Jadis felt wrong.
There were many times since her rebirth on Oros that she had been injured. Lacerations, broken bones, burns from both fire and acid, extreme freezing temperatures, and pure malicious magic that attacked her soul directly. Thinking about it, if it weren’t for all the intimate and caring lovers and great sex with said lovers, she’d probably have to say that she’d had a pretty miserable time on Oros. Well, there were a lot of other good things about being reborn in the fantastical world that she could point to. She just couldn’t think of any of them at the moment because her head felt like it had been shoved in the ass crack of a grundwyrm and the demon was clenching.
The throbbing pain was overwhelming, so much so that she couldn’t concentrate on any thought for more than a few seconds. The overwhelming agony would crush her mind every time she tried to focus on anything else. She was fairly certain that she had lost consciousness at some point. Maybe multiple times, in fact. It was so hard to tell when every time she tried to direct her attention on anything she felt like a gong was being beaten directly inside of her skull. It wasn’t just the pain, either. She felt sick. Nauseous. Her equilibrium was gone in a way that mirrored when she’d worn the first item Sabina had ever enchanted. She couldn’t tell up from down, left from right, her foot from her nose. The stomach-churning sickness was so horrible that she welcomed the oblivion of dreamless unconsciousness. It was better to feel nothing than to feel so utterly wrong.
And then, with no warning whatsoever, Jadis didn’t feel so wrong anymore. She didn’t feel good, not really, but the wrongness that had driven her near madness had simply ceased. The headache had gone, almost as though it had never existed, and her nausea had lessened significantly. Her stomachs still felt somewhat upset and her mind was still fuzzy and unsteady, but the feeling of not being able to even move a finger because she couldn't tell what her finger was had fled. She was better. Wrung out, exhausted, dizzy, and sore, but better.
Not quite daring to open any of her eyes yet, Jadis started with the most basic of her senses. Her sense of self. She could tell that her three selves were all lying down on soft beds, near each other though not in her usual tangle of interlocking limbs. The beds weren’t her giant-sized bed, either. These were a little too small for her bodies, since she could feel that her feet were hanging over the foot of the bed, though something had been used to prop up the lower half of her legs so they weren’t just uncomfortably dangling. Dys was in the middle, and Jay was to Dys’ right while Syd was on the left. She was fairly certain that her bodies were naked, since she could feel the smoothness of silky sheets directly against her body.
There was a small weight resting on top of Dys’ chest. It was light and very warm, and she could feel an aura of radiating heat coming from the small object. It felt nice and was doing a lot to soothe the aches and pains that were still lingering in her bodies. There was something else warm wrapped around Jay’s right hand. It was a different kind of warmth, more familiar and human. Almost without thinking, Jay tightened her grip on the warm presence, just enough to give it a small squeeze.
All three of her selves took a deep breath, the air filling their lungs before she slowly let the breath out. The air smelled unfamiliar, a strange scent of wood and tar mixed with salt and something pleasant, like incense. Taking another deep breath through her noses, Jadis also caught the familiar scent of alcohol.
Was she in a tavern? The last thing she remembered was Syd getting tossed by the bear man somewhere beyond the tavern where Bridget had been meeting with her family. It would make sense if after she’d lost consciousness, they had taken her into one of the rooms to recover.
Except, no, that didn’t make sense. Why would all three of her bodies have been taken to a tavern room? Her other two selves, Jay and Dys, had been a long, long way away, practically on the other side of the city. There wouldn’t have been any point for someone to bring those two parts of her to where Syd was located. Especially since those assholes had been trying to arrest her—
Ah. The fuzziness in Jadis’ mind cleared a bit at that thought. She’d been in the middle of a fight, resisting the unlawful arrest that those soldiers working for Egilhard had been trying to put her under. Or, no, it wasn’t Egilhard. Was it? She remembered someone shouting something about Prince Hraustrekr. She didn’t know what that was about, exactly, but she had gotten the impression that maybe Egilhard wasn’t as involved in the attack as she had thought.
