Callisto

Bond

Pain.

Blurred visions of terror that swam in the dark realm of unconscious thought. She felt herself being held down. Somewhere in the dream world, a voice she did not know commanded that she bite down on something. For no reason that she could properly intuit, she trusted the voice.

Then the agony of something being removed from her shoulder shot through her system, and the world hid itself from her once more.

...

When Rain-Born finally woke up, she was greeted by a red-hot searing in her shoulder and agonizing throbbing in her hand and head. The grey sky above wept not for her misery, and birds chirped merrily around her. They were all blissfully unaware of the useless creature that sat before them.

She turned her head to see that her shoulder had been bandaged, her hand too. And as she prospected her new surroundings: another burnt-out house in the suburb, one half rotted away with acid and age, she saw Jespar sleeping beside her.

His ear had been bandaged too. They must have both looked like wounded invalids. In this sorry state, anyone could have come upon them and slaughtered them both.

That's what she deserved, she thought. But not him.

She looked down at his peaceful face and rhythmic snores and realized that he must have bandaged them both, applying the magic of the Old World that woman had said she possessed, as he had done for her back in the Canyon of Evil Spirits. It did not matter what he said he was or was not: he was a healer. He had saved her from the brink of death.

She painfully reached to stroke his face but turned away before she felt his soft snout. She didn't even deserve to touch a creature as blessed as he. She was filth. She was nothing. She had almost killed them both.

She remembered everything.

She did not cry. Tears served no purpose. She let her arm go limp and let her eyes close to the world again. But the sight of Jespar's wet, bandaged ear lingered in her mind.

"Jespar," she whispered, hoping that somewhere he would hear. "I'm sorry."

...

The next time she woke, the pain had dulled somewhat, and she could perceive her surroundings more clearly.

Sun streaked through the roof's broken remnants above, illuminating another ruined corpse of a civilization long gone. Jespar was sleeping on a leather seat, reclining but kicking and turning every few seconds as he did when nightmares plagued him. Another blown-out "TV" box lay in the corner of the room next to splinters of broken glass and light bulbs. She lay next to a crumbling wall wrapped in something soft and warm. Once again, the calming effect this wrapping had on her showed that not everything the Old Worlders created was a thing of pure evil.

But that woman's eyes flashed through her mind again, and she shuddered at the thought. She had never been so close to the precipice of death. She could almost feel the touch of the Great Spirit upon her shoulder, still stung with pain.

She risked a look at the bloody bandage that clung to the affected area. She winced as she slowly peeled back the white layers to reveal what was impossible: any evidence of the Deathspitter's impact on her shoulder was replaced by a cross-stitch that ended just beneath her neck.

"Do not touch."

The voice startled her, but she still could barely reach her feet. She reached for her dagger and found nothing by her side. She truly was alone, and with no alternative, she turned to face this new threat.

Her panic subsided, replaced by a strange sense of wonder, as she looked up to see her Tribal brother watching her from atop a rotten wooden table. He seemed preoccupied cutting something on the table face, and only as her eyes met his did he bow low and hop off the table toward her.