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Aribis absently pet the small mechanical sphere that was Nyx’s familiar, a construct she called a Servo, and smiled at the way it warmed to her touch. It didn’t mean anything that it warmed up, that was just what her touch did these days, but she liked to pretend it meant that it was happy and reassuring her that Nyx was okay. Aribis was fairly calm about her wife being gone on some adventure like she herself used to do because of the Servo, as long as it remained around then it meant that Nyx was okay.
Moving over to the fireplace Aribis stuck a few logs into the alcove and with a thought and a slight feeling of dizziness the log in her hand ignited which she then used to light the kindling before letting go, the log extinguishing the moment it left her grasp. Shrugging her thick coat off as the living room and kitchen began to warm she made her way into the kitchen, smiling as Nyx’s tabby cat Gidget jumped up onto the counter and pawed at the bag of fish Aribis had just brought home, letting out a tinny meow.
“Alright you, hold on and I’ll make some fish for us.” Aribis laughed lightly, started setting about getting the pans out for dinner.
Whilst the pans were heating up with their oil she scratched under Gidget’s chin, marveling at how soft and realistic she felt. It never ceased to amaze her at how her wife had managed to create a lifelike cat out of mechanical parts, and by accident no less, you’d never know Gidget was a construct unless you were told or saw her whilst Nyx was doing maintenance.
A little while later Aribis was standing at the kitchen counter enjoying her extremely spicy fish whilst the cats dug into theirs, she’d bought enough at the fish monger to be able to thoroughly cook it and keep some extra in the cold box for the cats tomorrow. Her little black cat Chance loved fish of all kind, and Gidget loved whatever Chance loved, but it was a little hard to get fish most of the time out in the plains here, the nearby lake and river didn’t have a particularly good fish population so it wasn’t often she could access fish. But she was able to get a teleport near enough to home from the client of her last job so she brought some home from that city.
The sun had fully set by the time Aribis had finished her dinner and the sky was filled with a sea of stars, the moon particularly bright tonight, which meant that it was very easy for her to see the approaching form in the darkness. Grabbing one of the daggers she keeps around the house she pulled herself into the darkness, falling back on her training to vanish from sight. The figure slowly limped up to the door, and to Aribis’ surprise, the closer she got the easier it was to see, it wasn’t a cloaked figure, it was in fact the wingerd form of her wife, but something seemed wrong. Pulling the door open and igniting her wings Aribis got a good look at Nyx and let out a small horrified gasp at the sight.
Nyx limped around the outskirts of town, leaning heavily on the branch she’d picked up from the forest. She didn’t want anyone to see her and she was hoping to get home and patch herself up before anyone could see. Aribis had let her know she was going out on a job a week after Nyx had left, it would take 2 weeks from when she left before Nyx was out of contact whilst on the plane of fire and Aribis wouldn’t be home until after then, which was good news for Nyx who’d had to turn back and make her way home about half way through the journey there, she hadn’t even made it to the portal before needing to turn back.
She bit her lip as a lance of pain washed through her, the bones in her left arm and leg felt like they were made of brittle stone, heavy and crumbling under the weight, gripping tighter to her branch-cane with her prosthetic arm she tried to cradle the broken one against her stomach without jostling it too much, panting through laboured breaths at the pain she was experiencing. She was nearly home now, and she would be fine. She was stronger than a little pain. She’d built herself a new arm mere hours after a zombie had torn it away from her after all. So this was nothing.
She approached her home with a relieved sigh, hobbling over towards the door intending to sleep first and repair herself in the morning, when suddenly the door opened and with a flash of light her wife Aribis stood there, her wings of fire blazing and lightning up their doorway, also lighting up Nyx. She let out a horrified gasp at the sight of Nyx and Nyx just sighed. No way was she going to be able to hide this now, besides, it seemed the blood loss and exhaustion had finally caught up to her and she slowly began to topple to the right, her prosthetic still gripping tightly to the branch, but her missing right leg not being able to keep her stable and she just fell, her sight going dark even as Aribis rushed to catch her.
Aribis watched worriedly over Nyx, Gidget curled up by her creator’s side. She was terrified. Nyx had come home the other night injured far beyond anything she had seen, even when she was out adventuring it had never gotten this bad. After cleaning and dressing her wounds she was able to properly assess how damaged her wife was, her left arm was broken and the left leg seemed to be fractured through most of the bone, judging by the bruising, her prosthetic arm was mangled and in her backpack and she’d turned up to home with her old one made from scrap metal equipped, the flesh around where the arm connects was bloody and torn up like some kind of carnivore had tried to maul her, which might explain the mangled arm, and the wounds were infected, either from the beast or the rusty metal Aribis couldn’t tell. Removing her mask had revealed even more damage, her nose was still missing like it had been the first time she’d come back, and that was still an unpleasant sight but Aribis was seeking a way to fix it, she knew Nyx enough to know she wouldn’t care too much about the arm, and may in fact even remove it again herself if the way she tensed up at every sound seemed to indicate how jumpy she was after her first harrowing adventure, unwilling but still.
