Origins of an Icer

Chapter 25

Infirmary of the Nevermore, One Month later...

Wren's eyelids felt incredibly thick and heavy, struggling to open them as sharp white light breached the soft darkness, causing him to growl and hiss. Rubbing his eyes carefully with his hand, he hissed louder, his stomach stabbing him with pain as his eyes fully opened, showing him wrapped in bandages, only stripped to a pair of briefs. His body was worse than he thought: the stomach wound was stitched and padded with bandages, new wounds of cuts and scrapes decorated the pale skin, and his wings ached against his back.

"I think I overdid it..."

"No shit, Sherlock, you've been out for a gods' damned month, Eiwren, but damned if I'm not thrilled to see you alive," Ravyn answered, smiling softly as she walked over and seated next to Wren's bed. Her wrist was braced, some minor burns along her face and neck but her eyes seemed much brighter, her posture much more relaxed as she lounged against the chair, kicking up her legs onto the mattress.

"So... we survived?"

"Yup, turns out while we did take major casualties, your Thalassos has a special ability to provide energy for reinforcing and regenerating shields. That helped, especially with the debris around our area. Your friends are okay, my mother is currently locked in maximum confinement deep within the brig, guarded to the gills with my best droids and troopers. Regarding... your pilot-"

"Akifa! Is he okay?! Please tell me he's alive!" Wren begged, taking her hand as she winced, frowning more with her brow furrowing together.

"He... needed extensive surgery to remove the nanite controls inside his brain stem. Doc did her absolute best, and right now he is recovering within a medically induced coma, but as to how he is, there is no way of knowing. Wren, we can't be too sure he's really okay... I don't know if we may have permanently damaged him in some way..." she added, gently rubbing the inside of Wren's wrist as he whimpered. His eyes overflowed as he sniffled, bowing his head to rest in Ravyn's lap as he cried softly, her hand gently petting the snow white hair. The poor captain felt at a loss for words, her heart squeezing tight at the sight of such a powerful creature nearly in full mourning with the possibility of losing his beloved partner.

(I can't lose him... I cannot lose him, Ravyn. I know it's silly, but I couldn't bear the pain again. I took so much hurt from waking to the sound of pure silence, having no one there to receive my calls or hear my thoughts. Akifa was the first to work on that, learning how to bond and talk to me after I had suffered so many years in the dark and quiet. I... I know I may have bonded too quickly, but please, please tell me if anything changes.) Wren sniffled hard, looking up at her with swollen, redder eyes overflowing into rivers of ice down his cheeks.

"Wren, I swear to you, I will allow you to visit him as much as possible. He will have to recover first, wake up from the coma, but I'll see if I can't have you two together side by side while you two rest. Just hang in there, okay?" she asked, petting his long hair as he nodded weakly, placing his head back down onto her lap. His tail flicked uneasily, his body curling tight and around to get more comfortable as he fell back to sleep in Ravyn's lap, her hand threading through the long white hair, gently massaging his scalp to help him ease into sleep. She glanced over to a curtained off area of the room, hearing the life support system chirping quietly as Doc came over, carrying her clipboard and making notes on it.

"How is he...?"

"Devastated at the news, I feel terrible for telling him, but I wouldn't want him to find out any other way. Is... there some way we can get them a room together, no one else? It might help pull Akifa from the coma," Ravyn added, watching Doc go into the curtains and checking the machines before coming back out, shutting off her pad.