0.048
The world was spinning. Warm wet blood was still dripping from her ears. Her eyes didn't want to focus, and the light that made it through the canopy of trees above her was slowly getting darker.
She may have overdone it this time.
Lily was having a hard time focusing even enough to make coherent thoughts come out of her mouth. Her mind kept wandering, while her body felt like it was on a carousel that wouldn't stop.
Star nosed her again. She couldn't hear him right now. She couldn't hear anything in point of fact, but she thought the spell that bound her translation spell had failed as well. She had tried to conjure it again a few times, but whether she tried to draw with mana or with a stick in the dirt, her lines kept coming out too wobbly. She couldn't get the spell to form. Finally, she had given up.
Then she'd just been sitting, hoping that she would start to feel better before night fell. But she hadn't. If anything, she was feeling worse. More tired, more hurt, more sick.
Star nosed her again. She started. It was darker than when she last focused. Was she losing time? This was no good. She wasn't sure Star could still understand her. But she tried to speak anyways.
"Star? Can you hear me?"
He pawed her knee. Inconclusive.
"Mmm. Paw twice for yes, once for no. Do you understand?"
He pawed her twice. That was good. Forcing words out was hard. Each sentence was coming out slowly. She wasn't sure she was making sense. Was she slurring? She couldn't even hear her own voice! This was bad…
"I think I have a concussion. Or worse. Know what that is?"
He pawed her once. Fuck.
"Head injury. The thinky part on the inside. Brain. You probably know what a brain is… Brain injury. I think. Senses are all messed up. Dizzy. Lots of pain. Don't know how to treat it."
He pressed his head into her chest. The pressure almost pushed her over, but it was warmth and comfort. And she needed the comfort. She could almost hear his voice. He was saying that he was there for her. Lily teared up, but she pushed down her feelings. Now wasn't the time to cry. There was still danger.
"Walking will be hard. Don't think I can cast. Can't drive. Don't know how long to recover."
He leaned up and licked her face once. Lily smiled weakly. At least she wasn't alone.
"Can you lead me to the spell? The thread?"
Star moved back and stared at her. She waited for a response. He just continued to stare. Ah. That was his response.
"I can't drive home. But I can probably at least examine the thread and see if it's an immediate danger. Maybe even turn it off if I have to."
He continued to stare.
"I want to argue. But I'm not thinking good. Car better? To sleep the night? I shouldn't sleep if I can stay up… I think. I don't know for how long. How long have we been out here?"
She truly didn't know if it had been half an hour or several hours. The sun was almost down, but she trusted Star to get her where she needed to go. Although the darkness was starting to be overwhelming. Time to find out if she could stand.
Lily rose uneasily to her feet. Star moved to give her some support. She leaned on him and took a few deep breaths.
"Alright. Take me wherever you think is best. We'll figure things out from there, right?"
She could see his tail wag. Once, twice, and then it stopped. Stressful situation, but at least she could still read that. He started forward, slowly. Her leg was still killing her where she had been bit. Although it seemed to be bleeding less at least. Her pants were definitely gonna stain. Not that it mattered. No one would see, plus she had plenty if she raided any clothing store.
The walk was agonizing. But, she just kept stepping forward. There was nothing else to be done. Star would keep her safe, and indeed he seemed to lead her effortlessly around the more difficult terrain as well.
She looked down at where her hand was holding onto his fur. Red blood stained him in several places. He was hurt too. This was all her fault. She was the one who insisted that they come check out the dangerous magical anomaly.
Maybe she should sneak off to do stuff like this alone in the future. Ask him to do something at home and then go take care of it.
Although, if she had done that this time she'd be dead.
…Would she be dead? Some part of her was starting to wonder. Every time she did something that really should have killed her, she'd survived. Starting with the fire at the library. The pit. The mending circle. The basement spell. Now the thread. Every time she was in a life or death situation, she did what she had to do to survive.
That's who she was.
The survivor.
But, how far could that be pushed? Surely, one of these times she'd take it too far? But in most of those cases, the danger had come from her pushing too far in the first place.
What would it take to actually kill her? Could she die? Presumably what took out every other human on the planet left only her behind. Was that related?
What if she aimed a gun at herself, or stepped into a noose? Would she survive that? Would survival instincts kick in and allow her to cast a grand spell? Would they simply fail to work? Or had her luck all this time actually been luck?
Stolen story; please report.
That was a scary thought. That something might be protecting her. She'd have to ask Star, when she could talk to him again. Or at least talk to the other… oh.
If the other Lily had died… wasn't that evidence that she could be killed? She didn't know for sure, but it seemed certain the girl was in some kind of trouble at this point.
She still didn't know what to do…
She bumped into the car before even noticing she had reached it. Star had led her right up to it, but she'd been in a trance like daze.
"Oh. Thanks Star."
She popped the door open and crawled into the back seat. It wasn't long enough to lie down, but she curled up, and after Star jumped in and carefully climbed over her into the front seat, she closed the door behind her. He barely fit. She kept forgetting how big he was getting.