Vraekae had been there, too, Jadis remembered. She’d shown up at the last and brought the whole fight to a stop. If Vraekae had gotten involved, Jadis was certain that she hadn’t been arrested. The Magistrate never would have allowed that to happen. So, wherever she was, Jadis was positive it was somewhere that the elf had decided was best. Maybe not Jadis’ first choice, since she would rather have been back in her own bed, but she was somewhere safe at least.
Finally opening her eyes, Jadis slowly took in her surroundings.
The ceiling was… lower than she would have expected. It was also wooden, which was unusual. Most architecture in Far Felsen was made out of stone, Jadis had noticed, which was probably a precaution against the overly strong from doing damage to homes and businesses by mistake. Not that it had done much to stop her and the bear man, but it probably would have been worse if the walls had been made of wood instead of stone. Other than being made of wood, the ceiling wasn’t giving Jadis much to go on so she shifted her heads to look around.
Aila was on Jay’s side, sitting in a chair that had been pulled up against her bed. She was sleeping, her head resting on Jay’s arm and her hands wrapped around Jay’s. That had been the warm, familiar presence she had felt. Seeing her lover’s sleeping face made Jadis smile, though her immediate reaction of happiness at seeing Aila was tempered by concern. Even sleeping, Jadis could see the puffiness of Aila’s eyes and the stains of tears on her cheeks.
Jadis almost opened her mouth to say something, but the two other figures in the room caused her to pause.
Kerr was sitting in a chair on Syd’s left. She was also asleep, her head lolling over the back of the chair. A glass bottle of some kind was held in her limp hand, a bit of liquid dripping from the tilted end, staining the therion’s pants. That explained the smell of alcohol. Kerr looked rough, her hair uncombed and her clothes a mess, and the bags under her eyes were dark and puffy.
The third individual in the room was almost as unexpected a sight as her two clearly distraught lovers. Lying curled up in a ball on Dys’ chest was the flaming form of Vita. The fiery Lares was also asleep and was the source of the radiating warmth that Jadis had felt in the room. It was strange to see the flames of the fire cat licking across the soft blanket that covered Dys without causing the material to even blacken slightly. Jadis wasn’t entirely sure why the high priestess was lying on top of her, but she had to admit that her aura was comforting. It had to be some kind of spell, Jadis was sure, which might have meant it necessitated physical touch.
As Jadis lay there, taking in the sight of the three sleeping women, a door that was set into the far wall more towards Jay’s side of the room opened up. A man that Jadis only vaguely recognized entered the room carrying a tray that was laden with steaming wooden bowls and a mound of biscuits.
“High priestess,” the man began, calling out softly as he took a couple of steps forward. “I’ve brought some—good gods!”
The man’s exclamation was punctuated by him almost dropping the tray of food. He managed to catch the tray before it completely slipped out of his hands, but the bowls and biscuits spilled and he ended up with what looked like soup all over his hands and arms. It must have been hot since he immediately started cursing in pain, though after the initial burst of foul language he quieted himself. A golden glow of healing light also began to emanate from his hands, which Jadis recognized as healing energy.
“Lohan, what is the meaning of all this noise?” Vita asked with a yawn as she raised her head up to look at the man. “Please have more care!”
The Lares glared at the man, but in the process her green eyes glanced over Jay’s form and, doing a doubletake, Vita startled as she realized that Jay’s eyes were open. Twisting her head around, she locked her gaze onto Dys, the two of them staring at one another for a moment.
“Hey, Vita,” Dys said with a croak, her throat feeling terribly dry. “Why are you sleeping on me?”
“My goodness,” Vita chittered, her purring voice gone high-pitched with excitement. “You’re awake! Jadis, are you well? How are you feeling? Can you control your other bodies?”
The rapid-fire questions made Jadis frown, especially the last one. Of course she could control her bodies. Why wouldn’t she be able to?
