After leaving the forest of eyeballs (and with her own collection of eyeballs), Envoy made her way back to her base.
Discussions were held that yes, they need to get plans for the construction of the museum and if there are any possible hidden elevators. Or, of course, if Bronson filed plans with the city on the building of his very own gateway! Not terribly likely, that. Time ticked by as the discussions continued to the point Icarus, Walter, and the others were rather tired. So, it was decided that everyone go to bed, Envoy included. Morpheus even insisted. So off to bed they went!
Sleeping still isn't quite a skill Envoy has mastered, really. It's just, so, so mortal! Who would want that? And for that matter, who wants the pain Envoy is suddenly feeling. One side of her body is in absolute agony, it's so screamingly bad it is difficult to even think. It hurts so bad she doesn't even want to open her eyes.
"Something's wrong," she moans, and does have to force herself fully awake.. if only to see if she's on fire or anything.
It's hard to open her eyes. In fact, she's only able to open one of her eyes; the other one, the side that hurts, seems covered in something. And her voice sounds odd; higher pitched than normal. And ... she finds herself staring at a worn stone ceiling. The air is musty and the smell of well, death is all around her. She can feel the bed beneath her, a threadbare cot, and she can hear the mutterings all around her. Even screams in the far distance she seems to be able to pick up; much better than she ever could before.
"This isn't me," is Envoy's first thought. "Could I be experiencing Violette's memories? Have I been projected again?" With her one useable eye and ear, Envoy tries to figure out where she is, her first assumption being that it's a triage unit. None of this does anything to help with the pain though. "Hello?" she tries to squeak.
Turns out it's harder than it would seem to talk with apparent;y Eeee vocal chords because not only does she squeak, it bounces around like mad in the darkened room and makes her feel queasy on top of being in pain. She can also just make out the side that hurts so bad is covered in bandages; blood and lymph-soaked bandages. "She's awake? She shouldn't be awake! Grab the numbing agent before she starts screaming again," someone nearby shouts. It's hard to see anything distinct, through, because her working eye is tearing up constantly.
"This can't be good," Envoy thinks. "I can't heal her, and.. are they going to give me an anaesthetic?"
There is a flurry of movement around her bed. She can make out robed Eeee. One of them moves to hold down her good arm. The other is filling a syringe with some sort of liquid in it. The needle is plunged into her bandaged arm a mere second later. As the plunger sinks down, numbing cold flows out from the injection point. While as disturbing as it is to loose all feeling slowly, it is relief from the pain. "There there," the Eeee that holds her down says, her voice soothing, "It will stop hurting soon. I know it looks really bad .... but you're alive. It is a gift, even if it doesn't feel like it right now."
"I'll be scarred though," Envoy tries to reply. She isn't sure how Violette did originally.
"Now is not the time to even worry about that. You're alive. That is all that matters," The possible nurse says as she wipes at Envoy's tearing eye. "You have to live, no matter what."
"I will," Envoy replies with confidence, since she does know that Violette survives this. "It'll be an adventure."
"You have to lie still or you might bleed out, then. A couple mages offered to help and they are trying to work out a way to ... heal the damage done. They cannot promise it will be perfect though; your injuries are not like anything they've seen before. It will be risky, experimental. Do you give then consent? The other Eeee in your house ... didn't survive, so only you can give them permission," the nurse explains; her voice gentle. "And ... do you have any family outside of the city? Or ... those who just lived further from the center?"
"Let them do what they can for me," Envoy says, giving consent. "I.. I don't know about other family. I don't think that I do.."
The pain is thankfully fading by now; but that does mean half her body feels numb. "They will be by in a day or two, then. Is there anything you want in the meantime? We don't have much, but if there is something we can provide, we will," the nurse offers.
"The pain and numbness make it hard to tell if I'm hungry," Envoy notes. "When did I last eat? Should I be eating at all?"
"Not much, the pain medication will make you nauseous. Liquids at most, sorry," the nurse says. "We have been ... feeding you when you sleep with a tube."
"That's good then," Envoy says. "I suppose I don't need anything then, except rest."
"Okay. Don't remove any of your bandages; I ... know you may want to, but don't. It will get better. You don't need to see it as it is right now," The nurse says. "Please, promise you won't look; it really won't help you."
"I promise not to look," Envoy says, thinking that will be an easy one to keep.
"Right. Well, we need to tend to others now. If you need anything, anything at all, just call out again, okay?" the nurse says as she pats Envoy's uninjured arm.
"I'll try to let you work in peace," Envoy says, and tries to grin with one side of borrowed face. "Did Violette handle things this way? Was she in shock still? I feel shocked," she wonders silently to herself.
