Bolt Action Serenade

The next few days were stressful, both better and worse than I expected. First off, I did in fact have withdrawal. From what I could understand of the doctor’s broken grasp of whatever language I was speaking, it sounded like the symptoms were minor for me. Apparently my Willpower was pretty damned high for my level, though him saying that sounded troubled for some reason. Maybe I was imagining it, but I swear it felt like he pitied me.

I was constantly cold, grumpy, and so damned tired. It took monumental effort to even just feed myself. So much so that Carmilla ended up helping. Yeah, turns out because she’s physically inside me she can manipulate my body. It takes a bit out of her and she hates doing it, apologizing every time she helped me lift a spoon to my mouth. But she can do it, in fact I figured it’s probably how I woke up so comfortable after she first hit level one and I passed out.

After three days the symptoms hit me a lot harder and they had to tie me down and gag me. I don’t remember exactly what I did but one of the nurses had a bandage around her arm after that and was hesitant to get close to me. Aah guilt, there it is, how incredibly familiar of a feeling. It was strange to be putting my life together through indirect means. But I could do it. I got the feeling I was really smart, or extremely perceptive at least. I kept noticing little things and dragging out a ton of meaning from them. Maybe I was reading into what wasn’t there, but I didn’t think so.

Best guess? Mom found out I was selling my body and judged me for it. Which felt fairly incorrect actually. Like there was some little voice in the back of my mind going ‘Colder, colder, warmer’ when I tried piecing things together. It said that guess was a cold one. I’d have tried to think of a different guess for why guilt felt so familiar but I was still really fucking tired and mental effort was still effort.

A week went by and I was recovering well. I could eat under my own power, the ache in my thigh from the lingering infection was gone, and my mind was clearer than it had been since… honestly I don’t think I’d felt this in control of my faculties in the entire time I could remember. Which was good because that’s about the time the new doc and the woman with the medals showed up.

Some time after lunch and an only slightly mortifying very thorough sponge bath they came in to the room. Just the two of them. I saw that and thought Ahh, now the interrogation is on. Had to make sure I was healthy enough to survive torture I guess.

The doctor was old. White hair barely cut close to his scalp in a very military manner. Wrinkled skin that hung on a lean frame matching bags under his eyes and a slumped posture that all together told me this man didn’t get enough sleep. Brown eyes looked at me with quiet empathy, this man was a healer first and foremost. I just knew it somehow, he wasn’t going to participate or allow torture in his presence, something in me instinctively said so. I felt myself relax with him there.

The woman though, her eyes were severe. Absolutely gorgeous violet eyes that you could get lost in, but severe. Her uniform was clearly tailor made for her figure and her lapels had a purple crescent instead of the red bars the one officer that could speak with me did. I guessed this meant she was much, much higher in the chain of command. Long brown hair was done up in a crown braid, a few streaks of gray making her appearance more distinguished. She looked mid forties, maybe early fifties at most, her laugh lines were quite pronounced though she wasn’t exactly a wrinkled old lady. Quite the opposite honestly, she was a beautiful mature woman that I couldn’t help but look over. That previously mentioned tailored uniform did a wonderful job of showing off her curves. Not an hourglass figure, no. This woman had muscle and was somewhat broad but not in an unattractive way, and very much not enough to hide her hips and bust.

I glanced down at my own meager chest and frowned. When I looked back she quickly hid a look of amusement back under her mask of serious military officer here to do serious military things while angry. Honestly, I suddenly felt far, far better about how the day was going. Nice and relaxed.

The doc pulled a chair over and dropped down in it like a man that had been on his feet all day, letting out a heavy sigh. He tugged a satchel off of his shoulder and carefully set it on the floor before pulling a notebook and pen out. A few moments as he flipped through pages and read some things, then marking something down and turning to address me finally.

“Hello, Esma is it?” He asked, his accent was thicker than the first woman’s who’s name I really should have asked before now, but his grasp of the language proved far stronger.

“Esme.” I responded simply.

“Esme, right, I’ll correct that.” he scribbled it down, I assume. Maybe he was drawing stick figures, who knows. “I’m Doctor Itran Francova, and to make sure you understand fully I swear to you no form of torture will be used against you. We have laws in Uvtrayl against such things. Laws that apply even to foreigners and enemy combatants.”

I know I said I’d relaxed before then, but I have learned that I am a fucking liar because I could feel the knot in my stomach loosening at what he said. My jaw stopped clenching, my shoulders lowered, and I lay my head back on the pillow and just breathed.

“Okay, okay that’s good.” I said, staring at the ceiling as my tension drained away.

The woman spoke next, her accent was slight and her command of my language was clearly fluent and practiced. No struggling over words with these two at the very least. “That being said, you are an enemy combatant and the… ‘comfort’ of your situation going forward is rather flexible.”

“Yeah, got it. The more I cooperate the better you treat me. I understand.”

“Glad to hear it. Especially since the Captain here tells me you swore to tell us everything you know if you lived.” There was a pause and then amusement in her tone “Doctor, in your professional opinion, would you say she is alive?”

He snorted and shook his head. “Very funny Helanna.” he muttered.

She stepped over to my bedside, I turned to look up at her and- Oh wow, gay brain at full power, she stared into my eyes and I forgot my entire life a second time. Only for a few moments though. “Um, yeah, alive. So.. how can I help?” I hoped I didn’t sound as stupid as I felt.

