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It hurt.
It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt everything hurt.
Her head pounded. Her skin prickled with sickly heat, sweeping up and down her body in aching waves. Her eyes burned.
Worst of all was the pain in her chest. An immeasurable weight held her to the ground, sternum creaking and cracking under the pressure with each wheezing breath she took. Every now and then it would throb, and every other pain in her body would increase tenfold in reply.
It hurt, so she slept.
~
The pain was less when she woke, but the weight remained. The first thing she saw was bars, but the flicker of startled fear was distant and dull. Eventually her eyes focused and memories started to trickle back in. It was only the gilded bars of her bird cage 'suite', not a jail cell. There was a plush pillow beneath her, and a curtain wrapped around the cage to offer privacy and merciful, merciful darkness. The sliver of light let in by the open door was only a soft glow, but its enough to make her eyes water, and the water keeps coming and coming and she can't stop, and when her gaze drifts over the twist of ribbon securing the cage door, keeping it from swinging shut and locking her in by accident...
Her chest hurt.
She put her back to the light and closed her eyes.
She slept.
~
She woke up. The thin beam of light cast into her sanctuary was much dimmer now, and she stared at it. Trying to remember. Trying to remember what? The pain in her chest was insistent, but there were little motes of dust drifting and sparkling in her field of vision and she found herself enraptured. Following each one's progress with her eyes, it was difficult to focus on them and she didn't bother half the time. Just let her gaze drift.
"Ma'am...?"
The voice was soft and low, warbling with something she couldn't identify. She doesn't recognize it at first. Then the light shifted, widening before being blocked out entirely. She should probably turn over and see who it is.
She doesn't.
The voice whined. It was something like fear, maybe. She didn't react until something soft and warm touched her back, making her twitch reflexively. The touch pulled back, just as startled, and the voice sighed.
"...O-okay. You get your rest, ma'am. I'll... I'll be here."
The cage creaked a little as the voice withdrew, the curtain shuffling around her protective shell until the light peeking in disappeared. She heard a distant click and the color changed slightly. He must have turned on the lights. The sounds were familiar. Routine. He was cleaning up, like he did every morning.
She pictured a broad purple back and a frilled tail, wagging contentedly, when she heard him start to hum. She fell asleep before the sound trailed off into a distracted whine.
She used to dream when she slept.
She's certain that what happens now isn't dreaming, but that's fine.
The endless hollow space was... easy, if not exactly comforting. Black and suffocating and still. She tried to bury herself in it and hide from herself, her body, her...
~
The soft touch woke her up again. It felt gigantic and small all at once, and this time it was as insistent as the weight throwing itself around inside her rib cage.
"--ease. It's been two days, ma'am. You've got to eat something."
She didn't feel hungry, but saying so felt like too much trouble. So she rolled over instead, letting the rocking motion of the hand on her shoulder make it easier, and blinked bleary pink eyes at the face outside her cage.
Something in her was startled by it, but the feeling was just as distant as before, so she stared instead. The face was nearly bigger than her entire body, pale and entirely too like a skull, but it's cheeks were flushed pink and its eyes were enormous and white. Little green tufts poked up absurdly around it and struck her with the equally absurd urge to yank on them.
"...Big Deal."
Her voice was croaky and even talking hurt, but his face lit up at the sound. She could hear his tail thumping around.
"Go-Good morning, ma'am!" He flinched at the sound of his own voice and ducked his head, inhaling sharply. He was much quieter when he came back up, and she almost didn't recognize the sound. "I made soup for you, since you're not feeling well. A-and I found this, too."
She blinked slowly as he moved away from the door, leaving a wide swathe of purple the only thing she could see until he came back around. He placed a tea saucer on the pillow in front of her, and on it was what must have been part of a child's tea set once. The tiny porcelain tea cup was still nearly the size of her chest, but it made her dimly aware of how small she still was. Any of her normal dishware probably could have held her entire body. It didn't really match her decor, either.
White with a smudgy pattern of blue flowers across it?
Horrid.
"Ma'am? Is it... I could make something else? if you don't want soup?"
He looked concerned again. Startled. How long had she been staring at the cup?
She wasn't hungry. She'd felt half-starved since she'd woken up in the volcano, a great aching pit she'd never been able to satisfy. Food had always taken the edge off it, but it was gone now, and whatever was filling that space now hurt.
Trying to explain it would be too much effort. She was tired. The thought of simply telling him to go away made the thing in her chest squirm. She ate the soup, and didn't notice much at all about it but that it was warm. When it's finished and Big Deal had taken the dishes away, she realized that the tension hooked into her spine had loosened its grip. Breathing was a little easier. Maybe he was right.
She watched him through the open curtain as he cleaned up again, correcting him in the back of her head with a voice that wasn't really hers and that she didn't bother to share. He paused while drying his hands, looking her way. His tail went straight and his shoulders lifted, and he waved at her with a bright little smile.
The weight on her chest hit her ribs hard enough to knock the wind out of her. She laid down and buried her face in the pillow again. Her eyes burned.
~
She slept. He'd wake her. She'd eat. The pain would come. She'd sleep again.
Things continued on in this new pattern. How long, she couldn't say. Days blurred naturally on Endless and it only got worse as time passed. Sometimes she woke up to the sound of the TV, and she'd see him curled nearby, chin on his crossed arms and brow furrowed as he stared at the screen. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen that expression on his face before.
Other times she would wake to silence, blinking slowly as she stared at the folds in her curtain or the creases in her pillow. Once, though she couldn't say why, her hand became the single most fascinating thing in the world. It was a detached fascination, like everything else, but she stared at her hand for what felt like hours, curling each finger one by one, bending slowly at every individual knuckle. She'd clench her fist to watch the bones stand out. Flex her tendons so they'd extend into long, sharp claws. She quickly forgot it was her hand.
