I coughed blood all over Hannah and groaned in agonizing pain as I collapsed against her.
"What the fucking FUCK!?!" Arms cartwheeling wildly, Hannah tumbled away from me; ass over tits. She scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could in full plate armor. Her warhammer in her hand and radiating the same divine light as her eyes. Her glimmering Angelic wings flared out behind her and I beheld the full, terrifying majesty of Hannah Yorth, Iridatha's Sister of Battle.
Her fierce gaze swept around the disheveled tent until they landed back on me and processed my broken body; tears streaming from my eyes as I coughed again and nearly blacked out.
"Alexis!" She dropped the warhammer and her divine light winked out as she threw herself down next to me and cradled me in her arms. "By the Grace of all the gods Above, what happened to you?"
"A Very Bad Thing." I croaked. She reached for her holy symbol, but I shook my head and put my hand over hers. "No. Not safe." And then I passed out. Which, you know, fair play to me. It had been a rough two days or hundred years, depending on how you counted.
When I finally woke up again, everything still hurt, but thankfully felt a lot less broken. Although I could feel a stiffness in my muscles that made me think I had been out for quite a while.
I opened my eyes and started to sit up, but felt the tip of a very sharp blade press against the bottom of my chin.
"Tut tut! Nuh uh, demon girl. You'll stay put until I say so." I looked up and found Gabriella at the other end of the sword. Hannah was standing next to her; arms wrapped very tightly around herself. And Bethul'Dyr stood in the corner; thinking very loudly. Don't ask me how I can read the body language of a floating cloak so well. It's a gift.
I opened my mouth but a raspy croak is all that came out. Hannah unfolded herself and handed me a waterskin. I nodded thanks and greedily gulped down most of its contents. "Thank you." I cleared my throat painfully. "How long was I out?"
"You were asleep for almost three days, demon girl." Gabriella replied, still unwilling to remove the blade from my throat.
I turned to Hannah. "How long was I gone before that?"
Surprise and relief washed over her face. "Gone? We were testing your sensitivity to magic. You convulsed and then coughed up blood and collapsed and looked like.. this." She gestured towards my body and handed me a mirror. I held it up and examined myself. My first impression was that I'm drop-dead gorgeous. Like my old body was no slouch, genetics had been very kind to me, and HRT kinder still, but this face could stop traffic. My eyes were nearly pure black wells of darkness, although you could see my natural blue color starting to reassert itself at the edges. And then I noticed that the tips of my fingers wrapped around the mirror were blackened. I looked down at the rest of myself and saw black veins running along my exposed skin and my toes were blackened similarly to my fingers.
I resigned myself and launched into explaining my reaction to Cassandra's and Hannah's magics. Bethul'Dyr shifted and drifted closer. "But you didn't respond to our magics when we put you to sleep."
A light bulb went off above my head. "Divine magic. Hannah is well.. Hannah, and Cassandra has a touch of Grace in her soul on her mother's side." Bethul'Dyr's hood turned to Gabriella and they silently stared at each other for a growing number of moments that started making me squirm uncomfortably. I really needed to watch what I said a lot more closely.
The elven fighter finally turned back to me and spoke. "It would seem that the gods Above and Below have certainly been whispering a great deal in your ear. So, what happened next? After Hannah cast the spell." She paused, and then added, "From your perspective." Nothing she said to me was ever a question as it would have been if someone else uttered it. Her tone left no doubt that I would tell her everything she wanted to know, or else I'd be getting an expedited ticket to the next life.
So I told them about how I started falling into absolute darkness after my body convulsed. How I fell for hours or years or eons; I couldn't be sure. I told them about meeting Paz, although I left out the parts about us touching each other and glossed it over as establishing communication and trust. There was no need to confuse them with extraneous details. But I had a feeling some of the truth showed on my face as I felt my cheeks warming and noticed Hannah shifting uncomfortably, her face becoming a careful mask. Surely she couldn't be homophobic when two of her best friends were lesbians? I mentally shook off that tangent and told them about the monstrosity and my heroic, but ultimately pointless attempt to help her. And then falling through darkness once again until I collapsed against Hannah back in the tent.
Bethul'Dyr's hood turned to Gabriella and they shared a look again. "Astral projection?" The tall brunette elf offered.
"Or.. time dilation and teleportation." The shadowed voidling replied, their ethereal voice ominous as it swirled around us.
"But when you read her Soul, you swore to me she had no magical ability." Gabriella crossed her arms and bore into Bethul'Dyr with her steely gaze.
The wizard's hollow sleeves also crossed themselves and they looked like they were bracing themself for an onslaught. "We lied." Their voice was little more than a whisper as it drifted around the tent that suddenly felt entirely too small and cramped.
Gabriella threw up her hands and her mouth hung open. "Why the fuck is everyone obsessed with this woman?! Does she have a magic pussy or something that no one has bothered to mention? The fuck!" She turned on her heel and stormed out of the tent, slapping the flap in a way that made me thankful she didn't have a door to slam.
I closed my eyes and passed out again. Gods Above and Below, I felt like road kill.