“Jadis?” Kerr’s sleep-slurred voice called out, catching her attention.
Her bonded lover blinked her eyes blearily as she looked around. Once her eyes landed on Syd’s, she let out a hiccupping breath of shock before launching herself forward. She landed on top of Syd, her sudden weight making Syd wince. Before Jadis could react, Kerr was peppering Syd with kisses all over her face, on her cheeks and forehead, her nose and lips, and even on her closed eyelids.
“Espèce de sale idiote,” Kerr cursed at her in between kisses. “Don’t you ever do anything like that ever again! I’ll kill you myself if you even try!”
“What—what are you talking about?” Syd got out in the moments when Kerr didn’t have her face pressed up against hers. “What happened?”
“Jadis?”
Jadis’ attention was split again as she heard Aila call her name in a confused, plaintive tone. Looking down, Jay saw that her red-headed lover had just woken and was staring at her with bloodshot eyes. Her face was blank for a brief moment before it contorted into a barely contained mask of relief. Tears streamed down her cheeks out of all control as she too abruptly threw herself onto the closest of Jadis’ bodies.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” Jay comforted her crying lover as Aila wordlessly bawled into her chest. “It’s okay, everything’s fine. I’m here.”
As Jadis hugged her two lovers to her selves, she felt Vita shift on top of Dys as the high priestess of Ulya hopped off of her and onto the side of the bed. Quietly, she ordered the man standing awkwardly by the door holding the tray to take the spilled food away. As the man left, Vita gave Dys a kind look.
“I think it would be best if you all had some time alone. I’ll go inform the others that you have awoken. I’ll be back later.”
With that, the Lares padded out of the room and Jadis was left alone with her two crying lovers.
“Are either of you going to fill me in?” Syd asked after hugging Kerr tightly enough that the woman wasn’t able to wiggle around her anymore. Doing so, Jadis noticed that Kerr wasn't resisting her strength as firmly as she would have expected.
“I’m fine now,” Jay reassured Aila as she gently patted her back. “Please, tell me what happened. The last thing I remember was losing consciousness during that fight. I think my bodies got too far apart from each other. At least, that’s what it felt like.”
Kerr didn’t seem to be in a condition to answer her coherently as she continued to switch between multiple different languages to utter both endearments and curses. Aila, on the other hand, pulled herself together more quickly. She sat up, wiping her eyes clear. The bed was too narrow for her to sit on it without sitting on top of Jay so she started to move off, but Jadis wasn’t going to let that happen. Picking her up while shifting so that her back was against the wall, she sat her beloved arcanist down in her lap. Once she was settled and looking a little more composed, she met Jay’s questioning gaze again and started explaining.
“Jadis, that fight was three weeks ago. Three weeks to the day, I think. You’ve been gone that whole time.”
“Three weeks?” Jay repeated, her expression somewhat stunned. “I was unconscious for that long? Like, I was in a coma?”
“Not for all of it…” Aila trailed off, a worried look clouding her expression before she firmly smoothed out her features. “Something happened to you. We thought it was probably because your bodies were too spread out, though we weren’t sure. But, you changed. Mentally.”
“You went nuts,” Kerr said, sniffing loudly as she pulled back from Syd’s face. “Absolutely insane. You couldn’t control your bodies right; your arms and legs were swinging around all over the place. You were saying all kinds of mad things.”
“It was like pieces of your mind were broken off and left behind in your three different bodies,” Aila continued, her voice subdued. "None of them had everything. One of you was laughing uncontrollably, hideously, while you tried to strangle one of the guards to death.”
“What?” Jay cried out, a sinking dread filling her with every word her lovers were telling her. “Did I hurt anyone? Fucking god, please tell me I didn’t hurt any of you.”
“No, you didn’t,” Aila assured her while placing a kiss on her cheek. “You didn’t hurt us. You definitely hurt some of the soldiers and guards, but nothing that wasn’t fixable.”
