Katherine sighed, blinking sleepiness out of her eyes as she gulped down the tea cradled in her palms with far more speed than strictly necessary. The heat did nothing for her bandages nor the injury they were wrapped around, but she couldn’t really care for such a little problem right now.

Lady Anna let out an undignified groan as she shifted on the couch, her brown-blonde hair haphazardly strewn about the pillows as if spread by an errant wind.

“This wasn’t the favor I was expecting you to ask when we gave you one.” Lady Anna grumbled, eyes closed, going limp, even her voice laden with exhaustion.

“I see. Was your expectation more or less troublesome?” She asked, despite feeling like calling Emhreeil ‘troublesome’ was a rather grave insult.

“More. Just not for me.” Lady Anna replied, before peeling her eyes open, half-lidded and tilting her head to give her a scrutinizing look.

She calmly met it.

“I believe it would not be excessive to inquire as to what your relationship with that woman is? Father’s been… fussing, I guess is the right word. We don’t have the greatest information network, but wheedling out some concerning facts about our guest was alarmingly easy. And fast.” Lady Anna said, her tone hardening in tune with her gaze with every passing sentence.

She sighed again, forcing her eyes open. When had she closed them?

“She is my old master.” She murmured, and took another sip, her eyes on the floor. She wasn’t sure if she should have admitted that, but she trusted Lady Anna. To some extent.

“So why on Ergos did I spend six hours saving her life?” Lady Anna asked, tone light with something she couldn’t quite place. It sounded quite close to the sarcastic sweetness of someone who was in fact, quite annoyed.

She mentally blanked for a moment, wondering what Lady Anna even meant, before realizing and letting a long, tired sigh leave her lips.

“She’s not… she’s part of the family that used to own me. She’s not the person who bought me. Or scarred me. She’s the one who gave me my freedom.” She explained, lifting her eyes, and noted with quiet relief how Lady Anna’s glare softened to a curious, albeit cautious, look.

“Oh. I apologize for my assumptions.”

“No need.”

Silence stretched for a few seconds.

“What was her family name?” Lady Anna asked, and with backbone that was long absent in her life until now, she gave her a thin-eyed look of warning, her black eyes meeting green.

Neither caved.

Lady Anna huffed.

“This isn’t curiosity. I need to know, in case they send someone to take her, or somehow implicate us with her. Most highborn families aren’t content to just let their children walk off into the Dungeon. Especially elves that have children once every half century at best.”

She worked her jaw for a moment, gaze straying to the rich mahogany wood that lined the walls in the waiting room.

“I cannot tell you. I do not know if I can trust you with that information. Should you know, how would you guarantee nobody else comes to find out? How would you guarantee that you won’t be forced to tell them? I refuse to let loose information that might implicate her back into politics, into people seeking to use her as leverage, or a pawn, or a trading chip. I cannot risk the chance of her family finding out where and who she is now, and taking her back.”

“Why not?” Lady Anna asked, brows furrowed. “Surely going back home after all… that-” She continued, waving her hand at the medical bay’s closed door to emphasize. “-would be a pleasant change in comparison.”

“It wouldn’t.” She replied, a lot more snappily than she intended, and watched Lady Anna’s brows raise in response.

“...Apologies. And my reply was rather hasty. I mean more that, while maybe it would be preferable to living as a cripple in the Dungeon, that is not our decision to make for her. And I will not elaborate further. It is not my place.”

Lady Anna’s eyes slid shut, and she sighed.

“Alright. If you can’t tell me, I’m afraid you’ll have to take her and leave tomorrow, as soon as possible. She should be alright, on all fronts except her eyesight and arm, as those are not something I can do anything about, nor can any Healers in our employ. Should any complications arrive, send a radio message from the relay station. You know our frequency. It might take a bit to reach us, but we’ll get it, and I’ll tell you what to do. I’m sorry for this, but… We’re all in a precarious situation, we cannot afford to have complications like this lying around, figuratively and literally.”

