After another walk across the noble district, Quint's servant delivers me back to the house from before, Karl Liffan's. I'm glad the moment we get in the house through a side door. Walking around with all these noble people watching, naked and openly bleeding, makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I keep washing my mana over the cuts across my torso, working to get them to close. Even if they aren't deep, they're long, and I'm still weak from my other injuries. It's making me a little woozy from blood loss by the time we make it inside.

"W-what is this?!" demands Kelly when she sees me. "We sent her to be evaluated, not maimed!"

"It's nice to see you too, Lady Kelly." Charlotte offers halfheartedly.

Kelly doesn't even respond to the greeting. "My master will hear about this you know."

"He probably already has, gossip spreads faster than fire."

"Ugh," the distraught woman groans. "Give her here, we need to stop the bleeding before she faints. How did this even happen?"

"Master Varish said he needed to test whether she truly doesn't scar." Charlotte frowns down at me.

She doesn't even wait a beat. "Then cut her a little and be done with it! This is beyond excessive!" All she receives is a tired shrug.

Slowly, both women cool down as we reach a bathroom, Kelly snapping at a few servants to bring water along the way. As soon as we get there, I sit on the floor, not feeling too steady on my feet. I've managed to stop the bleeding, but the blood loss and the focus it took to control the mana already have me feeling weak and worn out. Maybe I should have protected myself with my mana when he cut me? I was too focused on distracting myself from what was happening at the time...

"In any case," Charlotte speaks up, hands planted on her hips with a tight frown on her lips. "Master Varish decided she is too small to properly evaluate and requested you send her again next year."

"Fine, I guessed as much," Kelly huffs, fluffing and straightening out the skirt of her blue-green dress as the servants arrive with buckets of water.

"Good then. Have a nice night, Lady Kelly." Charlotte curtsies, one hand out for the higher class gesture, and Kelly reluctantly follows along.

"Have a nice night, Lady Charlotte." Her tone says she doesn't mean a word of it, which draws a thin smile from the other woman as she turns and leaves.

"Bitch..." Kelly growls under her breath after she's gone, then turns an irritated scowl on me. "You, girl. Don't just sit there, up. We're getting you cleaned off." She jerks her head to a couple of the servants who just delivered the water, then picks up the ripped, bloodied dress off the floor. "Rachel really liked this one," she comments angrily.

I'm wobbling to my feet, the nearby servants quickly moving in to wash me, when she looks down at me again. It's just in time for the couple men and women to splash me with some water and wipe away the dried blood, showing how the injuries have already closed.

"Oh my," she mutters, joined by a number of others. Wide eyed stares all around, making me lower my head uncomfortably. Them knowing about this can only be bad for me. Maybe I shouldn't have gotten them closed so quickly...? But it might have been dangerous to let it bleed much longer... "What remarkable healing..." Kelly mutters under her breath.

Once they've toweled me off and wrapped me in fresh, if untreated bandages, I follow behind Kelly once more, but I'm starting to get really tired and dizzy, and end up nearly running into her, then wobbling on my feet when she suddenly stops in front of me.

"Master, we sent the girl to Quint Varish. He told us to send her again next year for a better evaluation."

There's a sigh. I try to follow it, but my eyes are getting blurry. I'm not sure where we are. "Fine, I'm not that surprised." There's a pause, a soft scribbling sound, like someone writing.

"Also," the woman continues, "he cut the girl to check the claim about scarring, and based on the wounds, you should know that she heals incredibly quickly."

"Hmm, that is good to know. Thank you, Kelly." I think it's Karl Liffan's voice.

"One other thing. He tore Rachel's old dress, so I'll be sending the bill to his house for it, ok?"

"Yes yes, that's fine," the sound of the pen scratching away through the little conversation.

Then the pen stops and the man speaks again. "Take her to the guard and get another set of guardianship papers. It looks like that Salazar tore them up when he couldn't locate her." He chuckles, before going on. "Then take her back to the orphanage. I'll have to sit on this one for a bit, but it should pay off in the long term."

"Certainly, Master."

After that, Kelly does exactly as he says. I'm brought on foot, all the way back out of the noble district. It's already late, nearly the last bell, but we walk all the way through town, a pair of bodyguards at our sides, as Kelly repeatedly tells me to hurry up as I fight to limp after her.

But I can't. I've been walking too much on my injured leg, getting hurt too much, lost too much blood, I've been awake too long when I'm already weak and should be resting. I can only push my body so far. We make it partway through the central district before I collapse to the ground, partially unconscious, unable to move anymore.

Someone kicks me roughly onto my back, and words float by.

"What a hassle."

"Eh."

"Just carry her."

