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Odile is listening to Isa and Mira explaining a new Vaugardian concept as the four of you sit in the clearing.
“Fascinating. So, it’s fine to enter a stranger’s house unannounced, but not to venture any farther than the first room? That seems arbitrary, what’s the reason?” Odile has taken out her notebook and has her pen ready to jot information down.
Before Mira can answer, you hear a branch snap in the forest nearby.
You turn your head. Bonbon is out playing in there, so it’s most likely just them. But when you all said they were allowed to roam around (they were clearly restless and scared, like the rest of you, and you thought it would do the kid some good), you did so with the implied clause of watching out for them as much as possible.
You’re not taking any chances.
Scanning the trees, you can just barely see the darklessness of their hat standing out against the darker shades. But what is much harder to miss is the towering Sadness rapidly moving towards them.
The others gasp as they also notice it, but the Sadness is getting far too close to Bonbon and you know that no one but you would be able to make it in time.
You snap your fingers and race towards the danger, faster than you can ever remember moving in your life. As you pass through the treeline, you see Bonbon turn their head away from the berries they were collecting and watch the moment their eyes fill with visceral fear.
You’re closing in, now, faster faster faster, but oh stars the Sadness is reaching out a clawed, mangled hand towards the petrified kid that you all swore to protect no no NO-
You push yourself harder, your legs burn, you’re so close PLEASE NOT BONBON-
Seconds before the Sadness can rake its talons across their face, you dart in front of them, arms held out widely at your sides as you shield them as best as you can.
You have barely a moment to hear the trembling “Frin?” from behind you before your time runs out.
BLINDING STARS- IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS PLEASE STOP-!!!
You can feel the claw in your EYE, it’s ripped the skin around it like tissue paper and you can feel tugging as it gets stuck in the organ and oh STARS this is AWFUL- It squelches and digs deeper and you almost black out from the feeling of it scraping against the back of your eye socket, the horrible pain as you feel your eyeball cave and tear around the sharp intruder and-
It must last barely a second but the Sadness’s talon finally yanks itself free, and you only barely hold back your bile when you catch sight of the tattered remains of your eye hanging loosely from the tip.
But still you stand there, not allowing yourself to hunch over in pain because what if it goes after Bonbon next you won’t let it-
You will stand there and take it and protect them no matter what because they’re the most important one to save, and your life is meaningless compared to theirs-
You force yourself to hear past the rushing in your ears, to ignore the pulsing agony emanating from your mutilated face, to fight the rising urge to vomit, to listen out for Bonbon behind you. Because if a Sadness could sneak past all of you to get to them (blinding useless lookout, Siffrin!), who’s to say there isn’t another one waiting to strike? You refuse to let your guard down, you can’t, you won’t, if you have to stand in the way of a thousand Sadnesses to protect your kid then so be it!
But all you hear behind you are their harsh breaths, a sign of panic but not of them being in physical danger. Good. Keep it that way.
The others burst through the trees, Mira and Isa leading the charge as Odile hurries behind them. You can’t see them properly from this angle, but you hear Isa rushing forward with a cry as he hits the Sadness, hard.
You look at the Sadness closer as they all fight it (without you, can’t even help fight now, Siffrin? That’s why they keep you around, isn’t it?) and notice that the rock attacks seem to be doing the most damage.
Ha. This much damage from a scissors attack? Pathetic.
The creature is massive, easily twice your height, and has large, bird-like talons on its hands. You again catch a glimpse of blood smeared on one of them, something stringy and darkless dangling from it, and decide to stop thinking about it.
Finally, as your arms are beginning to shake from holding their defensive position, the Sadness lets out a mournful cry and melts around one of Isa’s fists. It’s only once you see your party start to relax that you let yourself move. Your hand automatically makes its way to your left eye, growing warm with the blood quickly pumping out of the wound.
The party hasn’t noticed anything is wrong, yet, and you’d like to keep it that way for as long as you can. You tilt your hat down. No need to burden them with this, they deserve a minute to themselves after a hard-fought victory! You’re not worth the worry, anyway.
But- You feel a small hand grab your cloak and startle. Bonbon is taking heaving breaths, huddling themself into your back and you can feel your clothes growing damp.
Oh no, they’re crying! Say something-!
