“Tell me, who do you pray to? Venustaluna? Ebi-Ailopin? Surely you wouldn’t have the nerve for An t-Slànaighear or my darling Muzen-Cab... Oh well, it’s all just a bit of fun anyways; it hardly matters anymore. From now on you best pray only to Smrtka, for only the Reaper might save you.”
-Mad Cardinal Yaara Vlachou upon greeting a trespasser in her home in the middle of the night
Everything was far too hot and Dahlia woke up soaked in a pool of her own sweat. The haze of consciousness that greeted her was a struggle to cling to, but she did her best despite that. She tried to understand what was happening, but everything she perceived was little more than a confused and jumbled mess. Her equilibrium was ruined with the room waying at even her slightest adjustment. She felt hot enough to be burning, yet even the furs she fell asleep with had been replaced with something far lighter. Perhaps even worse though, it was dark —black as pitch for most of her vision with only a band of blurred light otherwise— and yet the crackling of a fireplace suggested that she should have seen far more. Things were not as they should be.
She wanted to get up, or adjust, or anything, and yet as soon as the girl made to move more than a mere micro-adjustment, agony flooded her body as if being struck by a wave. It was overwhelming, overpowering, and altogether far too much. Even from just the slightest shift, the pain resonated far after she stopped moving, echoing time and time again like recursive tormenting waves. There would be no shifting, it seemed, and that meant no looking around for clarity, nor finding ways to distract herself the way she had hoped.
Oh, and she had been trying to distract herself, there was no way to deny that. She very much doubted that what little light she saw was supposed to be speckled, blurred, or surrounded by a halo. She was fairly confident that lungs were supposed to breathe clearly and not crackle and wheeze with each and every shallow breath. And she was quickly coming to find how certain types of pain had a special way of instilling dread and how certain smells were ingrained so deeply within instinct that simply acknowledging them made guts twist and hearts drop.
No, things were not at all as they should be and, even through the fog of her fever-addled thoughts, Dahlia struggled to make amends with the doom slowly creeping into the back of her mind.
The sound of a door pulled her thoughts away from it all though, slamming closed and then bolted shut. She tried to ignore the little spark of hope that filled her as footsteps approached; she couldn’t remember clearly, but throughout fevered sleep Dahlia remembered a woman carrying her, taking care of her, and keeping her safe. A part of her, buried deep out of fear of rejection and disappointment, yearned for it to have been Valentina who came back and took her away from it all. The huffed sigh beside her quickly dispelled her hopes though.
“Took you long enough to wake up, you brat.” For all the posturing behind it, Dahlia couldn’t sense any true spite in her mother’s voice, only fatigue. “Oh, don’t fucking wilt at my voice like that. I’m helping you out, the least you could do is hide your disappointment.”
Dahlia wanted to retort. She wanted to quip back, or argue or something, but her body denied it; her voice only coming out as a garbled croak. There was a clattering beside her —Sabrina arranging something she couldn’t see— and it was almost enough to distract the girl from how she simultaneously needed to cough but was terrified of what the smallest convulsion might do to her. Every twitch sent spikes of pain deep and even just breathing pulled and throbbed in a way it was never supposed to and—
“Relax.” Again that same fatigue from before, altogether lacking her mother’s typical taunting tone. “It’s a pain to explain, but I can help reduce the pain and damage from your coughing. I’d rather you hurt a bit rather than make your pneumonia worse anyhow.”
She listened. Dahlia gave into her body’s screaming impulse and let herself cough and wheeze and gods was there still so much pain but… she couldn’t help but notice that what Sabrina said wasn’t wrong. The pain was still prevalent but it was far better than she expected, almost to the point that she was beginning to doubt her own senses. There was more clattering then, the sound of metal tools, a wooden tray, and wrung water from cloth. It was… oddly business-like —professional, if anything— how Sabrina was going about things, especially considering how a noble like her would rarely need to nurse anyone, much less their disappointment of a daughter. Putting a pin in that thought, the moment the girl stopped coughing, she instead asked the other question on her mind.
“Mom, did you drug me?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, I suppose I did, what gave it away?”
Dahlia paused, wanting to frown but altogether too tired for it. “I— What? I’m talking about the pain, shouldn’t that be obvious?”
“Hmmm,” More shifting, more clattering, and then her voice was closer. Faintly, Dahlia could see the lighting shifting but, even directly beside her, she couldn’t make out Sabrina as anything more than a vague shadow. “I’ve been giving you what medicine I can, but it’s pretty limited. We had a few things lying around but the Barony doesn’t have much in the way of medicine. Vincent is being a stubborn ass too: he doesn’t want to ruin his reputation so he’s been keeping your condition a secret. All of the servants are aware that something is wrong but they don’t know the details beyond how you’re locked in a room that I’m spending most of my time in.” There was a shifting of sheets and then something cold on Dahlia’s skin. “Don’t fucking move, coughing was one thing but I’d rather you didn’t make things worse just because you can’t hold still.”