"Fine, fine."

Then I'm thrown over something hard and painful with a stab into my gut knocking the wind out of me as I groan with tired pain, and I'm vaguely aware of being carried for some time.

Since my body is totally useless at this point, Chisa flies in to watch over me. She's tired too since it's pretty late, but she's managing.

I'm being carried by one of the noble bodyguards, flung over his shoulder. She watches us move through the city, until we reach the garrison.

Once inside, Riko continues to keep track of me, resting on the wooden beams above. Kelly deals with Frank, getting him to write up another set of papers with Karl Liffan as my guardian, even as he eyes my unconscious body worriedly. It's not like he has a choice in front of the noble's servant...

Once she has tucked the papers away inside her dress, they carry me the rest of the way through town. With a disgusted look on her face, she waves and says she doesn't want to get her dress dirty and orders the guard to throw me inside. He does just that, tossing me through the front door, before the three adults leave.

After a little while, I groan, managing to push myself up to my knees in the dark, quiet house. It's a while after last bell, so I guess everyone is already in bed. Riko finished collecting the last of the lightning mana floating around the house over this last week, so everyone is fine and sleeping peacefully, though I think the sickness is still spreading through town.

Even after sort of resting on the floor for a while, the best I can do is slowly crawl my way up to the third floor. I have to lean heavily against the door to reach the handle and push it open, then pant and stumble my way over to Emily's bed on all fours before sliding up under the covers with her. When she mumbles something in her sleep and wraps me in her arms, I finally feel a little safer after this horrible day where everything went so terribly wrong...

After that is a random tumble of indistinct nightmares broken up by more glimpses of things I don't understand. Then I'm being shaken gently, eyes fluttering open to Emily's worried face.

"Aria?" she asks. "Aria, are you alright? Where did you come from? You look hurt."

"Long story," I mumble through my sleepy brain. How long was I even out? "Stuff happened yesterday." Even saying that hits me with a stab of pain in my chest, both waking me up a little more and reminding me that I should do something about my new injuries. When I ask, Emily helps me up, limping over to my own bed to generate more earth mana with the metals underneath. With a thought from the others, I find that it's not long after first bell.

I don't have the energy for anything else after that, so I just collapse back in Emily's bed. She wraps me in her blanket, helping keep out of the chilly morning air coming in our window.

"Don't worry, she'll be fine."

"Are you sure? This one looks really bad."

The adults are all talking in tense, stressed voices. Because they don't think I can hear.

"I swear, she'll be fine."

I squint my eyes open. "I don't care, I don't need him anyway," I tell them.

"Huh?" My words are met with confusion from Beth and Eryk.

"Need who?" Eryk follows up.

"Who?" I ask back. They both look at each other, then back at me. "Wait, what were we talking about?"

That just leads into another concerned look between the two of them. "We weren't talking about anything, you suddenly just woke up and said, 'I don't care, I don't need him anyway.' What does that mean, Aria?" Beth asks.

"I said that?" I ask, squinting at the white stone ceiling. "Oh, is this the clinic? I don't remember saying that though..." I ramble, checking with the others, and they confirm that I definitely did, apparently right after waking up. "Oh, I guess I did, I wonder why...?"

"Aria... you seem... confused. Are you alright?" Eryk questions, failing to hide his worry. "What happened to you? Emily carried you here earlier, then came to get me." With a meaningful look to the side, I follow his gaze, to find her standing nervously off to the side.

"Oh, thanks a lot, Emily," I grin at her happily. "Thanks for always taking care of me."

She immediately comes forward, going up on her toes to hug me atop the table in Beth's office. "I always will."

After Eryk gives her a boost up onto the edge of the table so we can keep hugging together, he asks, "So, could you fill us in on... whatever happened yesterday?"

"Right, yeah..." I breathe the words out quietly. Then I tell them. All about how I tried to get my papers, but got pulled into all the stuff with the nobles, and all of that. How I figured out that Karl Liffan seems to be in charge of the orphanage since Mister Fredricson died, it's Quint Varish that wants to buy me, and there's a whole fight going on between the Ordlyns and Varishes. I leave out the part with Nana and Kurt Ordlyn though, since that all relates back to the rail unit program.

Then I press a hand to my chest and tell them about how he cut me and called for me to come back next year so he can reevaluate me. And how Karl Liffan holds my papers now, so he stands to make a ridiculous amount of money from selling me.

When I'm finally done, Eryk curses. "Shit, the whole thing went sideways, didn't it...?"

Without taking her eyes off me, Beth elbows him in the side and mutters, "Language, Eryk."

