The pain in Reed's shoulder dwindled significantly after Penburn lodged it back into place. An hour of rest had lifted most of the hurt he suffered before feeling better. But then again, many things were better than his life.
Penburn introduced him to the room and passed the larger doors in the halls of the infirmary. Black leather couches adorned the corners of the room, a flat table in the center, and a large red curtain covering the empty city road outside.
The room had matched no part of the infirmary. It wasn't even medicinal based, if anything the room had looked like a part of a home plucked cleanly.
As much as Reed wanted to go out and search for answers for any bit of information on what his life had just gone through, he was in no shape or mind, figuring it out all by himself. Penburn was a drop of luck placed right in front of him, and he would wait until his questions would unfold.
Reed now wore an oversized black buttoned vest tucked into his untattered greaves. He'd borrow Penburn's clothes for a time, or maybe never return them. They were not an issue he needed, so he accepted them humbly.
The buttoned vest Reed had worn accentuated his chest in a V-style, and white bandages covered his scar, revealing only a small portion of the wrap. Penburn did so not to treat the already abnormally scarred injury, but to hide it.
After the refreshment that Reed had gone through, finishing up a dried lettuce and ox meat meal, the large doors across the larger room opened suddenly, revealing Penburn walking in, closing it behind him, and wiping some sweat off his temples.
He observed Reed's indulgent behavior and bothered not to disturb him, rather, he threw himself down onto another couch and stretched his legs across.
"I appreciate this, really," Reed told him, finishing up the mashed meal.
"Yes, well," Penburn started, voice growing tired, "I can't let you go unserviced for the obedience you have given me."
"Don't you have customers, though?" Reed wondered.
"No, not until tomorrow, at least. The day's over."
"I see," Reed muttered, licking his teeth for the residual taste he'd adored of the meal. He rested his back against the couch he was on, feigning Penburn.
"I do mean what I said about my appreciation for all this. I know we got off on an odd start, but I need answers, Penburn. We need to talk now."
"You don't need to keep pouring your heart out, Reed, although it does sound better the more you say it, so I won't forbid it." Penburn mused he had already let his ego slip, and Reed noticed the man's way of befuddling serious situations. "I do want to talk, however, now that the day is ours, I suppose, for both of our benefits."
"Tell me how you know all that information you told me earlier, the Profaners, the Reavers, the Kingdom Devils. All of it, if it has something to do with..." And Reed stopped mid-sentence, not realizing that he hadn't mentioned Linette, the incident with the armored attackers, and his burial.
"Yes?" Penburn wondered, leaving the reply open-ended, waiting for Reed to continue.
"Two companions of mine were involved," Reed answered. He paused a moment with the image of Linette's corpse beside him. His hands made a fist as he and Penburn sat up straight. Anger now began infusing his conscience with his hands. He just couldn't let that go. He could not let it go unpaid.
"They were casualties, weren't they?" Penburn assumed right, taking notice of Reed's discomforted anger. "You're alive and well. Take advantage of that however you want. Your life is yours, but let me at least aid you in that... In exchange for a few benefits of my own."
Penburn stood up and began unbuttoning his white vest, giving the room an air of awkwardness.
Reed looked up at Penburn as his chest now revealed a similar scar to that of his own. He didn't know what to say or think.
"We are alike in ways," Penburn said.
"When? Why?" Reed asked in astonishment.
"There's a reason you're here and not at some other infirmary. Those gatemen out there. They aren't just gatemen."
"They knew to bring me to you. They saw my scar," Reed continued.
"Maddis, Furnella, Rhewl, and Tainch," Penburn said, "they hide under the pretense of being city workers."
Reed looked at the man as he buttoned his vest back up. Penburn walked to a cabinet at the corner of the far-end wall. It was bland and empty save for the few glasses in there and a chipped corner. He took two glass cups out and reached for something not visible to Reed. Pulling out a golden liquid in a large encased rock glass.
"Who are you really, Penburn?" Reed asked as the man sat back down, pouring some of the sloshed liquid into the two cups. However, Penburns' glass seemed a little more than half full than Reed's half empty.
"We." He said, "We are the Hardly Hearts." Penburn took his glass and sipped it with his head raised high and his arm spread wide.
"The rest..." Reed added, "The rest of you, the gatemen, are you all like me?"
"We've all been reborn, lifted by our Profaners."
"What do you mean 'our'?" Reed asked.
"You've got a lot to learn Reed, and the first thing I'll let you know is when a Profaner chooses its victim, it's bounded by a favor, whenever that favor blooms to fruition, to no avail, you become host to its force. Humans they are, yet ones that delved into the lightless parts of the unknown long ago."
Reed stood up, placing the glass cup he took from Penburn, without a sip.
"I would say you're full of shit if not for the fact you're like me," Reed exclaimed. "What's the favor?"
"The courtesy is for you to know," Penburn said, "when the time comes at least. You should hope for a trivial one, a Profaner simplistic in their ways."
"You think I'd commit to that thing's command?"
Penburn ignored him, or not, regardless he turned away from Reed and back to the cabinet. He reached for another glass cup and with a specific one pulled from its place, a muffled click came through the walls.
Penburn pushed the cabinet to the side, away from the corner wall, and walked into an opening, descending away from Reed's view.
Standing up and following Penburn, Reed looked down a stone corridor that led to a room further down. Reed stepped down the stone stairs and into the room.
Inside was cold and humid. The sound of droplets fell from the cracks of the ceilings down to the feet of Penburn, who now stood next to someone sitting on a chair.
Penburn turned around and let Reed take in what he saw. A long-haired man, slightly older than Penburn, with black locks nearly touching the stone floor and hands resting on the arms of the chair. The man's head rested back, his eyes fully open, facing the ceiling.
It wasn't the man's frozen visage that Reed took notice of, but the scar on his heart shone cleanly on the shirtless torso.
"What am I looking at, Penburn?" Reed asked, horrifically.
"The one who disobeyed."