She raised a brow but didn’t pause. “I am General Helanna Devatius. You are hereby under my care and authority and yes that does mean that I can and will, as you put it, treat you better the more you cooperate.”

I felt discomfort inside me and it took me a moment to realize it was Carmilla, she had been staying quiet when there were others around. We weren’t sure if they knew about her or not, but we were both understandably nervous about possible very negative reactions should she be an unwelcome complication to the situation.

The doc lightly smacked her arm “Don’t scare the poor girl Helanna.”

She chuckled and gave me a predatory smirk, not taking her eyes off me as she answered him. “Oh she’s not scared Itran.” and I felt my cheeks burn. Thankfully the Doc didn’t seem to catch it so my humiliation wasn’t complete. “But we have questions to get to, do we not?”

“Mine first, your precious intelligence agency can wait until I get medical answers.” She simply bowed her head to him lightly and stepped aside to lean against the wall. He scooted his chair a bit closer and settled in before giving me what I internally noted as a ‘friendly grandpa smile’. “Alright Miss Esme, how are you feeling? Any lingering pain, discomfort, excessive itching or numbness anywhere?”

I answered several basic questions to gauge my physical condition, everything seemed fine with me with only some small concerns about lingering minor damage to my heart from the stimulants. But that was something that was expected to heal up within a month or so considering my high Endurance score. Not that they know exactly what it was, but apparently treating people can give experienced doctors a general idea so they knew I was somewhere mid 20s. When he found out I was only level 12 he was surprised, and just like with my Willpower and the previous doctor, he seemed to eye me with pity at the realization.

Yeah okay, I was getting the feeling that maybe having those two scores high was a sign of something bad. Dwell on it later. Then he moved to a topic I was worried about but figured was coming.

“The tattoos on your arm. From what we can tell they seem very similar to the runes used on Imperial triage bands. Though, far too many of them, and I have been told rather useless without a blood elemental. What are they for?” The General perked up at the question, apparently it was something she wanted to know as well.

“Uhm… yeah so, about that. They are the runes from triage bands. Or they were. Not sure how exactly they changed but… Carmilla?”

The runes glowed and just like with the band before, words of light started writing themselves in the air above my arm.

[Hello Doctor Francova. I am Carmilla, the blood elemental contracted to Esme.]

They both took a breath, the General standing straight and placing a hand on the pistol at her hip. “What is this?” she demanded.

[I am within Esme’s body currently, the damage done to me by my time fragmented among a group of triage bands is keeping me from manifesting on my own until I grow stronger. Level 10 I would imagine.]

The doctor stared for a few long moments “Are you telling me you reconstituted a fragmented elemental and contracted with it successfully?” He said, clearly fighting an urge to back away.

I held back a sigh. “Yeah, Carmilla is the reason I lasted long enough to make it here. I’d be dead without her.”

“Ah, we didn’t think you were an Elementalist.” his tone was cautionary, confused.

“I’m not.” He started to speak again and I interrupted “I put on all the bands from a kit at once and they fused and she got repaired and contracted with me while I was unconscious and apparently accepted it in my dreams. Before you ask why, a fragment of her had grown strong enough that she was able to ask for help, though with significant difficulty while fighting the runes.”

They both stared at me. The General spoke before the doc could put his thoughts together “Are you an idiot? There are thousands of ways that could have gone catastrophically wrong. The basic lessons a school child learns about Elementals should have been enough to know not to do that!”

Welp, time to dive right in and see how fucked I really am. “So, about those school lessons. I don’t have those. Or, more accurately I don’t know if I do or not. My memory only goes back like… maybe two weeks?”

The General glared at me. “How convenient that you mysteriously don’t remember anything to tell us.”

“No, it’s really not.” I said flatly, glaring back. “Carmilla, show them my conditions list please?”

[Mind Shatter: Severity SSS]

[Immobilized: Severity: A]
[Soul Containment: Severity Ukn0wn]

[Unknown Moderate Mutation Effect]

“See? I have- wait MODERATE!? I thought you said it was minor?” I suddenly didn’t care about the interrogation, worried I was going to turn into some deformed abomination.

[It WAS! It was minor just yesterday! I swear it was, love! I need a moment, let me see if I can examine it closer, I am so sorry Esme.]

I rubbed my face for a few moments before I remembered we weren’t alone. Doc looked at the floating condition list with his face scrunched up. The General had moved closer to read it as well. “What does that mean, I only know one of these Itran.”

He cleared his throat. “Assuming this is not a false list, which I don’t think it is, she’s telling the truth. I’m not sure the runes, even altered, would allow them to show anything but an honest and full diagnosis. Mind Shatter is rare, an Ultimate level mental status effect. Only a few beings are able to inflict it. At triple S rank, even fewer. But it does cause memory loss and at that rank I would say complete loss is effectively guaranteed.”

“What is Soul Containment?” she narrowed her eyes at me again.

I shrugged and the doc copied me after a moment. “We’ll have to ask someone from the capitol I think.”

“I’ll still want to have the runes examined by one of our inscribers to make sure this isn’t a trick.”

I just pulled the blanket up over my head. “Whatever, I’ll be here turning into something else I guess.”

Thankfully they left at that point, I suppose questioning me when they didn’t know if my amnesia was real or not was kinda pointless. Also I just didn’t want to talk to anyone except Carmilla and she was busy. Fuck.