Broken

.31.

Three weeks later

I picked at my food, fighting the urge to yawn. I was starting to feel more and more drained. I had taken another dosage of the soul separation concoction a few days ago and it left me feeling rather poorly. Exactly like the other three times I had taken it.

"Do not pick at your food, Liviya." Nadila scolded me softly before she gestured at my plate, looking at me over her reading glasses. "Eat. You need it. Lost a bit too much weight." She turned back to her papers and shuffled them slightly.

I had asked her about why she used physical copies and she said it helped against tampering. She printed out time stamped copies of each piece of legislation and orders from Oria the moment she received them and it saved from someone hacking into her files and changing things. If they did, she had the official time stamped copies as originals to prove tampering occurred.

I took another small bite of the food and made a face. It was still hard to eat the ship food after the weekend we had on Earth. Ami'la and I had taken Ani to the store to pick up the best human delicacies and after we had her try all of it, we had taken her out for ice cream. I had never heard anyone squeal as loud as she did when she tried it. Ami'la laughed so hard she started snorting. It turned out that she had the exact same reaction to ice cream that Ani did.

I was happy that both Ani and Ami'la had bonded like they did. I had been a little wary because Ami'la was so serious and organized and Ani was pure unplanned chaos. I thought they would mix about as well as oil and water but they had hit it off very well. Ami'la had loosened up and Ani had reigned it in a bit, both things I hadn't thought were possible.

"Liviya." Nadila's voice filtered through my thoughts and I gave her a rather sheepish smile before taking a bite of the food. "You seem distracted." She took off her glasses and set them down on her papers.

"I'm not feeling well." I wasn't. I doubted I would be until Rhex got back. However that wasn't causing my issues. I wasn't sure if I was actually getting sick or just feeling the effects of the potion.

"I thought that gross tea Ghilesh was making for you was helping." She pushed her braid over her shoulder and I made a face.

"It causes its own problems." Hot flashes and the unknown effect of rather severe lethargy and appetite loss. Ghilesh was a bit worried about it, he was researching the side effects and the last time I had seen him he was gathering every dust covered tome he could find. All he could tell me was that it wasn't supposed to be used in the long term.

"I see." She drew the word out as she stared at me intently. "What other side effects are you experiencing?" The look she gave me told me not to lie and I let to a heavy sigh.

"The usual hot flashes but now there is the exhaustion and lethargy and then the loss of appetite. My body feels a bit too cramped to eat." I rubbed at my rib cage. It felt so very cramped inside of me. The pressure was starting to be felt on my organs and it was highly unpleasant.

"Alright. Well at least I can say that you are halfway through this whole ordeal." She was right with that. Only eight weeks left.

"That's the only bright side." When I talked to Rhex yesterday he had been more exuberant than usual, even the background had been loud and boisterous. I could hear him laughing as he tried to cheer me up over the phone.

To be honest just hearing him happy made me happy. When it had grown louder he had explained that his battalion mates had thrown him a rather loud party to celebrate making eight weeks without me. I thought it was sweet in a way, even though they were making lewd jokes in the background. Which I found was both embarrassing and hilarious. Especially because Rhex would sputter slightly at every single one he heard and apologize profusely for them.