Katherine took a deep breath, already planning things out in her head as her eyes flicked to the scruffy green head poking out from behind Lady Anna’s couch, staring at her.

Route back to her apartment, trip supplies. How to keep her safe. How to budget what was left of Emhreeil’s money in a way that would bring her back to her feet, to some extent. Did she have time? Room? What would she do with the goblin? Now that Lady Anna had temporarily fired her, she might have to find a different job. Maybe two, or even three, if Emhreeil couldn’t work. At least until this civil war business settled down. If it ever did.

Would she have to flee Carmera with her? She didn’t know how civil wars ended. Some type of massacre or genocide wasn’t… out of the range of possibilities, at least. Considering Emhreeil’s actions, if the kingdom won… She might have to grab her and go to Synttha.

The cost of that was… enormous. Getting a ship to and from Carmera to any of the three continents that surrounded it needed an entire armada of battleships, armed to the teeth with enough warding and magecraft to fund a small kingdom for an entire month. For each individual trip.

The entry fee to boarding such an entourage was equally over the top. Maybe if she was a close friend of the sole trade company that could afford such shipments, she could get a discount, but that wasn’t even a far-fetched option.

So… new jobs. Multiple. As long as it didn’t involve prostitution, she’d do it. She didn’t mind. She’d work herself to the bone for her, as long as it helped her. She was used to it.

“Alright.”

They sat in silence from there, each too tired to continue a discussion that had brought itself to a close. Minutes passed, her eyes growing heavier with each second. She’d done a lot today. Six hours of pacing behind Lady Anna as she healed Emhreeil had likely not helped.

Then an idea popped into her head. Her eyes, with a small and fast struggle against exhaustion, peeled open.

“Lady Anna.”

A questioning hum was her reply, and so she answered.

“Would it be possible to give us a golem’s eye? Not an implant, or a fleshgraft, just… something she could wear around her wrist, or neck, and use to see. Mana activatable, at least.”

Lady Anna’s eyes flit open, half-lidded and hard, staring into the ceiling for a moment, before nodding slowly.

“We can do that. They’re not terribly expensive. Should have one in a few hours of me sending the request. Now let me take a nap, please.” Lady Anna mumbled, closing her eyes, and Katherine nodded.

It had been a very tiring day for both of them.

The hazy, soft embrace of sleep slowly enveloped her mind, her body slackening on the couch as the minutes ticked by.

A desperate scream pierced through the night and her heart both, drilling into her ears, barely muffled by the wall separating the two rooms.

“Katherine, calm down. She’s probably-” Lady Anna started, forcing the words through a yawn, but she blocked her words out, heart clenched with worry and ears strained to hear any other sounds from within the room.

She launched herself forwards, stumbling over the coffee table and sending at least four things to break on the floor, and she crashed into the door, wrenching it open with more strength than she’d intended.

She only caught a glimpse of Emrheeil’s torso violently jerking up from the bed and had the time to let out a gasp of surprise, before a flash of orange rushed to fill her vision.

She took a deep breath, hearing the wolf’s footsteps draw further and further away, struggling to keep herself calm.

Its steps grew fainter.

It will come back. It will come back. It will come back.

The soft thuds of its paws turned to less than a whisper, a mere hint of existence like the puff of a drawn out breath, before that too disappeared.

It was going to come back. Emhreeil knew it would.

She gulped, as seconds turned to minutes, each breath infinitesimally faster, deeper than the last. There wasn’t enough air. Rational thought cracked under the weight that crushed her lungs, and as she panted, harder and harder, she clung onto that single thought.

It would come back. It had to. It wouldn’t leave her.

The pipe tightened, what was once a curved but relatively flat surface turning into a tight curve under her back.

She realized that she couldn’t even hear her breaths anymore. Not a peep of sound. Nor a single ray of light. Bile rose up her throat, her stomach clenching painfully, and she opened her mouth to yell, to call it back, to scream for help. Nothing came out but a soundless huff of air. There was no scratch at the back of her throat. No vocal cords.

