I awoke to fire and brimstone. Oh. Wait. … No, the brimstone was really just hospital smell, and the fire was just aches all over my body, not actual fire.
I opened my eyes reluctantly to find myself in a somewhat hazy hospital room. I blinked a little, and the haze cleared, but the hospital room remained the same. If I’d been in human form, I’d probably have screamed at the pain, but all I could manage in shifted form was a groan that almost sounded more like a growl.
Silence, except for the beeping of some machine. I lifted up my head slightly before deciding that was too much work, but what little I’d seen confirmed my suspicions.
I was alone, of course. Why did some part of me think it would be otherwise? Was it because I thought I’d died and someone had been there then, so maybe they’d be there when I woke up? Of course they wouldn’t be, that was stupid – they had been fighting the naga/lizardfolk. It was kind enough of them to just get me to the hospital, I wasn’t their concern anymore.
A familiar, almost overwhelming sense of loneliness hit me, stronger even than the pain I was in. Most people, when faced by a traumatic incident like this, would hope to have family and friends with them, helping them get through it. But I had no one. I was all alone, and I always would be. Somehow, I’d just have to survive this, too. I could do that, right? I had survived the loss of my family, the heartbreak of losing my first love, the loss of friend after friend.
But that was the thing. I was just so tired. I’d been struggling for so long and I just wanted a break from living my life. Even a short one. It was hard to keep struggling on when there was no one who’d even give me a single word of encouragement.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, in physical and emotional pain, before I heard the door open and someone came in. They were busy checking things – my hind leg, which seemed to be in a splint but not a cast; my bite mark; whatever the machines were saying; my breathing; even whether or not my legs were moving, which they seemed to do stiffly under the person’s fingers – so they didn’t notice for what felt like a long time that I was awake.
“Oh!” The human female gave me a surprised smile. She had a protection mark, so I assumed she knew I was a shifter and not an actual cheetah. “I didn’t realize you were up. Let me get the doctor, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Her footsteps receded and for a while I was left alone again before a fairy doctor returned with her.
“Hello!” The fairy doctor greeted me with so much enthusiasm it made my bones ache. Or maybe they were already doing that. “Cooper, isn’t it? Glad to see you’re back in the land of the living! You’ve been out for about four days,” she explained, glancing at the chart the human handed her. “You technically died several times that night, but we were able to revive you, though it was touch and go for a while. You seem to have a sensitivity to naga poison and it was heightened by recent running activity, which I understand was due to the naga to begin with. We’ve put some of the pieces together,” she explained, “one of the naga confessed that they surrounded you in human form and then you took off as a cheetah and probably would have escaped, too, if you hadn’t run into the dueling grounds.”
She shook her head, sighing almost dramatically. “They’re ridiculous,” she informed me. “Some of the supernaturals here came up with this idea a few decades ago to have dueling matches to prove strength rather than engage in outright war with one another. Makes sense, right, avoids deaths? Well, that’s the idea, but it has turned into a mess lately. One of the angels beat the naga nest boss in a duel, and now the naga are claiming he cheated and the angels are insulted at the thought. Then the naga tried to attack some of the angels unexpectedly the other week while they were officially taking over control of the dueling grounds – victor’s prize, as it were – and bit a few of them, and now they seem to have turned their attention to acquaintances of the angels – or at least that’s what I’m told you are.” The entire time she prattled on, she was doing basically the same thing the human nurse had done shortly before – checking things.
“The dueling grounds are invisible to humans, and most supernaturals without magic – like shifters – probably can’t sense them that well, but most of the shifters in Zayne’s group know about the location anyway. Zayne’s basically the lead shifter in the area,” she added. “Anyway, considering that you ran head-first into it and the grounds aren’t open for dueling right now, I’d have guessed you aren’t one of Zayne’s or he’d have told you about it. Good news is that when you did that, it alerted the angels that someone had just attempted to break into the grounds, so they came to take a look. If they hadn’t, you’d be dead by now. Err, permanently dead.”
Angels. So…the familiar voices must have been the angels that night. And this also explained why Tommy had been bitten by the naga, I guess? He must have been bitten at the dueling grounds in the attack she mentioned and washed downstream where I found him.
“You’ve been healing just fine,” the fairy doctor told me in her insanely bright tone. “Fairy magic doesn’t work as well against poisons, but I’ve taken care of your injured leg and the main concern we have now is residual effects of the poison. We gave you an antidote, of course, and the effects of the poison have been wearing off, but your joints have been locked for a while now. Given the current improvement, I think we should know within the next day or so if anything is permanent, but it looks promising that it won’t be. I may still be able to heal it even then. I’ll try, at least.” She shook her head and made a tsking noise. “They shouldn’t have bitten you. It amounts to an attempt to murder you, and by all accounts you weren’t even involved in the fight, so the naga nest is in a bit of trouble right now, or at least the ones involved in the attack against you – which includes several of their leaders. Anyway, you don’t need to worry about them anymore. They’re arrested and the rest of the nest won’t dare go after you or it would just get them all in worse trouble. You’re actually probably the safest person in the city from naga right now.”
