After-party

[Hope]

HHope you comingg?

I'll be right behind them.

I just need to...

Just need... to...

Heavy black lids shuttered in ultra slow-motion. What was that up against the wall? Who was that? Black digits scraped along the sterile exterior. Each flicker of that halogen echoed in her brain and it began again. Quiet at first, that fucking ringing, when did it come back? She couldn't feel the brass knob she clutched with her hands. Normally it was cool- its finely brushed texture was soothing to behold but now she couldn't feel a thing in those fingers. Her breaths plumed in front of her and as she collapsed she could hear a voice on the other side.

"Hey! Are you... okay?!"

[Hope]

"Doctor do you see-" Bright, way too bright.

"Yes get the drip." When had she managed to open both eyes?

"What the hell did you do this time?" His voice faded before her lids shut over the scene.

Blurs continued to shift about her and then it began. Pain has infinite faces.

"She's awake!" The nurse jumped back when the bed shook. The metal buckles strained to hold the various pieces of leather in check.

"Damnit!" She cried out, the simple pair of syllables slurred. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she struggled to make sense of the pale room.

"Careful now, we've got you hooked up." The doc held the leather binding her wrist so she might make out the iv in her arm.

"Yet again Miss Naharis I'm in awe of how you manage to get yourself in these predicaments. The antlers? The horns? Whatever the hell that was- that's childsplay. What we have here is deep frostbite. Except yet again you stupefy me with how you're reacting to it. Anyone else- maybe not in this crazyville city, but anywhere else that I've seen we'd amputate both of these arms right here and right now." He lit up a cigarette as the nurse left the room and the bed began to ease.

"Even now layer by layer your tissue is healing. I don't understand. Are you blessed? Is it a curse?" He looked down at her arms as the shifting blues and blacks delicately were replaced beneath the surface.

"It's going to take time. These are severe conditions. Normally I'd say I'm not really worried about it, there's not much I can do for most of your ailments except dope you up and write you an obscene bill for wasting my time. However this is beyond even normal for this city. You were in such a state of decay I'm not sure had you taken much longer even your bizarre aptitude for healing could have done it. Whatever you did, wherever you went, don't do it again. I like your checks, almost as much as I like watching you fight, but everyone has a limit. Do not do it again."