Her concentration was broken by the sound of clumsy flapping. Big Deal was home, and suddenly the hand was part of her body again, and no longer interesting.
~
Time passed. The pain in her body finally faded, but the weight in her chest never left. In fact, it got worse, thudding randomly at all hours, heating up her chest and her cheeks and the small of her back. Some days she couldn't bare to look at Big Deal's stupid, smiling face for how much it made her hurt.
Other days she'd wake to him gone and the weight would flutter frantically and fill her with panic. She'd spend an hour talking herself down, reminding herself that she couldn't leave. Physically. She wasn't capable of reaching the door anymore, and the effort it would take to dig her claws in and climb would tax what little strength she'd regained. It was fine. He'd come back. Big Deal always came back to her.
It would stop fluttering and start to throb, and she'd throw herself back into the pillows with a tortured scream, to sleep again and keep trying to cleanse herself of this horrible poison that child had put in her body.
Yes. That was it. Surely. It was that rock rattling around, bruising her chest and crushing her lungs. Exhausting her as she tried to fight off the sickness. Surely. She would sleep, and she would rest, and soon she would be free of it and ready to tear Endless apart at the seams again. She'd recreate her perfect, beautiful home. Big Deal would smile and clap like a buffoon and tell her how wonderful she was.
After she slept.
~
~
~
~
It was getting worse.
The throbbing was endless, a near-constant thumping in her chest that captured her in it's terrifying rhythm without her notice. She'd breath to it's tempo. She'd catch herself counting it. Even Big Deal's nasally crooning bounced to it's beat the instant she noticed him singing. Being awake was torture. Waking up alone was worse. Sleep was the only safe option.
Eventually she woke up to voices. Familiar and oddly muffled. It wasn't coming from the television. She could make out different voices but none of the words. Barely any tone. Probably that brat and her little minions playing nearby. She didn't care. She needed to sleep.
She managed to drift until suddenly the voices started getting louder, clearer, and gross squirming curiosity managed to worm its way through her carefully cultivated darkness. Yes. She could hear Twelve. That should probably worry her, but it doesn't. Big Deal too, of course, though he sounded... strange.
Oh, he was angry.
Had she ever heard him angry before? He sounded absolutely furious, and the thing in her chest woke to lift its head and puff itself up. It made her stomach squirm and her limbs buzz with energy she hadn't felt in... who knew how long.
She stared at her dark curtains and listened to the apparent chaos with little interest, though hearing a soft fwoosh and Twelve's yelp of surprise dredged a smile up out of her mental muck. She always did forget Big Deal could breath fire. She had a sneaking suspicion that he forgot too.
After that their voices dropped and another joined into the hushed conversation. She listened to the susurrus a while and found it surprisingly pleasant, slowly drifting off again despite the small, insistent voice in her head that she really needed to worry about Twelve being in her house. It was fine, really. She was tired. It could wait.
Something thumped onto her bed, and the light shifted as her curtains were moved. She ignored the soft grumble, and the finger prodding her shoulder as well. Big Deal would leave her alone eventually, but there was a gasp and a grunt, a thud. A hushed argument. A hand slipped underneath her and started to pull her out. He never did that. The fingers were too long, too thin, too many to be Big Deal, but too gentle and clean to be Twelve. The little voice offered biting as an option, but that seemed like an awful lot of effort.
They jostled her as they turned away from the cage, but that was fine. The dark hands were just as warm and nearly as soft as her pillow, so she could probably just go back to sleep if they would stop talking.
Movement drew her gaze by sheer reflex, letting her take a very distant satisfaction in the way Twelve recoiled at the sight of her. There was something like fear in her eyes, that was nice, though she bore entirely too much resemblance to Big Deal as her face paled and her hands covered her mouth. One of her bracers was smoking. More importantly, there was recognition in Twelve's expression. Familiarity.
Strange.
They argued over her, around her, and she watched until Big Deal caught her eye and sent that thing in her chest banging around again. She curled into herself and shut her eyes, turning her face down into the palms holding her. They smelled papery with a bit of the familiar astringent smell that came with her own spell casting. Must be the flier. The sounds of their voices washed over her as they talked, at first frantic-- Reggie what did you THINK 'worse than death' meant!? -- and increasingly calmer with time.
"But how are we supposed to do... That. On purpose...? "
"J-just do something! You-- You did this t-to her, so...!"
"Big Deal quit it! Ow! I'm thinking!"
They spend a long time talking. Big Deal brought her something to eat and the girl set her down on a pillow, but not the one in her cage. It didn't take much effort to ignore the child's squeaks of delight over the tiny flatware, and mercifully, the heat on the inside finally lulled her enough to fall back asleep.
~
They were gone when she woke up. Big Deal was vacuuming near the entryway, like nothing had ever happened, but he seemed... normal. His humming wasn't so off-kilter anymore. The pillow she'd fallen asleep on had been set beside the cage, close enough that she could just turn over and roll back into her usual spot. She watched Big Deal vacuum instead, and when he paused to cough up a little smoke cloud, the thing in her chest thumped.
~
She woke up again, in the dark now, and he was asleep beside her. Cheek cushioned on his crossed arms, tail looped around her pillow to make a circle of his body around her makeshift bed. His bulk blocked her view of the door, shoulders rising and falling with each wheezy little breath. He looked more relaxed than she'd seen him in... a while, though she'd never slept this close to him before. Not well within arms length like that. Almost close enough to feel the warmth of him.
It was surprisingly easy to pull herself up and shuffle over, leaning into his side. Yes, he was warm. It sank into her back, where she could feel something thumping inside of him as he slept. Slow, steady, constant.
The beating thing in her chest relaxed, satisfied, and when she slept, she dreamed.