“You fucked up a lot of buildings though,” Kerr muttered. “Especially after your mind broke or whatever the merde that was. Even before that you caused a lot of damage, but once you went crazy, that body that was fighting the bear went berserk. Literally tore down an entire building before you could be subdued, and it took, like, twenty mercenaries piling on top of you to hold you down. Bridget said you kept screaming out weird words she couldn’t understand, mixed in with complete nonsense shit like ‘the square root of the hypotenuse’ or something like that. None of it made any sense.”
The description was making Jadis feel even sicker than she already did. It sounded like when she got too far apart, her mind had literally broken into pieces, fragments of her memories and personality left behind in her three different selves. None had had enough to be wholly her, so she’d rampaged uncontrollably. It was a frightening thought. Worse, she couldn’t remember any of it.
“How long was I like that?” Jay asked, almost scared to know the answer.
“Only a few hours,” Aila said as she brushed her fingers through her hair. “Once we managed to bring your bodies close to each other, you fell into a deep sleep. Some of the priests were able to wake you with healing spells, but whenever they did you were still crazy. They had to stop healing you otherwise you would have hurt yourself or others. Since then you’ve been unconscious.”
“Fuck…” Jay cursed, not liking much of what Aila was saying. “At least I didn’t hurt anyone. Right?”
“No one that didn’t deserve it,” Kerr growled as she pressed her forehead against Syd’s. “That Runar piece of shit is going to look like a rat ate his face for a while since Eir and that other Lyssandria priestess refused to fix him. Fucker.”
“You didn’t kill anyone,” Aila said again, reassuring Jadis.
“That’s something…” Jay mumbled. “But, where are we any—”
As she was asking the second question on her mind, the door to the small room burst open. In a flurry of robes and red skin, Eir launched herself across the room to land at Jay’s side.
“Jadis!” the elf cried out, practically climbing over Aila in her single-minded efforts to get close to her. “You’re awake! You’re alright!”
Behind Eir, who was already crying tears of joy even before she collapsed on top of Jay, came Thea, Sabina, and Bridget. The three women crowded into the room, moving to surround Dys. Suddenly, she had all three women wrapped up in a hug as they were all talking at once. It was a confusing mess of questions and exclamations of joy that even with three different selves, Jadis had a hard time keeping track of. Eventually, forcing a bit of silence by firmly kissing some of her more talkative lovers on the lips to silence them, Jay continued the question she’d been trying to ask.
“Where are we right now? What happened after I was, uh, subdued?”
A few tried to answer at once, but after a couple of awkward glances, Aila took the lead.
“We’re aboard the Rising Dawn. It’s a transport ship. We’ve been at sea for almost two weeks now. Once it didn’t look like you were going to recover, it was decided that we had to transport you back to the Capital to see if any other healers might be able to help.”
“We are probably only a couple of days away from reaching the mainland,” Eir added, sniffing as she wiped the tears from her nose with a handkerchief. “We—we didn’t think you would wake back up before reaching the Capital. Praise be to Lyssandria and D that you have.”
Well, shit. She’d really been out of commission for three weeks. And they had really been at sea for almost two weeks? Jadis honestly wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about the abrupt shift in her position. At least her lovers were here with her. Though, at that thought, Jadis had to wonder where Alex and Sorcha were. Had they been brought along as well? How exactly had that gone down, particularly with Alex? She couldn’t have been easy to get on board the ship without her help.
“Are we really on board a ship?” Dys asked aloud, that question unintentionally coming out of her.
“Yes,” Thea said, her quiet voice slightly muffled by her face being pressed into the crook of Dys’ neck.
“Okay,” Syd said, letting out a sigh of relief. “So that rocking sensation isn’t my sense of balance being broken. The ground is actually rocking right now, isn’t it?”
Eir sat up, her face worried, though she gave Jay a reassuring smile.
“Probably. After everything you’ve been through, however, I think we had best call some of the high priests in to have you checked.”
325