We spend a little longer in silence before he goes on. "Well, whatever. We can worry about all that in the long term. Right now, let's get you fed and rested." His surprisingly caring tone makes me smile a little as I nod, and he picks me up.

"Thanks again, Beth."

"You're welcome, Eryk."

After their short exchange, Eryk is taking me out the door with Emily at his side, when I speak up as well. "Thank you for treating my injuries again!" I call out, which just makes Beth smile warmly until the door to her office closes behind us.

When we get to Eryk's house, Irene greets us with a look of disgust that's like a knife in the heart. But before the feeling can get any worse, she calls, "Bath! Right into the bath with you two! Come on, off you go!" and pushes us straight into the bathroom to get washed. As soon as I'm sitting on the floor with Emily, I see why. I literally crawled my way through our filthy house, my skin is stained black all the way up my arms and legs. At least the bandages Beth used to dress all of my injuries are mostly clean.

Then Irene comes and has us strip again, which reminds me I don't actually have any clothes on. I haven't had clothes on for the better part of a day now. I've basically been dressed in bandages instead. I sigh sadly, also remembering that they burned one of my only two sets of clothing. I need to get more clothes, but I have no money after that last battle...

"Ahem," Myra pokes me with a thought to remind me I'm supposed to talk to Emily about that. So when Irene takes Emily's clothes away to wash, I grudgingly do as I promised.

"Hey, Emily," I call to get her attention as we sit on the chilly stone floor. She just raises an eyebrow so I'll ask my question. "It's, uhh, about hunting..."

"Yeah..."

"Myra and the others had the idea that you could probably take some parts off of the stuff they're killing to sell so we could make some money again." I purposely don't mention that I don't have anything, I feel like it would almost be manipulating her if I did, and I'm still not really comfortable with her going...

Of course, she answers as I expected anyway. "Ooh, that's a good idea! Let's do that, we'll be able to make enough for you to get by, since you aren't really making anything from your job, are you?" I wince when she points that out. I have mentioned how my work contracts work along the way, so of course she would pick up on that.

"Well, uhh, I guess... But you have to be careful, alright? It's still really dangerous out there, you know?"

"Yes yes, I know, Aria," she grins at me. I don't think she's taking this seriously enough, so I frown at her.

"I'm serious. Some of the stuff out there is terrifying. I wouldn't fight them myself."

That statement draws an understanding, "Oh."

"Yeah. Some of the animals are the size of this room," I point out. "Those aren't the kinds of things you can fight without being really powerful yourself, and you don't have enough mana to knock them out like I can either." Suddenly, Emily starts smiling as I'm saying that. "W-what?" Why is she grinning like that?

"I just remembered, I basically said the same stuff to you the first time you were going into the forest." Thinking back, I kind of remember that, and I stifle a small chuckle.

"That's right, you did, didn't you?"

"And then you got mauled anyway. By a hobin." She pokes me in the side and I giggle a little.

"Yeah, I did." We're laughing about it now, but I was really terrifying at the time. When the wound got infected, before I knew how bad lele fruit was for my injuries.

We both sit and giggle for a bit, exchanging a few more words on the topic, but generally decide that she'll be really careful and only pick up the parts that they bring to the edge of the forest for her to minimize the danger. Then Irene and Kristene arrive with a few buckets of hot water to fill the bath, followed by Selena, who helps us bathe like before. She stares at the new wounds across my chest until I explain a little of what happened.

I immediately regret it, the way she shakes with tears in her eyes. "Oh, don't worry about it," I try to assure her. "I only let him do it because I knew it wouldn't be that bad. It'll heal in a few days. It's no big deal, really."

"No big deal...?" Selena mumbles the words under her breath, eyes unmoving from my chest. I look uncertainly to Emily for help, but she has a dark expression too.

"Really, it's fine," I try again, "I've been through worse, it doesn't even hurt that much. I'm fine." Their looks aren't changing, why don't they believe me?

It's Emily that explains. "Aria, I know you've been through worse, but that doesn't mean you can just brush off someone hurting you like that. It doesn't make it alright."

"Well... yeah. I know that," I reply flatly. "I just... I'm not going to freak out over small injuries like this, you know?"

With a frown, Emily chops me on the forehead all of a sudden, and I flinch back at the shock. "You said the same thing when you got attacked by that hobin," she complains with a scowl. "Even if it's not that bad of an injury for you, you should care about yourself more."

Selena nods along intently with Emily's lecture, before repeating, "It's important to care about yourself."

"Ok, fine," I grumble. I know I'm bad at that, and I still don't know how convinced I really am that they're right, since I'm just a rail unit. I have to think about that more...

"Now, let's finish getting you washed," Selena finally pushes past the topic, and I gladly let it go.