120th Ashan, 720
Location: ---
So much was happening all at once that it was hard to keep track of it all. Ari'sora had been feeling light headed from the blood loss caused by her injury so that might have clouded her perception of things. She did thank Dr. Thorne for giving her the domain bag, though. He asked how she had been injured, and she hesitated before she answered.
"I don't understand everything about it, but I was there when Emea fell. Several of us had to make sacrifices in order to wake the Twins, but they were killed instead. One of those sacrifices caused this to happen. Whenever I get angry, the anger cuts into me; the stronger the anger, the worse the resulting injury. The obvious solution is to never get angry...but that is much easier said than done."
Wald touched her shoulder, and she flinched, but she didn't pull away. She didn't know any of these people, and she had no reason to trust any of them. And she knew from painful experience that being touched by another was rarely a good thing...unless it was Shadow or Ryl who was touching her. Her friends had never given her any reason to fear their touch.
But before she could react, her wound just...vanished. Startled, Ari'sora looked up at the man with wide, uncertain eyes. She didn't understand how, but somehow the man had healed her with that single touch. No. That was wrong. As Ari'sora continued to stare at Wald, her injury appeared on his body. Somehow he had done something to transfer her injury to him. And Ari'sora had no idea how to feel about that never mind how to react. She felt gratitude, of course. She was also worried that the wound he had taken from her would cause him serious harm. That worry was slightly negated by the fact that Dr. Thorne was there and would hopefully be able to help him. Even above everything else, she was deeply confused by the whole thing. Why had Wald taken her injury? People just didn't do that! Not for her, at least. What was he going to want from her in return? Whatever it was, Ari'sora would have to do it if it was something that she could do. She owed the man a great deal, and she was determined to pay it back.
"Thank you." she told the man softly.
"But how...?"
Why was also an important question, but Ari'sora couldn't quite bring herself to ask that question yet. Wald asked about her injury, and she shook her head.
"I'm not...thanks to you. Really, thank you. What can I do to pay you back?"
Ari'sora was well on her way to calming down until ChiChi screamed at her. The creepy looking woman accused her of being vile, spoiled, vain, and self absorbed. Then she showed her a brand on her shoulder. Ari'sora recognized that brand; her mother had a similar one. It was a slave brand from Athart. There was also a mass of scar tissue, and even with Ari'sora's limited skills in healing she could tell that the mass indicated arcs of suffering.
Part of her sympathized with ChiChi for her suffering. But that part of her was buried under the larger part that was deeply hurt by the woman's accusations. Pain lanced her lower back beneath her wings, and in her right thigh as her anger returned. It was milder this time, eclipsed by the hurt she felt, but it was very much there.
"Did I ever once say that I thought I was the only one who has been enslaved?" Ari'sora asked softly, her voice trembling with emotions.
"I don't believe that I did, and I would appreciate you not accusing me of saying things I haven't said."
She paused, struggling with her emotions. Hurt was safer than anger, so she tried to shift her anger into hurt. It helped a little in the sense that she was able to prevent herself from erupting into fury again, but the anger she felt stubbornly refused to fade or shift into any other emotion.
"Again you call me spoiled. I am not, but it's possible that you think I should have been fed less, and as a result, you think I was spoiled. Were my mother alive for you to ask, she would agree with you on that. She hated me too, and she often told me that our master fed me too much. Had it been left to her, I would have been fed a quarter of a piece of bread every fourteen trials, or allowed to starve to death. But our master wanted me to be strong enough to do my work. Still...perhaps you agree with my mother on the issue of food? If so, from that perspective, you could say I was spoiled."
Ari'sora tried to look at it from that perspective. It was one she would never agree with, but ChiChi seemed to hate her as much as her mother had, so maybe the woman really did feel that way. Strangely, trying to look at the accusation from another angle helped her to manage her anger a little; just enough to keep it from getting worse. She wasn't sure what to say to the other accusations. She didn't think she was any of those things, but simply saying she wasn't didn't seem like it would be effective, so she said nothing about them. The accusation of being vile cut a little too close to home. Her mother had accused her of being vile and worthless every time she spoke to her. And while Ari'sora didn't believe that she was vile, deep down she was afraid that she was worthless.
"As for an apology...what exactly do you think I owe you an apology for? Telling the truth? Others may not think you're creepy looking, but I do, and to say otherwise would be lying. I said you remind me of a monster that looked like a child and tried to eat people, and that I have no evidence either way if you are one too. That is also true. I didn't actually say you were one. And if you're angry because I suggested you wouldn't give me any of your supplies if I needed them...why would that make you angry?" Ari'sora asked in angry bewilderment.
"Most people would do that. At least...most people in my experience would. You hate me, so you have no reason to want to help me. People who hate someone usually want the person they hate to suffer. So why would you waste your supplies on me when someone else you do like might need them too? It only makes sense to think you wouldn't!"
When Dr. Thorne brought Wald into the other room, Ari'sora followed them. He worked on Wald, and she was happy that he was being treated first. His wound was more severe than hers was, and it was her fault that he was injured in the first place. Had she been strong enough to resist getting angry in the first place, she wouldn't have gotten injured by her anger, and he wouldn't have done...whatever he did to take her injury in her place. Yeva entered the room, and Ari'sora assumed that she would help Wald too.
"I think Wald did something...but I don't know what he did." Ari'sora said when the doctor commented on her "suddenly getting better."
Her own wounds were bleeding, but not as badly as the first one had. The one on her thigh looked like it might need stitches, but it was smaller than the one on her side had been. She couldn't get a close enough look at the wound on her lower back to see if it would need stitches as well, but she could already feel her blood soaking through her clothes.
Ari'sora's first instinct was to try and treat them herself. But she had never tried to stitch someone up before, and she knew that treating yourself was harder than treating someone else because you would be distracted by the pain you felt while doing so. And the wound on her back would be very difficult for her to take care of since she couldn't even see it properly. Dr. Thorne asked Yeva to treat her injuries, but Ari'sora had no reason to think that the other woman would want to help her. If she did, Ari'sora would owe her a debt just as she owed one to Wald for taking her first injury.