You turn around and twist your mouth into a smile, attempting to say something reassuring, or to let the other three know that they need help, but-
Bonbon looks up at you, at your glove drenched with still-flowing blood and something clear, pressed to what used to be your eye, and screams.
The look on their face is infinitely worse than the pain.
Footsteps start up behind you as everyone else begins to rapidly make their way over.
Bonbon is transfixed, laser-focused on your face as tears spill over their cheeks.
You twist your head until hair covers up the parts of your face your hat doesn’t (don’t scare them!) and cling to the smile on your face. You have to fix this.
Mira enters into your field of view (so much smaller now, isn’t it?) and looks first at Bonnie. As Isa also approaches, Mira finally catches sight of the blood soaking into your collar and shrieks. She prepares a healing craft, and the other two rush over even faster.
Isa freezes when he looks over at you. His eyes go wide and his face pales. A hand reaches towards you and it hovers there between you both, trembling. You don’t know how to react.
Odile makes it over, trying to disguise her laboured breaths, and also stills upon catching sight of you. Mira’s healing has hit you already, but you… don’t really feel better? You think maybe the cut got smaller under your palm, but you don’t want to check because they’ll all see and worry and you can’t do that to them-
“Siffrin. Please remove your hand. We need to see the damage.” Odile seems calm, but you can see the way she wrings her hands together.
“Why isn’t the healing working?! Am I doing it wrong?! What do I-” Mira is desperately grabbing at your tonic stash, pulling out as many as she can hold.
“Mira, you’re not doing anything wrong, it’s okay. We just- just need to check and see what happened first, huh?” Isa seems to be copying Odile’s approach of projecting an aura of composure, but his voice cracks when he glances at you again.
Bonbon is still in the same position, tears flowing down their face in rivers. Their eyes are blown as wide as you’ve ever seen them, making them look even younger and only reinforcing your decision.
“Siffrin, I’m not asking again. Let us see,” Odile repeats, voice hard.
You flinch and feel your smile strain at the edges.
“It’s fine! Nothing big, the Sadness just, uh, cut me off guard.” Your laugh trails off when even Isa doesn’t laugh with you. Ouch!
Bonbon sniffles and you so desperately want to tell the party to focus on them but you have a feeling that wouldn’t be appreciated right now. Odile looks like she’s about to tear your hand away herself, and you know she hates touching you, so you should probably do as she says to save her the experience.
You sigh. No helping it, then. You’d love to hide it away a little longer, reduce the stress they feel over you, but it seems you can’t wriggle out of showing the injury this time!
“Can you at least take Bonbon away for it?” Their face crumbles even further at this, but you’re not that stupid. They’re all overreacting right now, but even you know that seeing this in full would probably traumatise the kid a little bit.
The other three look at each other and nod, then seemingly have a silent argument over who leaves with them. Odile sighs. Guess she lost?
“I suppose I’ll take Boniface back to camp, then.” She straightens up, adjusting her glasses. “I understand I am not the most… equipped for comfort out of our group, but Mirabelle needs to be here for healing and I believe I would have to physically drag Isabeau away from you right now, Siffrin.” She sends a Look towards Isa, and his face gains a flush but he sets his jaw. You don’t know what that’s about, but you’re secretly a little glad he’s staying.
“But- But I wanna help Frin! It’s not fair, they- it’s my- I’m the one who almost got hurt so I should be here!” Bonnie’s face scrunches up into a tearful scowl. “I can help!”
“Bonbon, I’ll be okay. It’s not that big of a deal, alright? You don’t have to-” Your reassurances are cut off by a furious yell.
“NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL?! YOU CRABBING-” Whatever they were going to say turns to sobs.
Odile grabs their arm lightly and they bury their face into her chest with a wail. She begins walking them back towards where you’ve all settled for the time being. Hushed words follow as she speaks to them, face betraying the concern she’s feeling and words sounding a lot more gentle than usual.
Guilt rises in your throat.
Mira is vibrating anxiously as she gestures for you to remove your hand. Isa nods his agreement and braces himself.
…
You do.
Immediately, any blood left in their faces drains and Mira claps her hands to her mouth. Isa lets out a keening noise and makes an aborted movement towards you.
That’s. That’s probably not the best sign, haha!
Your gloved hand drips blood onto the grass and you take in some deep breaths. You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine. This is nothing!
They’re both standing there, motionless, as they take in your face. The attention makes you squirm.