It was the new injuries that made Aribis tear up. Nyx had a massive gash across her face, what from she couldn’t guess but it was big, red, and likely also infected. Not only that but one of her eyes, and the part of her face around the eye, had been completely torn away, the bone was exposed to the air and blood had caked up heavily around the now empty socket blocking it off. Aribis wasn’t sure if she should clean the blood away or not, and didn’t want to leave Nyx’s side to find someone who’d know.
At the very least Nyx wasn’t dying. She was stable, probably very sick, and not waking up, but her breathing was even though labored and her wounds were very slowly healing. Twice Nyx had seemed to wake up screaming, and twice after she’d fallen back into sleep Aribis had needed to calm herself down and put the knife in her hand back away. She was getting to be too easily startled.
Taking a seat by Nyx’s bedside she absently pet Chance when she climbed into her lap, muttering a small thank you to the little cat. Aribis remained there until she fell asleep, drifting into a light doze.
Nyx woke slowly, the pain all over her body a dull constant ache, and she quickly separated her senses from that of her familiar, sighing as the pain eased away to the back of her mind and the living room of her home came into focus with a depth perception she’d sorely missed, the room was dark and cold, no more so than her home usually was in winter but it was a welcome change from the constant burning she felt in her own body. Spending a few moments in the body of her familiar instead of her own gave her enough time to recover and return to her own senses.
First thing she did was assess the damage. Her right leg and eye were gone, completely torn away by the allosaurus that attacked her when she was trying to get home, her left arm was rebroken from when that gorgon attacked the camp in the middle of the night, and her left leg felt like it might be broken too from after the running and the three other gorgons she had to evade. Not to mention it felt like her lungs were full of dust and her every movement felt like her whole skeleton was cracking like the brittle stone a gorgons breath turns a person into. There’s gotta be some kind of side effect to being blasted by that thing like 9 times and not getting petrified. Her prosthetic arm had been removed, which honestly she was relieved by if the way her arm stump stung was any indication, almost certain all of her wounds were infected.
After a few moments of self inspection she finally noticed the warm ball of fluff pressed into her side and smiled down at Gidget, her accidental pet. Opening her remaining eye she looked at her wife, sleeping lightly and likely exhausted from having to care for her, and smiled again. Her bright little flame, always bringing her back no matter how far she goes. She couldn’t imagine what t must be like to have seen her in this state, broken as she was. She was useless now, no arm, no leg, the remaining limbs broken and useless. Not to mention her face, she hadn’t seen her reflection yet but she could imagine it was a sight no one would want to see.
Laying her head back to stare up at the ceiling Nyx let a few tears fall from her eye. She was completely broken and now Aribis would have to care for her, or leave her. Nyx was scared of the possibility that she didn’t know her wife well enough to know what she’d do.
A few days later and Aribis was out in the town, getting food to fill the cupboard and cold box with. Nyx was sitting at home, still unable to get around without her wife’s help, and currently being used as a cushion by their cats because the brittle feeling had passed and she was slowly getting better, plus the pressure from the cats felt nice and kept her calm. Which she definitely needed right now because she was currently trying to direct her familiar to repair her arm, much harder when she was seeing it from about six inches tall and couldn’t really use her tools.
Aribis had spent the better part of the day Nyx had woken up simultaneously caring for her and reassuring her that she wasn’t going to leave, and then the rest of the day holding Nyx as gently as she could whilst Nyx became overwhelmed by how lucky she was. The next day had been spent with Nyx feeling miserable about not being able to do anything, she was an engineer and she wanted to fix this. Eventually she’d realised she could do exactly that. To an extent. So here she was, trying to repair her arm by using the tiny manipulators of her Servo.
She’d recover, eventually. Replace her lost limbs with new ones she built herself, build herself a new eye too, and probably a new nose, she was sick of being sick at her own reflection. She’s strong, like steel. She’s an engineer, she fixes things. So right now she was damaged and needed to be repaired. All she needed was a fire to keep the steel warm while she worked.
Aribis walked back into her home and smiled at her wife’s frustrated face, going over and placing a kiss to the unbandaged temple and smoothing out the tension with a warm hand.
Nyx would be okay.