And so Envoy finds herself lying in a dimly lit room, in an unfamiliar body, and listening to the world around her. It is a world of sobbing and death. And loneliness. That feeling pervades, it is light a weight pressing down upon her.
like, not light....
"When the boomer fell.. I was in a crowd outside counting down the New Year," Envoy thinks. Is she still out there somewhere, just starting her education in magic? She listens, trying to put herself in the heads of people she can't see. "I thought the memories of the people who died were bad enough, but they didn't suffer like the survivors have. Is there something I can change here? Someone I can give a message to? But what?"
The feeling of being a survivor is ... harsh, tearing. It hurts in ways the physical pain didn't come close to. In a split second, everyone this body had known was ripped away. Part of the body was ripped away. And here she now lies in a moldy room, covered in her own blood and plasma, facing an unknown future; and an empty one. As she listens she can make out sobbing; seemingly endless sobbing. And questions, so may questions, but they all ask the same thing, over and over. "Why?"
"You won't like the answer to that," Envoy thinks, sinking into depression. Part of her wants to shout out that it was all part of the High Princess's plan, that the boomer was allowed to fall... but all that might do is get Violette killed. "I can't change anything that I know will happen. I'm so sorry, Violette - maybe I could have prevented this, somehow. Thinking that just makes me feel worse though. The past is set, there's only the future to change. At least you'll come through this with something; a new family of sorts, when you're taken in to become a mage."
"I don't think this is quite what is meant by 'playing doctor'," Morpheus' voice echoes in the darkness. The shadows swirl as a familiar feline/Eeee creatures steps out. He's even wearing hospital scrubs befitting a doctor on Abaddon. "You look terrible. Not that you're an Eeee child right now, that you're ..." the dream master says as he waves towards Envoy's bandaged half. "From what I know about mortals ... I do not know how she survived that."
"I'm dreaming?" Envoy asks. "I'm.. still not used to that. Are they always going to be like this?"
"This is what is called a nightmare," Morpheus notes as he sits gingerly on the edge of the cot. "She's having it right now; you're sharing in it. I think, well ... I'm fairly certain she snuck into your home again and has curled up against Icarus. It might be the proximity to him that is causing you to experience it." His head tilts for a moment. "She had had this dream often," he adds.
"Even now.. with Icarus?" Envoy asks. "How can the nightmare be stopped, if not by being with someone? She must not feel safe, or.. feels torn. Confused?"
"I think by beating the nightmare; however the dreamer interprets that," Morpheus says. "But what could ever make something like this seem okay?"
"Not being alone?" Envoy guesses. "Having.. her family.. any family be here with her."
"Except she doesn't have any," Morpheus points out.
"She has us," Envoy points out. "And her master in the College. She must need something or someone specific?"
"Why else would she keep sneaking back here?" the not-quite-Eeee points out.
"I can observe dreams, enter them, but it does not mean I know how to help the dreamer," Morpheus admits and even shrugs slightly. "And in truth, I do not know how to make any of this right."
"You can't change the past," Envoy says sadly. "Only the future. We fix it by making her not feel alone like this anymore."
Morpheus rubs his forehead. "I don't know how she even survived this," he says. "I can terminate your part in this reflection, if you wish. We would just be observers then."
"We would see her true reactions then?" Envoy asks, sounding uncertain. "That's.. there are rules against that sort of Dream Magic. Do you think she wants us to see though? She came here, after all. Is Icarus seeing any of this?"
"I think she wants comfort and as you said, to not feel alone," Morpheus has to agree. "Why else would she have snuck in again?"
"Can you let her see us if we stay here?" Envoy asks.
"That could be risky. What are you thinking?" Morpheus asks.
"Just.. be here with her?" Envoy suggests. "So she's not alone, right now in this memory. Maybe then she'll never be alone in it, so she won't revisit it."
Morpheus considers this. "Well, we'll see," he concedes, then offers his hand to the bedladen Not-Envoy.
Envoy is careful to use her not immobilized hand. "Don't disturb the bandages.." she says.
Morpheus takes the hand and pulls. The sensation is ... well, if Envoy has ever wondered what a fruit feels when it is peeled, this is probably close. Soon she is back on her own feel, and has her own body back. There is a lingering tingle in the side that was badly damaged; sort of a phantom reminder. "Sunala ... why didn't you take me too?" rasps Violette's voice weakly from behind her now. "It hurts so much. Can't move my hand, can't move my side. Why didn't you show me mercy and let me just fall into the sea too? Why are you making me suffer? Why won't you let me see my family again?"