“That bad, huh?” You try to sound upbeat but they both flinch. Oops.
Mira moves closer, looking nauseous. She hands you a sweet tonic and you drink it down quickly, cringing as the cloyingly sweet taste mixes with iron. The torn skin on your face stitches itself back together and it almost hurts more than the initial blow. You bite your lip hard to silence the whine trying to escape you. Embarrassing!
“Okay, that worked, that’s good, but- Siffrin, can you… can you see my hand?” Is Mira holding up a hand? You don’t see a hand.
You shake your head and her face falls even more. Isa looks grim as he puts a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s- Mira, there’s no way they would be able to see from that… eye, with or without you healing it. Don’t blame yourself.” He’s hesitant with his words, frowning at your face.
You want to reassure them both but you’re still fighting the noises your body is trying to make. You swallow and take in some deep breaths until you don’t think you’re at risk of humiliating yourself anymore.
Stars, it feels like your eye has been doused in boiling oil. The skin around it stretches uncomfortably, and the new emptiness on your left side is leaving you dizzy on your feet.
Ignore it, come on.
“Sif… We can get you to a village, to a House, but there aren’t any for a while and I’m not sure they’d be able to fully fix your eye. I’m sorry, but,” Isa takes a shaky breath in to steady himself. “I think you might not be able to use that eye anymore.”
Mira sobs. Isa looks calm, but you know that under his Defender training he’s just as scared as she is. But…
“Okay.” You shrug.
Now that you’re not actively bleeding, you don’t see what the problem is. Sure, it’ll suck being down an eye, but it could be worse. Bonbon could have been hurt! This is by far the better outcome.
It still really hurts, yeah, but that will go away after awhile. You’re used to pushing through pain, anyway. This should be an inconvenience at most.
Besides, you don’t have time to be selfish and worry about something like this! You have a whole country to save!
But the others look horrified. They don’t seem to know how to respond. You don’t intend to give them time to figure it out.
“I’m going back to camp! I need to wash off, don’t want to be caught with blood on my hands.” You wink at them and take a few steps forward. Your boot hits a tree root you couldn’t see and you start to plummet to the ground.
Isa catches you.
“Woah, Sif, hold on. We can go back if you want, but you need to be careful! We don’t want you getting hurt! Or, uh, more hurt…” He wraps an arm around your shoulder (warm) and helps you take another step.
Mira rushes forward and takes your other side. “Y-Yeah! You’re probably in shock, we need to be safe! We can help, it’s not too far!”
You feel your cheeks darken as they help you navigate through the trees. Your legs aren’t even what’s injured, you don’t need their help, but selfishly you enjoy the contact while it lasts.
When you all make it back to the clearing, Odile and Bonbon are nowhere to be seen. Your heart lurches and you whip your head around to find them. No, no, no, you left them to be hurt again-
But wait. There’s muffled crying coming from Bonbon and Mira’s tent, along with muted whispers. Okay. Deep breaths, Siffrin, they’re alive. Odile will help them. You can apologise for making them cry later.
You must have stopped walking, because when you zone back in, Mira and Isa are looking at you in concern.
“We- we’re almost there, Siffrin! Just a little longer, okay?” Mira leads you all to your tent and you collapse onto your bedroll as soon as they let you go.
Isa sits down at your side while Mira grabs first-aid equipment from her bag. Her hands are shaking but she’s still efficient. You think she’s so brave.
“So, I don’t… really know how to heal this sort of injury? It- it would be better to get him to a House as soon as possible. But I know the closest one is a couple of days travel from here…” she trails off as she eyes the medical supplies in her hands.
“It’s okay Mira, anything will help, right?” Isa reassures her and you feel his hand squeeze your shoulder. You jump and he lets you go. Of course.
She nods to herself. “Yes. Yes, I can- I can at least make sure it doesn’t get infected before we get there. Um, Siffrin, could you move your hair out of the way? Sorry, I just… can’t really see it properly.”
You comply, moving the blood-stained strands out of the way of the injury. Mira takes in a sharp breath when it’s revealed again, and looks distinctly ill.
She grabs some salve and looks to Isa.
“Isabeau, could you maybe get me some ice? Some that we’re using for the cooking ingredients? I think that was supposed to help… maybe…” she says, unsure.
“‘Course! I’ll be back in a sec, Sif, don’t miss me too much!” His tone is jovial but it’s clearly just for your sake. You’re so fragile.