She struggled onto her stomach, soundlessly gasping for air, feeling the unending chill of complete and utter isolation, despair, and hopelessness pierce her very soul like a billion freezing needles. Her nails scraped at rusty iron as she wriggled, trying to scream for it to come back, for help, for anyone or anything to come to her, hearing little more than the brush of a feather against her own eardrums.

The pipe tightened, pressing into her sides, and she tried to bring her arm back, to push her body into a more comfortable position, only for her elbow to hit metal, straight metal, metal that reeked of shit and blood and clogged her nostrils with the familiar stench of death. She couldn’t bring her arm back.

The first sound to greet her ears was a squeak from behind her, distant, and she froze, her convulsing lungs halting all motion, her spine being twisted like a rope between the gauntlets of terror as she clenched her jaw, feeling tears run down her face, choking on nothing, screaming for no one to hear, not even herself.

Another squeak, a chitter. She scraped at the pipe, feeling her nails break, her clothes tear, her skin be scraped off by rusty walls as she wriggled like a worm through the tight confines, soundlessly sobbing, screaming, begging. The pipe tightened, pressing tight against her shoulders, crushing her hips, and no matter how much she bucked and struggled, no air entered the black holes inside her chest, no distance was covered.

She took the deepest breath she could, feeling her ribs creak as they tried to expand, as the pipe tightened. She tried to scream with everything she had, feeling her empty stomach heave from the effort. Not even a whisper of sound came out. Empty air.

The pipe tightened, for every inch of space she crossed, another inch tighter. Her shoulders were crushed into her spine, her hips forced to conform to the width of her waist, her bones bending from the force.

Squeaks, the soft patter of a thousand little feet.

She tried to buck, to squirm like a worm, to wriggle forward like a maggot, like the insect she was.

The pipe pressed harder, digging into her chin, the back of her head, pressing her into its shape, her bones snapping like twigs. She tried to kick with her feet, to press forward, but couldn’t move an inch, the pipe ensnaring her in an iron grip, crushing, holding.

The squeaks turned to screeches.

She screamed into the void as she felt the familiar sensation of teeth, digging into her feet-

A sharp, deafening bang to her right was the impact that made the glass mirage shatter and snapped her back into reality. She bolted upright, her abdomen cramping from the sudden movement, and a loud, sharp gasp of surprise came from somewhere to her right.

Her left arm wrenched itself forward, a hasty [Sparkburst] blowing out of her hands just to buy time, create some distance, her body curling to the right and bucking forward to slide off whatever she was laying on.

The sparks hadn’t even finished rushing out of the invisible framework over her palm, before she sent a wave of mana out into her surroundings, feeling rough outlines. A woman in a coat, a smooth concrete floor, shelves covered in jars, a couch.

Her legs hit the floor-

And completely buckled, without a hint of resistance.

She activated [Haste] right as her knees slammed into the hard floor, and she put as much mana as she could into a flash of [Illumina], being rewarded with a startled shout by her assailant.

Were she more experienced, less disoriented, she might have come up with a better plan, a better maneuver that could throw her to her feet in an instant.

As she was, she tried to lean back and away towards her right, put her right leg against the ground, yet only managed to step on her own left ankle, tumbling back, barely managing to stay in a semi-upright position by clutching at the sheets from sheer reflex.

She wrenched her arm forward, intending to throw the sheets forward, a movement borne from panic rather than a plan, her lips pulling into a snarl-

“Em, stop!”

And she froze, her body turning to stone.

She let go of the sheets, uncaring of the fact her body slid to the ground without the support, and sent another rush of mana into the room, focusing on the person hissing and rubbing at their eyes, holding a hand out in front of their head as if it would shield them from a spell, gingerly trying to step towards her.

Her jaw slackened, her mind fuzzy and muddled as harsh pants rushed in and out of her throat.

This-

She was still dreaming, wasn’t she? She did that a lot lately. She could remember most of them. Was she dying?