"Violette?" Envoy asks quietly. She doesn't know what the girl's original name was, but it's the only one she knows. "Can you hear me?"
"Let me die. Please. Let me die," the Eeee behind her whimpers. It doesn't seem that she can hear Envoy at the moment.
Trying a new tack, Envoy attempts to hold the girl's good hand.
Envoy turns and as she tries to take the young Eeee's good hand, she notices that Violette has unwrapped part of her bandaged hand. It is blackened; almost skeletal. Tendons and muscle shows through places where skin has flaked off. It, frankly, looks worse than Violette had described it before. No conventional medicine would be able to save that limb. Maybe it wasn't just the risk of further damage that the nurse had asked her not to unwrap anything. If the rest of Violette looks like that hand; her wounds were fatal. It was only a matter of time.
"Don't unwrap it," Envoy tells her. "This is all over with. You have a new life now, don't let the old one haunt you." She kneels down next to the cot, and keeps trying to get through to the dreaming girl.
"Why? Why? Why?" Violette says, over and over. A common question asked in this place and this time. Her one good eye winces, and her jaw clenches until the question is a hiss from between those teeth. Worse, there is a soft crackling sound ... and Envoy can see the Eeee's burned hand slowly closing into a fist. The crackling is the dead skin breaking apart as the hand closes.
"Violette!" Envoy says sharply and loudly, trying to get through to her. She's just a little girl after all, so maybe a stern adult voice will get her attention.
The Eeee stops trying to close her hand along with the question fading away. All that remains is her breathing. "Are you sure you want her to see you?" Morpheus asks from a shadowed corner.
"I want her to know someone is here for her," Envoy says sadly. "I don't know.. I don't really know how to comfort people well. I've been with upset children before, ones who hated me, but I just kept being there for them. Existing is what I'm good at, and being patient."
A ripple passes through the room, more felt than seen. The young Eeee startles in the bed; almost trying to get out of it. Her one good eye is staring in Envoy's direction, wide and startled. "You. I know you. I think," the Eeee says slowly. "Are you here to help me die? If you take me to Mount Sunala they'll help me die."
"I'm afraid I'm here to help you live," Envoy says, and rubs the girl's undamaged hand. "You have to, for.. for everyone who didn't."
"But it hurts," the Eeee whimpers. "And I'm ... a monster now too," she adds, lifting her partially unwrapped hand and spreading those fingers slowly. It's ... unreal how they are actually still able to move.
"Most real monsters look pretty," Envoy says. "You'll look strong. Proof that some people can't be broken by tragedy.. in that way you can give others hope. That's not so bad is it? And the pain will go away."
"But alone. No family left, and no one wants to be friends with someone ugly," the Eeee whimpers. "Who would take me in? I don't have any skills; I hadn't found anything to apprentice to."
"You'll become a mage," Envoy says. "You'll go live in the most fantastic city in the world, where magic is everywhere. You'll visit another world, and meet people who like you just fine as you are."
The Eeee actually laughs, a sickening, choking sort of sound. "This is a hallucination from the pain injection," she wheezes. "Because that is impossible; I can't do magic."
"The boomer effect changed you," Envoy says. "You're still alive because of it, probably. You'll be healed by the mages here, and go on to become one."
"How do you know?" Violette asks.
"I know your future," Envoy says. "Some of it, at least. You'll see me again in a few years, as the Avatar of Inala, and then later as just a strange and notorious mage. And you'll go on a date with my adopted son."
"Are you sure you are not a hallucination?" Violette asks.
"I'm surprised I'm not asked that question more often," Envoy admits. "But I assure you I am not one," she says, and gives the girl's unbandaged cheek a slight pinch.
The Eeee doesn't move. "I don't really feel much right now," she admits. "Not physically ... just inside. It feels like I've been here forever."
"You keep coming back here," Envoy explains. "When you feel lonely, or abandoned.. maybe. I'm not an expert on dreams, though I've walked through more of them than I've actually had myself. So you should try to wake up now."
"I don't want to come back here anymore, then. There isn't anything for me here except pain," Violette says softly. "I just want it to go away."
"You need to replace it with something happier," Envoy says. "I think that's how it works, anyway."
"How? What?" Violette asks.
Envoy can only shrug. "I don't know. Decide what makes you happy, and pursue it," she says. "I'm there to help, if I can."
"You are not a very helpful hallucination," he injured Eeee remarks, and even makes a face. "But your son is cute."
"So you do remember?" Envoy prompts, and grins.
"I remember he's going to have a surprise in the morning," Violette admits. "He doesn't know I climbed into his bed. I kept my clothes on, though. Mostly. Promise."
"Why would that matter?" Envoy asks. "He'll be just as confused either way."