With Isa gone, you’re finding it harder to distract yourself. The searing pain shooting through your eye makes it hard to think. It feels like it’s still getting cut open, getting ripped apart. Feels like it will never stop hurting.
You hope you aren’t showing any of the pain on your face. The last thing Mira needs right now is to be distracted.
She mutters under her breath as you breathe in and out, and you catch medical jargon in her words. She must be reciting what she remembers about healing.
She reaches out a hand to your face and you jolt back on instinct. She retracts her hand quickly, apologising, then brings it back slower. Her fingers make contact with the raised, newly-healed skin around your eye and you feel… nothing.
That’s probably not great!
She applies the salve to the area and you don’t even feel the cold. Is she even touching you right now? Everything except the pain has felt muffled since you sat down. Are you even here right now?
Before you can spiral, Isa unzips the tent and presents some wrapped up ice to Mira. She takes it with a thanks and sits back on her heels to look at you.
“I’ve applied some cream so hopefully the cut doesn’t get infected, but I guess it was mostly closed anyway because of the tonic so it was probably fine? A-anyways, better safe than sorry! Unless that wasn’t right and I made things worse… Um! I don’t know how much I can actually do for your eye? So! So I was thinking we could bandage it and check on it every now and then? Then put some ice on it???” She frantically looks between you and Isa.
“Sounds good to me, Mira! I’m pretty sure they told us to leave eye-related healing to the professionals when I was a Defender, so as long as we head to a House as soon as we possibly can, that should work out. We can do shifts checking in on it while we walk to a town, team bonding exercise!”
You give a thumbs up. You don’t actually know anything about this, but Isa seems confident enough and you trust both of their judgements much more than your own.
Her shoulders slump and she sends you both a weak smile. You feel awful that you’re stressing her out so much, but you can’t think of a good enough excuse to leave just yet. Your mind is fuzzy and you feel so unsteady even though you’re sitting down. If you tried to run, you’re sure that you would end up in the dirt.
Mira grabs some gauze from the kit and positions it over your eye, making sure it covers as much of the scarred area as possible. You debate whether or not you should tell her about the numbness in your face, but decide not to. Don’t need to worry her more when it might be nothing. The House can deal with it later.
She wraps a bandage around the gauze to keep it in place and it sends further sparks of pain through your eye despite the gentle treatment. She is careful to avoid putting too much pressure on it, but somehow that doesn’t stop the feeling. You suppress a gag and fight to keep your face unbothered. Don’t think about it.
She leans back again, wiping sweat from her brow. You clap enthusiastically. She startles but smiles as Isa joins in. Good, you did something right!
The ice pack is handed over and you press it against the bandage, wincing when the pain skyrockets again. You manage to send a grateful smile to Mira.
“Thank you, eye really appreciate the help. You must have been a star pupil in your healing classes.” Her tentative smile drops away as she gapes at you.
“This is not the time for puns, Siffrin! You- your eye is- Change, you’ll probably never be able to see from it again and-”
You cut her off. “But Bonbon is okay? They’re not hurt?”
“Yeah, but, Sif-” Isa starts to say.
“Then it’s fine! I’m fine. It’s just an eye, right?” Somehow, this does not seem to make them feel better.
Why don’t they get it? Obviously an eye is worth less than the life of a child, and you’re the only one that got hurt! Yeah, it will be more difficult to beat the King with only one eye, but they’re all strong so you have no doubt you can do it (can’t really afford to doubt it at this point).
It won’t affect you much after that. Not after they all leave you. Definitely not after you’re-
Your life is less important than theirs, anyway! Just a forgetful traveller with nothing better to do. They all have goals, motivations, families, whole lives ahead of them! All you have is them. So if you can get hurt in their place, they should be happy about it. Thrilled, even, that the disposable rogue took a hit meant for them.
And you’re happy! So happy you could help, could save Bonbon, it makes you feel incredibly warm! Useful! So why do they still look like that? Why do they look stricken? Why are they both tearing up?
“It’s not fine! Siffrin, your eye is gone! Why are you acting like this?!” Mira is pleading with you for answers, begging, but you don’t understand!
You don’t understand. It’s fine, isn’t it?
You smile, genuine, and say, “Could have been worse, right?”
It’s not like you’ll live long enough for it to really matter.