“Calm down, please.” Katherine said, her voice so familiar, so steady, so real, and she grit her teeth, grabbing the edge of the bed, and feebly pushing herself to her feet, legs quivering, swaying in place, gulping in greedy lungfuls of air, making sure to keep her hand turned towards- what she hoped was- Katherine, sending a steady stream of mana to fill the room, to feel every inch.

Memories slowly rushed back to her, of burning chemicals that melted her skin, of a spray of blood meeting her face.

How did she get here? Was this her old home, outside the Dungeon? There was so much wood and leather couches- she had to be. Where else would she be? She couldn’t see to confirm the sunlight, but there were windows.

Was Katherine even real? Her dreams always felt real. Would she collapse into a pile of rats, squeaking and screeching as they rushed out of her limp clothes on the ground again?

She steeled herself, wrenched her arm to the side, and punched herself in the mouth.

It… hurt.

“Emhreeil- did you just- okay, please calm down. Please. Do you… recognize my voice? It’s me, Katherine.” The woman rushed out, her tone just shy of pleading.

Emhreeil didn’t have the space in her head to process words, focusing on the throbbing sensation in her cheek.

It hurt, but just barely. Just barely enough to not be sure if it was true pain or phantom pain, like her brain telling her she was in pain in her dreams without making her feel it.

Her breaths sped up, thoughts racing as she stumbled away from the bed, away from- from what couldn’t be Katherine.

Her hand came up to fist into her hair, only to meet skin.

She was bald?

Was she a prisoner? She’d- she had killed two Guards. They caught her, didn’t they? Was this some weird form of interrogation? Illusions, psychics, she knew no punches were pulled in the pursuit of “justice”. She might be talking to a particularly good actor. Shapeshifter?

It hurt too much to hope otherwise.

Needing something to ground her, something to make it hurt, she turned to her left, and punched the wall, with far more speed than her body could handle, the [Haste] too potent for her frail body, and the sharp crack of something breaking in her hand was what made all the haziness of sleep and ambiguousness of her conscious be washed away by pure, real pain.

“Oh.” She breathed out, hollowly, [Pain Resistance] much too high leveled for her to feel anything more painful than a dull throb, and she spat out a hiss of a breath and tried to backpedal, her stump moving to to cradle her broken hand with another that wasn’t there anymore by sheer reflex.

Two steps back, she felt her knee buckle, collapsing backwards onto something metal that slid away, a million metal little things clattering to the floor, around her, on her, and she kicked with her feet, backing up to the wooden wall.

She just- one moment to think. That’s what she needed.

“Emhreeil, please. Please, calm down. You’re safe. It’s me. Katherine. You’re in House Kervile’s manor. We’re on the top end of the third floor. The year is 6832 After Descent. The month is Hurile, day twenty two.” Katherine said, her voice deep and as close as one could get to calmness, just like she remembered, getting closer one tiny step at a time, like she was approaching some rabid animal, and she sounded so real.

Who the fuck was Kervile? And she couldn’t remember what year it was before she’d been dropped into a rat-infested pit. None of what she said held any meaning. Any proof.

Some part of her whispered to her that she was being needlessly paranoid. Another grumbled that she wasn’t paranoid enough.

“B-Bottom right, on your- on your back.” She gasped out, scraping her heels against the ground to flatten herself against the wall even further, her muscles coiling. She considered the window to her right, how likely she was to die if she jumped through.

How likely it was that she would jump through the window into another empty room, the skittering of a giant spider in an empty ruin being the only companion to her gasps.

Who she hoped was Katherine, paused.

“Above the back of your hip. What is there?” She demanded, mana gathering into another [Sparkburst], more and more, every bit of the mana that had filled her to the brim of bursting, a little explosive held within her broken hand, ready to explode should she direct it.

She felt Katherine’s features contort into pure confusion for a heart-breaking moment, feeling the fragile roots of hope wither inside her, dread pooling at her gut.

