Managed by @liz_in_astris
"I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since...
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"Can you hear me?"
Was she breathing?
"Oh, please don't tell me you're just going to fall back into unconsciousness."
"She's ill, Piccara. Let her rest if she needs it."
"I still don't know why Hrein picked her up in the first place. Are we not meant to allow the cycle of existence happen as it will?"
"Oh, shut it. This wasn't a natural illness, you can sense this as well as the rest of us."
"I realize that, but she's not—"
"Shush. She's stirring."
The lids of her eyes felt heavier than all the bricks of the castle walls put together, but she still somehow managed to open them, if only wearily. The weight of a thousand worlds sat upon her chest, and she knew not why. Blinking in the dim lighting, she could barely make out the hazy forms of four people, one of whom knelt beside her with a hand on her shoulder. She couldn't feel it.
"Are you all right?" A soft voice. Soothing.
She tried to take a breath, but only managed to cough. The person knelt beside her reacted quickly, snatching up a spotted cloth from someone nearby and pressing it against her mouth as she coughed. A metallic taste pervaded her senses, and as the cloth was removed from her face, she clearly saw the stains on it for what they were. At the same time, she was struck by the realization that it was not simply blood—it was her blood.
"This is not a natural illness of yours, is it?" She recognized that the soothing voice, the same one that had spoken before, was male. "It is rather evident. Your health suffers in no other way. And this—the symptoms seem to be separate of one another."
She was handed a glass of water. She took a sip, with some assistance. "What...what happened?" Her voice was raspy.
The man beside her reached towards the hood of his robe, grabbing its edges and pulling it down, revealing a shining heap of auburn hair that flashed golden tones in the candlelight. His eyes, however...there was something wrong with his eyes. "You were found near the stream, bleeding from the mouth but still alive. Just barely. That was two days ago."
"Two days?" She struggled to lift herself into a sitting position.
She would have been south by now.
The man pushed her back down gently. The others watched. "Do not try to move. You'll waste your energy."
He was right. She was already breathing heavily.
"I was...poison...a number of days ago." She stifled another bout of coughing.
"Poison?" One of the figures standing spoke up. His arms were crossed over his chest. "By the End itself, how were you able to ride this far?"