"Because it isn't considered proper to be naked with someone of the opposite gender," Morpheus comments from the shadows.
"Oh.. right," Envoy says. "That. Try not to wake him up gently then."
"I was going to lick his ear," Violette claims. "It's how Mom used to wake me up."
"Does that work?" Envoy turns to ask Morpheus.
"Usually," Morpheus has to admit.
"Plus, he has cute little ears," Violette adds, "And I have a surprise for them."
"You should try that on me then," Envoy notes, before turning back to Violette. "Now, why did you sneak in this time? Is there a problem at the Caroban camp? Did you just miss us?"
Envoy now wonders how you surprise ears.
"I ... just wanted to see him. Was feeling lonely. More blue, less ... purple," the Eeee claims. At leasy she seems to be able to joke about how she looks too.
"There isn't anyone your age at the camp, is there?" Envoy asks. "Did you at least leave a note or tell someone this time?"
"There isn't anyone to snuggle at the camp," Violette corrects. "And yes, I did ... under the mattress..."
"And.. that's someplace that gets checked regularly?" Envoy asks, just to be certain. She doesn't want to get into more trouble with the mages if she can help it.
"...Maybe. Latania does check each tent to make sure that all beds are properly made every morning," Violette admits.
"She checks the beds of.. Chaos Mages?" Envoy asks, blinking. "She is a braver woman than I thought."
"She also says rude things about you daily," Violette adds. "And she has this little doll she likes to stick pins in."
"She still denies giving me the hiccups at a party several years ago," Envoy says, shaking her head. "But.. rude things? That seems far-fetched."
"You can ask her yourself," Violette notes. "She says you're a meddling, mutant-looking, thorn in the backside of mages everywhere. And a bad influence."
"See, I knew it wasn't anything rude," Envoy says.
"And that you smell," Violette adds.
"Only if I don't get enough sunlight for a while," Envoy says in her defense.
"Do you have to be watered too?" Violette asks.
"No, but my boyfriend probably does," Envoy admits. "Are things calm back at the camp? No new disasters?"
"There have been some odd tremors in magic back near the city," Violette admits. "It has Latania slightly worried and fidgety. Like something big is about to happen. She even swears one mage in the camp told her someone ripped open the sky out in the desert somewhere. She accused him of drinking too much; that it was preposterous and he was over-reading the events."
"Well.. this world is still getting used to magic," Envoy mutters. "Would anyone feel better if that stuff likely was all my fault?"
"Probably. People are less nervous when they know the reason," Violette points out.
"Even if they can't be told why things are happening?" Envoy asks. "I can't involve the mages in what's going on right now - you understand that, right?"
"Why not?" Violette asks.
"You've seen what we're up against, Violette," Envoy says. "You were taken captive, even. I can't protect everyone and I can't let things escalate into all out conflict. Plus, there's always the possibility of Von Bronson attacking the mages if they help me."
"Yeah, but ... Icarus can defeat him, right?" Violette asks. "I saw him hold back that monster."
"He's after Icarus too," Envoy says. "And we don't know what else he has, or who else is involved. There are a lot of unknowns. Right now, so long as he is focused on Icarus and me, then he won't be going after others.. hopefully."
"You better let me help," Violette complains, then yawns. Is it possible to get tired in a dream?
"Well, of course you can help," Envoy says. "You're special, and already partly involved.. and I can't seem to keep you from sneaking in anyway."
"Yes, well," Violette admits, then twitches. "I think it is time for me to wake up, otherwise Icarus will wake up before me, and I won't get to lick his ear."
"I'll have to wake up soon too, and.. make breakfast," Envoy claims. "I will make toast! Everyone likes toast, don't they?"
"Except you could burn cereal," Morpheus points out. "It's not just breakfast, it is a dining adventure."
"It is not my fault that I enjoy the flavor of charcoal," Envoy says, a bit poutily.
"Just that no one else does," Morpheus quips. He rolls both of his wrists, then grins, making his teeth about the only thing visible in the shadow. "Nothing up my sleeves," he intones, "Because I had to scrub them. I am playing a doctor after all." He snaps both his fingers .... and Envoy finds herself staring up at the rusty metal. A few seconds later she hears poor Icarus go, "Eeeeeaygh!" Then there's this thump, followed by a squeal from a very distinctive Eeee!
"You didn't lick my ear," Envoy says, then gets up and goes to deal with the mayhem. "Violette would have made a very good spy, no wonder Barada wanted her," she thinks. She puts on her robe and pauses at the door to her room, cautiously bringing her hand to her nose for a sniff. "I do not smell bad," she announces, and then goes to face the day.