Then Kat’s expression slackened with realization, her right arm dropping limp by her side.

“An ‘L’ shaped scar. Small one. I stumbled when tending to the rose garden, the thorns peeled my shirt up, and a particularly big one buried itself in there to the hilt. You stitched it together three days later, cussing me out for pretending to be tougher than I am and hiding it.” Katherine said, a healthy dose of fondness in her voice as she resumed her steps, passing the couch and carpet, the metal table that smelled far too much like disinfectant, a mere dozen feet away now.

Something tight and warm roiled in her chest, pushing against the back of where her eyes used to be, anger, adrenaline and desperation washing away like water through a sieve.

It hurt to hope. To hope that this wasn’t another feverish lucid dream, to hope this wasn’t some elaborate interrogation ploy.

But the proof was there. The throbbing pain in her hand, the memory nobody but the two of them had, and one of the two faces she feared she’d never ‘see’ again, the voice she’d started to forget the pitch of, after two impossibly long years of separation.

“K-Kat?” She croaked out, her voice warbly, her energy leaving her, and she felt her pants turn into shuddering gasps, tears soaking into the fabric wrapped around her eyes, her body going limp.

“Yeah, it’s me, Em. A little… hard of sight because of that spell you threw, but it’s me. Can I come closer?” She asked, tentatively, her features lightly pinching in concern as her steps slowed and stopped, lifting the hand rubbing at her eyes to give her an earnest look she couldn’t possibly know that Emhreeil could see.

She felt something in her chest crack open like an egg, something warm like joy and liquid honey enveloping her clenching heart.

Instead of answering her, she pushed off the wall with her forearm, forcing her legs to curl beneath her torso and push her off the ground, forwards for just two rushed footsteps before her legs gave out and sent her tumbling forward.

Katherine darted forward with speed she didn’t expect from her, and she crashed into Katherine’s chest, her left arm loosely throwing itself over her right shoulder, her non-responsive, weak fingers tugging at her smoking coat, unable to form the fist she wished to make.

“K-Kat-” She started, wanting to speak, to say something that was intelligible, an apology, but all that came out was a choked sob.

An arm snapped shut around her waist, the other coming up to the back of her head and pressing her head into her shoulder, and she flinched, violently, something instinctual she couldn’t quite withhold.

Katherine tried to pull away, but aborted the effort when Emhreeil let out a garbled ‘No!’ and tried to tighten her half-hug.

She tried to speak again, a stuttered, shuddering sequence of letters coming out of her mouth before she choked on air, grinding her head into Katherine’s coat, trembling from head to toe, sniffling and sobbing uncontrollably because she was here, she was alive and real.

She’d almost fried her friend’s eyes out by sheer reflex. She couldn’t ask for forgiveness enough. She couldn’t explain how much she missed her.

“Gods, you’re so skinny.” Katherine whispered, sounding horrified at the way she could fit three people of Emhreeil’s size into her arms, and she choked out a broken imitation of a laugh at the fact that that was what she’d first noticed was wrong with her, feeling Katherine’s hold tighten a little in response, the only thing keeping her upright.

“Hey, you’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re fine. You’re safe. Nobody’s coming for you.” Katherine whispered, barely audible over her own sniffling and choking, something oddly hard in her tone, nuzzling her head, a familiar motion that lacked the blood-soaked fur she was used to, a familiar notion that felt wrong without it, but felt much too comforting to care.

Emotion crushed her heart, seared thoughts to nothing, demanded release lest it crush her sanity to bits. Warm joy, crushing guilt, cold despair, hopeful relief, empty loss.

Emotion left her a wordless wailing mess, fingers scraping at a scorched coat as she babbled half-words mixed with choking sobs, apologies without structure, limp, drowning in the scent of smoke and Katherine, letting the comforting words that passed through one ear and went out the other lull her to unconsciousness before she’d even noticed it.

A sharp twist within that phantom sensation of presence in her mind made her gasp awake again, hearing a familiar voice call to her, the thudding rhythm of boots hitting stone.