More time passed, silence taking over as Dahlia tried to make sense of it all. Of her current state, or her mother’s treatment, and of all the implications around it. She winced as the woman put too much pressure, pulling at a bandage or scab or something that the girl couldn’t see and the woman only clicked her tongue.
“I can tell you’re curious so just ask.”
It took longer than Dahlia cared to admit for her to actually speak up. There was a shred of dread that came from knowing — from asking a question and finally learning how bad everything really was. Ignorance had its appeal. But the girl never could just settle for ignorance, could she? That realization —the desire to know even if it meant she would hurt— felt shockingly bittersweet.
“Well? How bad is it?”
Sabrina continued her work, wiping her daughter down and replacing gauze and bandages as she went. After another moment though, she let out a long sigh, “It’s really fucking bad, Dahlia. Worse than I expected it to get, if I’m being honest. It’s been… three days? This isn’t the first time you’ve woken up but it is the first time you weren’t completely delirious.”
“What…? What do you mean it’s worse than you expected? Did you expect things to escalate this far?”
The protracted silence spoke far louder than words but Sabrina answered regardless, speaking through a yawn as she did.
“I did warn you, you know? Maybe I didn’t spell it out fully but it’s not like I didn’t give you a heads up.” A bandage tugging on a half healed wound had the girl recoil and hiss but her mother held her still as she continued. “I told you to hold still, brat. You’re used to pain so suck it up; moving too much would lead to something far worse. It’s shit like this that led you to getting hurt more than was necessary.”
“Well screw you too. Sorry that I didn’t obediently stay still as dad beat me half to death.”
“He was going to do that to you regardless; I mean casting darkness magic. I tried to tell you not to do anything but… whatever, it’s over now but you’re in a far worse state than you could have been.”
Again Dahlia had the urge to start a fight with her mother, but fatigue had her settle for grumbling mentally instead. “Sure, fine. You never did explain though: how bad is it? Am I doomed?”
There was a huff and, as Sabrina sounded genuinely annoyed, Dahlia let herself celebrate the small victory just a little.
“You’re not doomed; I’ve been working hard to prevent that. As for actual damage… well, most of it doesn’t matter on a larger scale. Bruises, cuts, dislocations, fractures, and the like. Things that you could recover from without much concern given the right care and time. The things I’d be a tad more worried about are your hands and feet: Vincent broke a lot, but he really targeted the weaker bones… it’s to the point that you won’t ever heal properly without magical treatment. The same goes for your eyes too. I… don’t know much when it comes to eye-care so you’re out of luck in that department but, from what I understand, even healers struggle with eyes. Something to do with the optic nervous-system and mana-channel complexity. Whatever, it doesn’t really matter.
“The long story short is that, despite it being the one you can’t see out of at all right now, your right eye is actually the better off of the two. The surface is cut, the lid was ripped, and the surrounding socket’s bone was fractured, but they’re all things that should heal. Your left eye though… I’m not really sure if I’m being honest. It’s all greyed out, especially the pupil, and gods know what that implies. The damage is internal though, that at least I’m sure of, and that’ll be a bitch to heal even with magic.”
Dahlia let out a steadying breath. That was… bad. It was bad but it was survivable. Even if she was forced to never see a proper healer, she knew she could live with those injuries, even if the thought turned her stomach. Acknowledging that she could survive —if not thrive— was nearly enough to calm the girl entirely were she not constantly aware of the issues her mother conveniently avoided.
“I’m not stupid you know…”
“I have no idea what you’re trying to imply.”
“Mom, I know more is wrong, you wouldn’t be fretting like this otherwise. My breathing is a mess, I’m fairly certain I can’t move my right arm, and my stomach feels like it’s infested by angry fire-ants. There’s also the smell. Did you notice that I smell like a corpse, mom? Because I feel like that’s worth mentioning.”
Another sigh, some rustling, and the pop of multiple vials followed, and Dahlia had to resist a snort when she heard her mother chug the contents of one of them.
“Oh shut it, I deserved a drink. Speaking of, one of these is for you too.”
Before she could even process the words, Dahlia felt the cold lip of a bottle to her mouth and nearly gagged.
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, it’s just a tincture: alcohol and plants. You fucking love plants! Now drink it so you don't drown in your own phlegm and so I can get to work on your torso.”
The girl’s grimace never faded, but she did as she was told. The mixture was awful; pungent, bitter, and with far more alcohol than felt necessary but, even as she sputtered after drinking it all, she still wouldn’t let her focus drift. “You keep dodging my questions. Explain already.”
The woman’s focus was now on her abdomen, shifting wrappings and carefully cutting away old bandages as the scent of foetid rot grew and Dahlia found herself gagging all over again.
“I’m not sure if you noticed, but you’ve got something of an infection.”
Dahlia practically choked around her words, “No shit.”
“Yes shit.” Another moment of rustling and clattering metal was followed by a tug of skin this time and Dahlia could feel as some of her skin was pulled aside and something began to cut into half-dead flesh. “As I’ve already mentioned, your lungs are damaged and you’ve developed pneumonia which is something I can’t do much to help with beyond herbal tinctures like I just gave you. Your arm was infected as well; had a compound fracture and the infection spread quickly. I managed to excise it but your arm is absolutely mangled. Your torso on the other hand…”
More snips followed and more numbed flesh was removed. “You’re infected badly and it’s in an area where I can’t just go in and cut it all away like I did to your arm. It’s a gut wound gone both necrotic and septic and, if I wasn’t around, you would have been dead days ago.”
