Regaining consciousness was hell, a chaotic blur of thrashing and panicked cries that somewhat sounded like the helpless wails of a kid. My body is completely filled with searing pain. It still feels like fire is all over me still. Not even realizing one of the other slaves is picking me up. Once I'm placed back down, I know I'm laying on some of the awful slave bedding. The scratchy feeling of the cloth feels like sandpaper on my burns, but the fox slave mutters a chant and after a yellow glow, the pain disappears till it's a dull itch.
Managing to force out "T-thank you." through dry cracked lips.
With swift and breathless sincerity, she says, "You've done more than enough, no thanks needed!"
I shift my head clumsily, my gaze sweeping across the room. The exit is blocked by the cage door I had managed to smash off, and what appeared to be a wall of ice stood in front of the first person I had freed, who sat staring at it blankly. Turning my attention back to the woman, I inquired softly, my words rough against my throat, "So what's next, um, and what's your name?"
She scoots closer and says, "My name's Ava. The guard dog over there is Zandral. For what's next, I'm going to heal you, but it'll probably take a day or maybe two. It depends on how fast I can gather ether."
Ether? Is that the magic here? Is that what that card let me use to get out of my cage? I'm going to have to learn a lot later. The next thought that comes to my mind, I blurt out, "What are we going to do about food and water? We haven't eaten or gotten anything to drink in two days already."
Ava takes a deep breath and mutters something. That I couldn't make out, but then a white vortex appears next to her, and she reaches in while saying, "I got some stuff now that I recovered a little."
She turns her head and quietly shouts to Zendral to come over as her hand appears. His face breaks from the neutral one I've seen since waking up to pure excitement. He gruffly spat, "You had an ether pocket!" While breaking into a short dash, he closed the short distance and immediately sat in front of Ava with a smile.
He seems explosive, I hope in a good way, but you can never be too sure. Ava turns back to me to tell me "Jerky might be hard for you to get down, but it's all that lasts in there." Then she reaches back into the vortex to pull out glass bottles labeled water.
It feels too good to be true, like a dream… any minute I'm going to wake up and that ogre of a slaver is going to kick in the door. Ava breaks my train of thought by saying, "Here, the water will help." then white till I weakly wrap my hand around the bottle.
My arm shakes, barely holding on to it even with her help with my pain. My body feels heavy and weak, but as I open and take the first sip, the feeling of sand in my mouth disappears. The water makes its way down my throat and feels like heaven. Ava, before handing me jerky, tears it into smaller pieces and says, "I hope this helps some."
While taking it, I place the water next to me while trying to give her thanks again, but yet again, she refuses it. The jerky was still tough in small chunks, but it was tastier than anything given here, so I didn't care. As I took each piece into my mouth to savor the flavor, I look over to see Zendral already done with his food with a somewhat grim expression on his face.
With a gentle Ava just sits there, she didn't pull any food out for herself. Though as soon as "Do we not have enough for you to eat? If that's the case, you can have some of mine." leaves my lips she opens up a vortex to pull something out, then again, then again, then again…
Nervously, she stammers while holding a mountain of preserved meat, "There's nothing to worry about, see!" She drops the meat, and the vortex catches it in midair before she grabs her piece. After we are done, Ava heals my injuries some, but nothing too crazy. I still look like a corpse, not that I can feel much due to whatever she's doing. Zandrel flinched when he saw some of my skin grow back, but I almost laughed at the strange feeling of it.
When she's done, Zandrel scoots next to me and takes a drink from the bottle of water. Then says thanks to I'm not sure who... He was facing me, but I think they meant it for Ava. Without saying another word, he goes back to where he was sitting in front of the door. Ava then scoots even closer to me and I look at her with a puzzled look on my face.
Without a word, she lifts my head and scoots one of her three tails under it. She then breaks her silence by saying, "I have to stay up to keep healing you and Zandrel is his own person, but why don't you get some rest?"
Her words allowed the exhaustion I had been struggling against to finally take me, and before long, I drifted off into a much-needed sleep. My hope is when I wake up, my body will be in much better condition.
…
..
.
He's sleeping on one of my tails, our savior, our light! I want to see more. More of him savoring my homemade food. Even more of him worrying about me! Especially him worrying about me over little things like I'm not eating to stare at him! I couldn't help it. I just needed to bask in his presence for a minute since his face while he was eating is so beyond cute!
Suddenly he rolls onto his side and I feel myself jump a little, thinking I woke him up because I got too excited…
Author's note: Hope you enjoyed the chap, feedback is welcome!