She ignored it, frozen, feeling a distant pull, a direction, a faint brush against her mind with a direction.

That direction was up.

The mote of sensation moved, tiny space with steady strides, just far enough to where she couldn’t feel what it was doing, but close enough to feel it. Faintly.

It… wasn’t a dream.

“He’s alive.” She croaked out with a breathless sigh of relief, feeling like a two ton block of steel was lifted off her chest.

Then she laughed, a weak, bright thing, and blasted mana into the room, feeling Katherine’s wide eyes settle on her.

“Katherine?” She croaked out, smiling, mildly delirious, ready to announce to her that her friend was alive and she had to go find him, ask her to come with her, but hesitated for a precious moment.

A smile across a face tight with worry. A nod.

This was real. Katherine was real. Her murderous canine friend was real and alive and fighting something right now.

There were a lot of words, speeches, possible conversations she’d play out within her mind when the wolf would drag her through the pipes, about what she would say and how to her best and longest friend.

Her mouth opened as she struggled to push herself higher up on the bed, then dropped open, slack, feeling like someone had just pulled the rug out from under her, her body freezing.

She couldn’t feel him anymore.

Just like in that sump, there one moment, and like a lightbulb flicking off, gone the next.

But that didn’t mean death the first time, apparently, and likely didn’t mean death now. That didn’t even mean he was injured, as far as she knew. It could be a Skill it was toggling on and off, or something erratic by nature.

Besides, he was a wolf. He was a tough bastard. He was still alive, likely strolling along some alley after whatever fight he’d just had, munching on someone’s hand.

She knew he was somewhere above, too. And she still had Katherine, staring at her with a concerned pinch in her features, extending a hand to her shoulder and squeezing wordlessly.

Her breath stuttered, and she quickly swallowed.

“I… hi. I really missed you.” She eked out, unsure of how to begin or what to say, mind mildly overwhelmed by the suddenness of everything. Should she tell her? Was it safe? Did it matter?

Katherine’s smile widened.

“Hey, Em. I know you did. You told me plenty last night.” She said in a tone laced with mild tease.

Before she could respond to that embarrassing tidbit, Katherine forged onwards. “It’s a little early, but do you want to eat something? You really need it. We can talk later.”

The casual tone really helped with calming her down. If she just stopped thinking so hard, she could almost forget she'd not seen Katherine in two-something years, and her other friend was against all odds, alive.

She tried to wet her lips, but her tongue was as dry as sandpaper. All too aware of the black hole eating through her insides where her stomach was supposed to be, she sighed.

“I… do you have blood? And water?” She murmured, and felt herself shrink even further into her warm and soft blankets at the blank stare she perceived on Katherine’s face.

“Em. Why are you drinking blood?” Katherine bluntly asked her, her voice hard, and her head snapped to her, despite the lack of eyes to convey her surprise at the sudden change in her voice.

“I- It’s… It’s a trait. ‘Vampiric’. Blood heals me and feeds me. So…” She eked out before leadingly trailing off, and Katherine opened her mouth, before her jaw clenched, and she clicked it shut.

“Later. Later.” Katherine repeated quietly, seemingly to herself, and nodded with an audible sigh. “Okay. Give me a second. Do you need it straight from the source, or would a syringe work?”

“I don’t know.” She breathed out, and Katherine nodded, before turning away and walking to a metal table on the other side of the room, covered in little pots full of medical tools, and beginning the process of drawing her own blood.

She took the time of silence to try and process everything.

It felt wrong to sit here, comfortable and warm, when she had so much to do. She had to go find the wolf again, she had to finish that creepy guy’s chore from the sewers, sell the-

Where was that golem core?

Judging from the plain and light clothes she was wearing, someone either stole it, or if she was willing to be very optimistic, it was being kept in a safe place somewhere around here.

“Don’t touch that.” Katherine’s voice snapped, and she turned in her direction, brows furrowed.

“What?” She croaked, confused.

