that many people coming to file papers with the obscure bureaus stationed here in light of recent events, so until anyone moves to remove her, she's gotten cozy.

That just leaves me to my next session, then.

They've been quiet, even awkwardly so. I go in, we exchange pleasantries, he asks how I'm feeling, and I only answer in terms of my physical state. I spend several minutes in the chair, he draws off a set of vials, and unlike the first time, he packages one up, nestled into crumpled paper and sealed into a tiny wooden box.