Chapter Text
The first thing Hunter noticed as he began waking up was the rays of sunlight that warmed his face. In a split second, still rubbing his eyes, he panicked, thoughts flowing frantically.
Oh no, the sun is up? I'm so late even the sun is up, I'm late for patrol and I still have to put on my uniform-
When he finished rubbing his eyes, he remembered.
There was no uniform in sight. No cold stone walls, no
scratchy sheets that wouldn't soften even despite the use.
No patrol.
He wasn't the Golden Guard anymore.
Hunter took a second to breathe. That damn trick of Gus' had no business being as effective as it was.
The second thing he noticed once he was truly awake, was the soft pang of pain that hit as soon as his ribcage expanded.
Okay, that was not the first time it happened. Sometimes the air in the castle was enough to make him hurt, sometimes it was a cold or something entirely unknown to him. However, out of the last few months, this was one of the most familiar things he had encountered.
He was used to it. Usually, it faded throughout the day, sometimes with a little help from movement.
Right. Movement. That was probably his best hope now.
All of a sudden, he felt grateful for the very first time since his return to the Isles for the fact that Hexside had not yet been declared functioning again. He could maybe spend the day training a little! Whatever Darius said, the fact that he now had a home did not mean he could simply lose his shape. Maybe he was no longer training for combat (okay, maybe just a little, but what was he going to do without a palisman if he ever got attacked?), but a fraction of his usual exercise routine would surely do the trick. Enough not to worry Darius, enough to get rid of the stupid pain.
However, the next thing he noticed as he tried to stand up, was the nausea. It was very mild, but uncomfortable nonetheless. Nothing compared to that he got after nightmares or flashbacks, though. This felt a hundred times lighter, but somehow a hundred times more obnoxious too.
Okay, a little nausea was nothing. He knew how to deal with nausea. Hunter swallowed in an attempt to ease the feeling.
A few seconds later, it hit.
Hunter was an expert at dealing with pain when he expected it. He could do hours of realistic sparring, remembering to forget the ache of his tired body and the sting of the constant impacts until it was nothing but that, stinging. He could take a blow, he could take appropriate discipline. Titan, there was a reason he had even made it out alive of scout training!
However, when the source of such pain was swallowing-
It wasn't even in his throat, punches to the neck were painful but definitely did not feel like that. Out of nowhere, his stomach -it wasn't even his stomach, but a very specific region he couldn't pinpoint amidst the blank slate that was his brain, unable to focus on anything that wasn't pain, pain, pain.
Hunter gasped, dropping to the floor in an attempt to manage the unexpected aching. It was even worse than having the air knocked out of him and the pain that came with a blow to the stomach. It was so intense his vision turned white for a second, and he was on the floor trying his best to just breathe and-
Just as unexpectedly as it came, it faded.
Good.
At least it went away before it got in the way of his exercise routine, or worse, before Darius came in to wake him up and found him on the ground. While Hunter was pretty sure not waking up as early as he usually did would be suspicious by itself, there was always the chance that Darius believed he was finally beginning to adapt himself to what he called a more "humane" sleep schedule.
He did not want to have to deal with that.
More importantly, he was not making Darius deal with that.
However, to avoid the possibility of collapsing again while running his usual laps around the house, he figured it wouldn't hurt to switch to simply some exercises in his room. No jumping, though. If they didn't have any reason not to, Darius and Eberwolf usually didn't wake up until a few hours after him and Hunter didn't want to be that reason. Then again, the sun was already up, so Titan knew how long he had before he was called for breakfast.
Suddenly, a thought struck him.
Why was he changing his exercise routine only because of a random burst of pain?
He had done way more than a few laps around a house in far worse conditions.
It wasn't as if he was afraid of being in pain, he was pretty used to it. Many types of it, in fact, so why should a morning cold pain be any different? Sure, whatever it was with the second one was... unexpected, but that was definitely not the worst he had felt.
The Draining Spell had.
Hunter shook the thought off. Sure, it had felt almost as burning hot, the same type of excruciating sharpness, but that didn't mean he was afraid of it.
How could he be afraid of just a little pain?
With that in mind, he began using some books as improvised weights. While the constricting feeling that came with breathing was almost gone, he knew that it was better to take it lightly at first if he wanted exercise to be of any good for that specifically.
Based off the angle of the shadows that the light coming in through his window created, he figured he still had at least enough time to finish some lifting sequences.
It was going well, or rather as well as trying to do weight exercises with books as substitutes could go. He had only dropped the top one off the little stack he was lifting three times so far, out of which none had been on his head. Hunter considered that a major win.
His breathing also seemed to ease a little, and while the weird feeling was not yet gone, it had turned from a present discomfort to something he only really noticed when he stopped to rest, a little stiffness he noticed as he took deep breaths to start cooling down. For a while now, cooling down had meant "slowing down breathing" instead of simply a technicality he didn't hold much regard for. He wasn't going to have people wait for him to cool down if he was captured after fighting!
For some reason, he had begun actually needing to take the time to do so.
Hunter figured it could probably be a good idea to fetch some water as it wouldn't be long before the rest of the house started their respective days.