I Don't Seem So Bright in a Well-Lit Room

Chapter Ten

Potto may have been dead, but he wasn't dead dead. Clover rushed to his side. She had just found one of her prophesied saviours and he now looked very dead dead. Very dead dead indeed, and she really had no reason to think he wasn't.

Aye didn't react at all, simply because he couldn't. Besides calling him by a pet name, he didn't know Potto well at all, but the stabbing had happened so fast and unexpectedly that he was quite stunned. Even more than usual.

"What have you done?" cried Clover. 

"You want to escape, don't you?" Pannick replied. "I have done this before, silly girl. I did not cut into anything vital." She then left the room quickly and quietly. 

The confusion that all of this had caused was quite intentional on her part. Clover tried to (unsuccessfully) cover the wound with her filthy hands. Aye still stood there staring blankly. The shock had worn off and had turned to confusion. Both shock and confusion were feelings he knew well and was quite comfortable with. The Yaygher head had finally passed on with a huge ridiculous grin on its hideous dead face, making it look like they were all being mocked by a jack-o-lantern made of meat that had been left out on the porch for several unkind years. 

Pannick ran back into the brig and tossed a ball of bandage to Clover through the bars of the cell. She unlocked the cell doors, and then smashed her face into one of them hard and knocked herself clean out. Aye's confusion had doubled and turned into flabbergastery.  

Teeg, Gekko and Clory were soon in the chamber and from that point on things happened so fast that Aye didn't have time to comprehend any of it, and probably wouldn't for the rest of his life. (Though to be fair, he probably wouldn't think about it much ever again.)

Teeg took the bandages from a sobbing Clover and let Potto bleed on them, making his wound look even worse than it was. Potto's torso was soon wrapped in the bloody bandage, and Clory lifted his body with her viney arms and they left as fast as they had arrived. Clover grabbed Aye's hand and followed. 

They rushed out of the stockade and into the main throne room taking K'ween by surprise. 

"He tried to escape! He may have killed Pannick! He went crazy! The only way we could stop him was by force, but now we need to get him to a surgeon before he dies and is worthless to us!" Teeg yelled to K'ween. "We'll take him to the medical unit, but we have to be quick!"

The commotion of the situation, mixed with K'ween's concern for her favourite (Pannick) and a realization that she could lose The Node's great reward kept her from even noticing Aye or Clover following them, or questioning why Teeg, Gekko and Clory had been in the stockade to begin with. They had been counting on this. By the time she did realize something wasn't right, all were safely on The Muse. 

~~~

Potto wasn't aware that he was still alive, nor did it occur to him that he might be dead dead. 

In his head he was sitting around a bonfire. He was with his imaginary wee fairy friend Bundle and a beautiful woman. He did not know this woman, but he desperately wished he did. 

Bundle flew about his head. "We ran out of marshmallows," she announced.

This was sad news, for marshmallows were an Earth confection and he knew not when he would be back to the great mall planet to get more. This sadness quickly passed as he predictably forgot what a marshmallow was.

He did not remember much about anything, but he inherently knew he liked camping, and he marvelled at the wonderful spot they were presently enjoying. It was between a forest of deep blue trees dimly glowing with phosphorescent loom fruit and the rock wall of a cliff side, which sheltered them from any wind that might want to ruin their perfect evening or send loose ember sparks through the air intent on singeing holes in pant legs.