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

  I was stantly cold, grumpy, and so damired. It took moal effort to even just feed myself. So much so that Carmil ended up helping. Yeah, turns out because she’s physically inside me she manipute 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 do it, in fact I figured it’s probably how I woke up so fortable 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 strao be putting my life together through i means. But I could do it. I got the feeling I was really smart, or extremely perceptive at least. I kept notig 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 voi the bay mind going ‘Colder, colder, warmer’ when I tried pieg 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 fug tired aal effort was still effort.

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

  Some time after lund an only slightly mortifyihh spoh 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 matg 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 k somehow, he wasn’t going to participate or allow torture in his presence, something in me instinctively said so. I felt myself rex with him there.

  The woman though, her eyes were severe. Absolutely geous violet eyes that you could get lost in, but severe. Her uniform was clearly tailor made for her figure and her pels had a purple crest 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 of and. Long brown hair was done up in a braid, a few streaks of gray making her appearance more distinguished. She looked mid forties, maybe early fifties at most, her ugh lines were quite pronouhough she wasly a wrinkled old dy. Quite the opposite holy, she was a beautiful mature woman that I couldn’t help but look over. That previously mentioailored uniform did a wonderful job of showing off her curves. Not an hss figure, no. This woman had muscle and was somewhat broad but not in an unattractive way, and very muot enough to hide her hips and bust.

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

  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 at was thicker than the first woman’s who’s name I really should have asked before now, but his grasp of the nguage 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 uand fully I swear to you no form of torture will be used against you. We have ws in Uvtrayl against such things. Laws that apply even tners and enemy batants.”

  I know I said I’d rexed before then, but I have learhat I am a fug liar because I could feel the knot in my stomach loosening at what he said. My jaw stopped g, my shoulders lowered, and I y my head ba the pillow and just breathed.

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

  The oke , her at was slight and her and of my nguage was clearly fluent and practiced. Nling over words with these two at the very least. “That being said, you are an enemy batant and the… ‘fort’ of your situation going forward is rather flexible.”

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

  “Gd to hear it. Especially sihe Captaiells me you swore to tell us everything you know if you lived.” There ause and then amusement ione “Doctor, in your professional opinion, would you say she is alive?”

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

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

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

  I felt disfort inside me and it took me a moment to realize it was Carmil, 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 uandably nervous about possible very ive reas should she be an unwele plication to the situation.

  The doc lightly smacked her arm “Don’t scare the pirl Henna.”

  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 plete. “But we have questions to get to, do we not?”

  “Mine first, your precious intelligence agency 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 aled in befiving me what I internally noted as a ‘friendly grandpa smile’. “Alright Miss Esme, how are you feeling? Any lingering pain, disfort, excessive itg or numbness anywhere?”

  I answered several basic questions to gauge my physical dition, everything seemed fih me with only some small s about lingering minor damage to my heart from the stimunts. But that was something that was expected to heal up within a month or so sidering my high Endurance score. Not that they kly what it was, but apparently treating people 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 ter. Then he moved to a topic I was worried about but figured was ing.

  “The tattoos on your arm. From what we tell they seem very simir 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 wao know as well.

  “Uhm… yeah so, about that. They are the runes fre bands. Or they were. Not sure how exactly they ged but… Carmil?”

  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 Carmil, the blood elemental tracted to Esme.]

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

  [I am within Esme’s body currently, the damage doo me by my time fragmented among a group e bands is keeping me from maing 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 restituted a fragmented elemental and tracted with it successfully?” He said, clearly fighting an urge to back away.

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

  “Ah, we didn’t think you were aalist.” his tone was cautionary, fused.

  “I’m not.” He started to speak again and I interrupted “I put on all the bands from a kit at ond they fused and she got repaired and tracted with me while I was unscious 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 signifit 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 goastrophically 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 gred at me. “How vehat you mysteriously don’t remember anything to tell us.”

  “No, it’s really not.” I said ftly, gring back. “Carmil, show them my ditions list please?”

  [Mind Shatter: Severity SSS]

  [Immobilized: Severity: A][Soul tai: 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 exami 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 dition list with his face sched 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 ho 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 plete loss is effectively guaranteed.”

  “What is Soul tai?” 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 b 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 Carmil and she was busy. Fuck.