Put back together

50. Why?...

Warnings: Blood and injury, Minor Character Death (off screen but it's talked about), panic attack, a bit of religious talk.

Stay safe and let me know if I forgot anything!

Everything hurt.
Fuck, had he been hit by a bullet train or something?
Was he in an Isekai now?
God, he hoped not.
Slowly he opened his eyes and the pain in his head got worse.
He was either malnutritioned or thirsty. Or both.
At least there were no cat girls in sight.

Virgil tried to take a deep breath only to find that he couldn't.
With a lot more effort that it should have taken he managed to lift his head and look at his chest.

There was no rhino sitting on him to his surprise but a dried blood stain on his shirt.

Oh.

OH.

"Fucking hell," he gritted out between clenched teeth and adjusted the incorperal magic tourniquet until he could breathe again.

There was no sunlight filtering through the leaves above him. Only his lantern burned with bright magenta flames.

He grabbed it and stemmed it into the dirt to lift himself up and get into a sitting position, trying not to scream in pain.
His vision swam and he had to cling onto the lantern to avoid just falling back down.

After a few minutes he finally managed to get his breathing under control.

Fuck, how long had he been out?

It was night now, so a few hours at least.

Part of him wanted to get up and make up for the lost time but the other part knew that his body wouldn't make it for long.
Mortal human bodies were too fragile after all.

"Guess I'm spending the night here," he sighed and his throat felt like sandpaper.

His eyes fell onto the talisman that once had been Patton's shirt.
If these idiots had gotten themselves killed while he was out he'd find a way to bring them back only to kill them again.

And maybe check out, but that was besides the point.
In movies the hot people were always shirtless during torture. There was probably a good reason for that.
That wasn't hot sweaty abs, though Virgil wouldn't complain if that was the only reason.

When had he gone from protecting straight (well, not really) to torture?

Jesus Christ, he was horrible at this.

-~-

"I knew I had seen you before, Prince Roman," Emile hadn't taken his eyes off Roman's sword.

It had been a while since someone had actually called him by his title, Roman realised. Probably because there was a revolution against his family.

"That also explains how you know my husband," Emile continued and Roman wished he could read the man. He had no idea whether Emile was happy, angry or sad about the revelation.

"What's a prince? And what's a husband?" Elliott asked, oblivious to the tension in the room and tried to crawl further out of the bag.

Emile's focus shifted over to them.

"You know, I can tell the difference between a snake and a dragon. I've seen a few dragons before on my travels."

"Don't hurt them," Logan tried to sound commanding but came out as more of a plea.

"Don't worry! I won't hurt them! Giges Invitum are already too rare! They're such beautiful creatures!" Emile held up his hands as if to show that he was harmless.