Trust Exercises

Chapter 6

"And once that's wrapped, we're done here."

Percy didn't know the voice, but it came from someone sitting across from a brasier full of barely glowing embers, what looked to be a woman stripped down to her shift, coated in sweat and soot and fanning herself with her hand.

"Is it done," he said, but his voice did not sound like his own -- instead, it was a quiet, hoarse and rasping little thing.

"You're done," said the woman, who Percy now remembered was the priestess. The pressure around his wounded hand increased sharply enough to gasp at it, and he could look forward and see Pike's small hands on it, securing a bandage tightly, something yellow and black and definitely not blood beginning to seep through. He found himself laying on his side with his head in her lap, one arm outstretched.

"Congratulations," said Pike, her voice also sticky, "you're done."

He was done. Done with what, though?

Despite the smoke clearing out, the thick haze remained in his mind. It was then that he realized he was still cold, and he realized that it wasn't just the lack of fire, it was the lack of anything on his body except for the new bandage. He pressed against his face with his good hand, even though he already knew given how blurry Pike's hands had looked – his glasses were missing, too. He curled his body tighter toward the dying fire and Pike stroked his hair in an overly-familiar gesture, but somehow it wasn't uncomfortable, either.

He closed his eyes and opened them and the world had changed again -- the priestess was gone. Through the blur, his head and hand ached.

"What happened?" he asked her, his body refusing to move from his spot over her lap. It was not that he liked the state he had found himself in, but he found his mind too mushy to do anything about it -- and in the end, it had never been the sight of his own body that terrorized him.

"Oh, you know, lot of crying, lot of screaming, lot of throwing up, I think you pissed yourself at some point," sighed Pike, continuing to pet him absently like a favored cat, "The usual."

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"No, I mean, I knew what we were in for," she said, picking up the towel to wipe his face. It had been streaked with soot and a bit of blood, and some of that blood had come away from his face fresh. "But I didn't want to say anything, because then you'd really never do it." And she had probably been right.

"At least it's over with," said Percy. Pike sucked in a breath. "Hmm?"

"You've still got huge issues, Percy," she said. "We didn't fix them. You're just not going to have some kind of bad reaction to Sarenrae's magic in the middle of a fight now. Which is good, really good, but like. There's – don't get mad – there's still so much wrong with you. I'm sorry. I can't fix that."

There was a long pause.

"You also talked. A lot," said Pike. "People do. It's how these rituals work. I'm sorry. It's why I didn't want to bring anyone else here. But yeah... wow, yeah. I won't tell anyone anything if you don't want me to. I'm just... so sorry."

Most of her words were just that, words, like air, but even in his state he could understand the gist.

"I... appreciate your honesty."

The last tiny embers of the brasier were quickly disappearing, and the room was chilling fast.

"Can we go home now?" asked Percy.

"Not now. You're going to the infirmary. We both need to take it easy the next few days," she said.

"Isn't that for sick people?"

"You're sick people today," said Pike. He tried to do something to prove he wasn't, but his limbs were like wet noodles and only pressed ineffectually at the ground when he tried to raise himself.

Two more people entered the room and even without the fire it was beginning to feel crowded, especially with the big thing they carried between them. They lay it behind both him and Pike and one of them put a hand on his shoulder. When Percy looked at the face above him, it was a dwarven man with dark hair, the rest of his features indistinct so close to him.

"Ay, this one doesn't look so good," said the dwarf.

"Come on, child. You're going downstairs," said the other, who was crouched down near his feet. The man and Pike helped roll Percy over onto the stretcher and the fog still played out in his brain and across the ceiling, a few orange and blue sparks still twinkling at the edge of his vision as he lay there.

"Jerrie, can you grab that towel? Nobody'll appreciate showing off his bits all down the hallway," said the dwarf. Someone draped a towel over him and on the count of three, two, one, the stretcher lifted and he was going somewhere else.

"He's a pretty one even under all that muck, ain't he? Why's it always the pretty ones getting et up by demons, anyway?" he heard, but mostly just saw the peaked ceiling passing by above him.

"Well, if you were coming up from the abyss, and you were looking for a place to live, you'd pick a pretty house if you could find one, wouldn't you?"

"I guess so."

"They aren't so different from us, really. That's why they're so scary..."

"You remember the gray one she brought with her a while ago? He was a looker too. Also demons, was it?"

"You really only have one thought in your head, don't you, Jerrie."

The stretcher kept bumping along with every step, but the chatter grew more distant and faded, much like everything else in the world.