It was cold, and dark. But she knew from experience their body heat would warm things up pretty quick. If it didn't, she could start the car and turn on the heater, but she didn't want to waste gas. There was no telling how long it would take her to recover enough to drive.
"I'm so tired. But I'm not supposed to sleep if I'm concussed. I think. For how long…? I don't remember. My head is swimming. Thanks Star. I'd be gone without you, I think."
He peered over the side of the seat at her. When he first came into her life, she'd thought that his expressions were so indecipherable. But after actually talking to him for so long… She could see the love in his eyes. Right alongside the concern.
"I think I'll be okay. If my brain was actually bleeding or something, I think I'd be getting worse. But I actually think I'm coming around a bit. Got a killer headache though. I think we're through the worst of it. I just wish we could talk while we lay here."
He pawed at her, twice. Yes. She smiled at him.
"I'll keep backups of enchanted objects like that in the future. Wait… Didn't I already have one…?"
Her mind was still foggy. But something was nagging at her. Hadn't she made one for each of them…? Then why couldn't she hear him? Why would they need two?
The translation spell when she wore it made other people understand her, and made her understand them. Right… He wasn't speaking a language though. So a two way connection required him to wear one so she could understand him, and her to wear one so he could understand her.
Did that mean he just understood English now?
Wait, more importantly…
She reached over and grabbed his bandanna, untying it from his neck. There it was. Her translation spell. Rather than being completely erased, it was only missing a small section. She grinned. Thank goodness.
"I think I can fix it. Is it okay for me to try? I'm not being stupid, right?"
He pawed her again. Okay. She only needed to draw in a little bit. Her memory tingled. Hadn't she done something like this a long time ago…? Right. The ever burning flame. She almost giggled. That was forever ago. But she had repaired it. It'd been damaged in a magical related blast too.
She focused. The glyph was half erased. That was all. She could get it working again with two lines, and they didn't have to be perfect. Just reach in, and use her mana. It stung, like moving a limb covered in raw skin. But, she pushed through. Two lines and she could talk to Star. Two. One…
The glyph filled with mana as the circle was completed. Lily let out a relieved breath. She reached over and tied it back around Star's neck, gently.
"Can you hear me, Master?"
Relieved tears came to Lily's eyes. She opened her mouth to reply, but then bit back a sob. She swallowed it down. She could hear him! Well, not hear exactly. Somehow she understood him, as if she was hearing. Even though her ears were messed up still.
"Yeah. Can you hear me?"
"Not as clearly as normal. There is some substance missing, clearness of intent. But I understand the words themselves."
"I'm so glad. I– I really messed up. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have brought us here. I'm hurt. You're hurt. We barely survived. Then I messed up again with the magic. I panicked and went all out. Magic is so destructive when you don't use it with care, and I just was as destructive as I could be in that moment. I don't know what's wrong with me… I do this all the time!"
"Mmm. You do often push things too far, Master. But in this case I think you did good."
She stared at him, the tears dripping down her face now.
"But I got you hurt!"
"We were attacked. I defended you."
"Well you shouldn't have! I'm not worth you getting hurt!"
"I believe only I get to decide that."
All of the emotions of the day were pouring out of her in great gouts of feeling now. Now that they were safe. She couldn't stop crying. She didn't even really want to. She needed these emotions out of her.
"If you died… I– I wouldn't…"
She heard the nostalgic sound of his tail thumping into the door as he looked at her.
"I did not die, Master. In fact, you defended me. And you got hurt. We defended each other, and got hurt. We both lived."
In the tiny space of the car, with him in the front seat, she could not comfortably find a position to hug him. So she simply reached over and held onto one of his paws, and cried for a while. He was quiet, and let her.
She'd been holding back all these feelings all day, she realized. It was starting to be an unconscious behaviour. During the emergency, no emotions were allowed. But once safety came, they all came pouring out of her.
"There's something wrong with me though. Really. When things start to go bad I… I don't know what happens to me. I just do what I have to do to survive. Not even just survive. I do what I have to do to win. And one day, I think it's going to get me or someone I care about killed."
Star quietly stared at her for a few more minutes, before speaking up again. Long silences felt so natural between them. At no point did she start to worry he wouldn't respond, or couldn't hear her. It was one of those things that would have been idiosyncrasies in the old world, but between just the two of them felt perfectly comfortable.
"Master. When the situation is already life or death, I think that doing whatever it takes to live is only natural. What you need, is to stop putting yourself in life or death situations when they do not have to be. It is okay to fail, sometimes, without escalating the situation further. Today was not such an occasion."
She digested that. She was thinking about it when something else wiggled its way into her brain.
"Wait."
Something was there. She just couldn't grasp it. Something had changed. But when…?
"Your tail was wagging a little while ago."
"Yes?"
"I heard it! With my ears!"
The thump thump thump of his tail echoed through the car again, and Lily laughed out loud with joy and relief. She wasn't deaf! She was recovering!
… Suspiciously quickly, like with all of her injuries. But she was recovering!
A wave of tiredness hit her. But it was a relief as well. This was going to be an uncomfortable night's sleep, but she was here. Alive. Star was here, also alive.
They were gonna get through this and figure out what to do next. Together.