That was…something, I guess.
“Also,” the doctor added, a little more briskly, “don’t try to shift back yet – the shift could affect the poison and your body’s attempts to fight it. You need to wait for a while. We can deal with insurance and stuff then, no rush on that. Under the circumstances, we’ll be charging the naga nest your medical fees anyway, but we’ll copy your insurance information down anyway in case they need a record of it – unless you don’t want us to, I suppose that’s fine, too. Also, we didn’t know whom to contact and we’re assuming your phone was on you when you shifted. I know you can’t communicate that well in shifted form – and like I said, don’t shift back – but Nina here can help you with a chart where you blink at the appropriate number and all. It’s a bit of a pain to communicate through, but at least it works.”
Shifters like me had no magic except in our shift itself – which meant when we shifted, whatever we were wearing went with our human form into a magical…non-dimension? Wherever our shifted forms went when we were human and our human forms when we were shifted. Anyway, everything I was wearing, including what was in my pockets such as my keys and cell phone, were with my human form in whatever magical dimension it disappeared to. The book I’d been holding in my hands, however, did not. I vaguely remembered dropping that as I shifted and regretted losing the book. I’d have to get another copy from the bookstore. I also wondered what happened to my book delivery and hoped that it was at my apartment building waiting for me.
Nina arrived with the chart, but seemed confused when I didn’t respond to any of the numbers. She thought for a bit, then switched to the alphabet until I gave her a simple message in response to the question of whom to contact.
No one.
With that cheerful message reminding me of how alone I was, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
~~~~~
“Cooper.” A voice stirred at my consciousness. I flicked an ear, and tried to ignore it.
“Cooper,” it called again, more insistently this time. Then someone’s fingers brushed against the fur on my cheek.
Reluctantly, I opened my eyes to find heterochromia eyes of one of the angels.
Tommy seemed happy to see I’d woken up – which was his doing to begin with. “Hey, I’m glad you’re getting better now.” Then his face turned more serious as he pulled up a chair to sit at eye level with me. “I’m sorry about what happened. You saved my life, and in return we dragged you to a party where you weren’t having fun and then the naga added to it. This really was kind of the opposite of what I was going for with trying to thank you. Honestly, when I realized you weren't enjoying the party, I probably should have seen if we could sort of sneak out, because I don't love those affairs either, but Adelaide would have had a fit. Anyway, I'm sorry about the party, I should have stopped Colt, and should have stepped in, and I feel bad about that. And I'm sorry you got dragged into a fight with the naga because of us.”
When I sort of just blinked at him, confused, he seemed to accept this as at least a truce and gave me a little smile. Then he reached out, almost without thinking, and took my paw in his hands, curiously investigating the half-retracted claws.
“Oh. Sorry.” He had the decency to look embarrassed when he realized what he was doing and gently set my paw back down, putting his hands in his lap. “I’ve never seen a cheetah up close before, or really any big cat. Except Zayne.” He made a face. “Zayne’s a lion. He’s…annoying at best. I’m actually kind of surprised he hasn’t tried to recruit you. I feel like he would love having another large cat in his crew.”
I wanted nothing to do with supernatural politics, though, so there was that.
I did want to ask the angel what he was doing here and if the whole point of his visit was just to wake me up and apologize, but I had no way to communicate that apart from a slightly annoyed flick of my tail.
His eyes went to the movement and, to my surprise, he seemed to get the hint. “So, anyway, I came over here to apologize, but I also figured you could use some company, and,” he started fumbling around in a messenger back before triumphantly pulling out the book I’d mailed back to him. “I’m going to read to you,” he explained. “I didn’t expect you to return it, by the way, though I suppose you’re not obligated to accept a gift from me, either. Anyway, since you’re now a captive audience and I know you like to read normally, I’m just going to read to you instead.”
I was a little flabbergasted at his persistence but my annoyance got washed away almost immediately when he began reading. The story was, indeed, interesting, but it was far more about the way he read it. Tommy could probably do dramatic readings and get paid for it, he was that good. It drew people in, even the nurse when she came to check on me – she forgot herself for several long minutes, listening in rapture along with me, until she got called off to deal with another patient.
It wasn’t even just the way he read it, it was his voice itself. I hadn’t noticed much during our conversations before now, but he had a deep voice and it sounded so good just listening to it. I was pretty sure I could listen to him for as long as he wanted to talk and was glad I was in my shifted form so he couldn’t see me just sitting there staring at him. In fact, I could conveniently keep my eyes closed, my tail twitching every so often so he knew I was still awake.
Apparently, though, I was enjoying listening to him so much that I actually did fall asleep at some point, which I was kind of dismayed to realize when I woke up. I’d been hoping to stay awake until he finished the book, honestly, or at least until he decided to leave on his own.
He’d left the book on the top of the short dresser, though, which made me think he might plan to come back and keep reading to me. Probably in the evening, if he did come back, because I assumed he’d have work. It was morning now, which meant another long day of doing nothing in a hospital until I got permission to shift back.
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