“Not you, the goblin.” Katherine clarified, voice soft, and another pulse of mana revealed what she meant, a child-like figure skulking back into its corner to curl into a ball, its oversized shirt mostly being used as a rucksack, its large, pointy ears curled back like a scared puppy as it wrapped its hands around whatever was in its shirt.

She couldn’t really feel what was in there, nor did she care enough to try.

Her mind drifted back to the man in the sewers and the job he’d given her.

“Third floor, fourth quadrant, walk down street ninety three, just past the open square. Ask for the bishop. Tell him the password, sell the golem core to him, and give him the compass. The password is the phrase…” She trailed off in her mutterings, her brows furrowing as she struggled to remember. “I saw a… ghoul on a conveyor belt, and it turned around to smile at me.”

Right.

That didn’t mean anything as long as she had neither core nor compass, but having that hanging over her head was disconcerting at best. Would he get mad at her for not doing her ‘job’? He could probably easily kill her.

Nobody weak delved that deep into the sewers, and nobody sane stayed there for long. That freaky mutant hanging from the pipes down there was proof of what happened to those who did stay there too long.

Right, so, she had to find out where the wolf was. Fast. Then finish that man’s orders, and…

Use whatever favor she gained from the priest of that church to beg them to find a vampire to turn her. Something which might not even work. But even if it didn’t work, she could “see”. She wasn’t weak and helpless anymore, despite her emotions being an erratic mess.

Katherine strode back towards her bed, one hand clamped around a cupful of blood and the other applying pressure to a small needle puncture above her elbow.

“Stay in bed, please. You need rest.” Katherine chided as she continued walking, and she stilled in confusion before realizing she’d been coiling up to throw herself out of the bed, her waist bent, legs half-hanging off the bed, her teeth gnashing together in excitement.

She nodded, and consciously settled back into the bed, struggling to tamper down the urge to throw herself out of bed and just run up, trying to catch the wolf and drag Kat with her.

And the urge to rip the cup out of Kat’s hands.

Katherine placed a hand beneath her neck, the other bringing the cup down, and she tensed in discomfort and embarrassment, before quickly relaxing, warm tears pooling at her eyes again as a surge of nostalgia flooded her chest.

Even if this situation was far more morbid than simply being sick on a warm silk-covered bed with Katherine trying to keep her fever from being too frustrating, their positions were too similar to not let her mind drift to simpler, easier times.

Then the cup tilted, and her next inhale brought forth the scent of iron and something deeper, gamey and sweet, so sweet-

Her hand moved up to clutch Katherine’s fingers, tight around the cup, and she brought her head forward, wide, draining the cup in three hurried, open mouthed gulps, rubbing her tongue over the top of her mouth, noting the subtle tastes hidden under layers of iron and copper, unidentifiable.

She sagged back into the bed with a satisfied groan and a deep breath, letting go of Katherine's hand and the cup held within.

“Sorry. It’s hard to control myself. Are you okay? A cup’s worth of blood isn’t… a little.” She awkwardly said, trying to not be too obvious in the way she was licking every crevice in her mouth to chase the taste.

Before Katherine could reply, she felt her lips move, words without forethought leaving her mouth.

“You taste good.”

Whatever Katherine was about to say devolved into a choked sound like an aborted word, before devolving into an undignified fit of coughing, halting laughter, her hand moving up to cover her mouth as her shoulders shook, her eyes scrunching up with amusement.

She winced.

“Sorry, sorry. I- that was a weird thing to- can you stop laughing?” She grumbled, and felt a smile tug at her lips as her friend’s laughter redoubled, her own chest and stomach starting to convulse with quiet amusement.

It genuinely did feel like they’d only parted yesterday.

After a minute or so, the amusement faded, and silence came over them, an easy, albeit fragile one.

Katherine broke it first.

“Emhreeil… what happened?” Katherine asked, voice soft as she came up to the elevated bed, turned around, and leaned against the very edge, staring at her face over her right shoulder.