Dahlia tried to chuckle but it didn’t do much to disguise her growing anxiety. “So it’s bad then.”
Sabrina huffed, somewhere between amused and irritated, “Yes, it’s bad. The rest I have more hope for but this is the kind of infection that’ll kill you without appropriate treatment.”
“How long?”
At first it seemed like her mother would just ignore the question but finally she answered: “A week now. Maybe less.”
“And you’re still trying to keep me alive regardless.”
“I am.”
Dahlia mulled on that —on the certainty of it all— and just couldn’t wrap her head around it; not even slightly. The pain never stopped screaming at her so perhaps that was making her struggle to think straight. Or perhaps it was the cocktail of her fever, strong spirits, and gods know what drugs that were muddling her thoughts, but no matter how she thought about it, the girl just couldn’t understand. A quiet had fallen on the two of them then, with only the crackle of the fire and the occasional sound of tools at work breaking the silence, but Dahlia decided that, if she was going to die anyway, there would be no harm in prying.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Hmm?”
The response was half-hearted —dismissive at best, uncaring at worst— but Dahlia smiled slightly regardless. “You know what I mean.”
Another pause, longer this time, but the girl didn’t push for the answer. She just waited, observing her own thoughts as they grew more sluggish over time. There was something almost trancelike to it all, as she watched her clarity ebb and flow and twist like some malleable thing. A sigh snapped her attention back to her surroundings, though she no-longer knew how long she’d been waiting.
“I have a lot riding on you, I guess that sums it up. You’re a remarkably valuable asset and that makes me value your life in turn; it wouldn’t do if I just let you die here.”
There it was: objective, uncaring, and calculated. It didn’t really matter what the deeper reasons were either; Dahlia would have found it a bitter truth regardless, even if it’d been what she expected. She expected that was all there would be to it as well, but her mother proved otherwise.
“But I suppose if that were all then I’d have approached this rather differently, now wouldn’t I?” The question was musing, more directed to herself than her daughter. As the tug of stitches began to pull opened wounds closed though, the woman kept talking, tone soft, measured, and seemingly only half-there. “I never wanted you. I never wanted to be a mother, or to have any of this, but here I am. Even as days roll by and years pass, I’m stuck here and I’m just so tired of it all. It’s a living hell, dragging on and on and on, endlessly. And I didn’t want to be a mother; I really didn’t, but you’re better than I thought. I still hate you —hate that you exist— but you’re better than you could have been.”
She paused then, giving the gut’s knot a final tug before snipping it and beginning to lay fresh gauze back down. As she continued speaking, Dahlia could swear she heard a smile in the woman's voice, though perhaps a melancholic one.
“I’ll never actually see you as a daughter, you know that? No matter how I frame it, it would never feel honest. But you’ve been… a companion of sorts. I’m stuck in this living hell, where life keeps dragging on and just won’t stop. But you know what they say, ‘misery loves company’ and all that. Seeing you suffer. Watching you struggle. Making your life just a bit worse over and over again so I can drag you down to my level… it’s therapeutic, it really is.” Another pause followed, though it was shorter than the first. “Don’t think this means I care for you — not in any way that matters at least. But… it’d be a shame to lose you now, after I’ve grown used to sharing some of that suffering, wouldn’t you agree?”
A silence came then, and gradually Dahlia understood that Sabrina had nothing more to say. Wrappings were applied and tools cleaned and put away and all the while Dahlia felt herself drifting off again. Regardless of the twisted things she said, her mother’s words had at least been grounding — something to hold on to and anchor herself with as she felt herself drifting. Now though she was once again adrift with only warped and confused thoughts for company, along with a gradually growing worry: this might be it. The infections could grow worse, the fever could escalate, her lungs could fail, or so many other little nagging possibilities. And despite it all —despite all her years of suffering, her current pain, and having nothing to show for it all other than her own mother’s warped comraderie— she didn’t want to die.
It came out as a whimper, like the desperate cry of a small animal, feral, and instinctual, and wanting, but that’s really what she was. In that moment, Dahlia felt like nothing more than a cornered and hurt animal, yet she craved more, hungering for it so much it drove her mad. She was so close to finally living beyond the confines of her home, to being free, and able to look forward to the future with more than all the vague hopes she clung to now. And she craved it so badly it hurt.
And so, even as her mother said something else, words lost to the dampening filters of a fading consciousness, Dahlia swore she would survive. To herself, to the gods, and to anything else that would listen. A part of her, nagging and worried, wanted to pray, but the girl’s last flickering embers of life refused. Neither the gods nor the world answered her prayers before then, and so a selfish type of spite drove her instead. She swore —to the gods, the world, herself— that she would survive and finally live how she chose, and if she had to engrave those words into her own soul, so be it.