вlood & peтalѕ [ ĸoтlc - тιana ]

ch. xix

*puts on annoying teacher attitude* Okay, kiddos! How to we summarise this piece of writing?

*crickets*

....never mind, I'll show you how.

Firstly, we have the dying Tam, who has now opted to die.

Next, we have the unsure-of-her-choice Biana, who is the cause of aforementioned salt king dying.

Then, we have the sad Linh, who the author is being extremely mean to, by killing her brother AND dumping a ton of crush drama on her.

We also have the head-over-heels-for-Linh Dex, who just confessed and sort of added to her emotional baggage very inconsiderately. Good for him, he agreed to wait. This is why I like him. Go Dex.

And last but not least, we have the ever-oblivious Sophie & Co. (tbh I'm not surprised. Ohhh wait, I'm the one writing this. Never mind then.)

Oh!!!! We also have a highly riled up Tam protecc squad that wants to kill me through the internet. Can't believe I managed to forget about that.

And now, we move on to the actual story!!! (Finally lmao)

Over the past week, Tam had noticed several things.

One: Linh never called for water anymore. It was quite common to watch her wiggle her fingers around casually, fiddling with water she grabbed from the atmosphere. Now? She hadn't played with it ever since he'd first started coughing. It pained him to see her shun her ability so thoroughly just after gaining a whole new level of mastery over it.

Two: the petals somewhat depended on his emotions. Whenever he underwent a particularly strong burst, he could feel the large knot deep inside his throat force its way upwards.

Three: there was only one way to control his emotions: deep breaths and occasional shadow-puppet-self-therapy sessions. Go ahead and call it childish, but it actually helped.

So, what happened when Linh and Dex entered his room together, hands tightly entwined?

He gagged, retched and very painfully coughed up roughly two whole flowers. At least it looked like three; he couldn't tell from all the blood coating it, along with the natural lumpiness of the tissue.

Sure, he was now used to seeing blood, especially his own, but that was a whole new level of...gore. (I didn't know how else to describe it, okay??)

Alarm bells sounded in his head, and he felt like someone had just shoved a pan of mallowmelt right in his face. The fact that elves were naturally squeamish wasn't really helping at the moment.

"Tam!" Linh was at his side immediately. "Are you okay?"

No, he was just panicking and unable to breathe because it was so much of fun. But of course he didn't say that, instead jerking his head sideways to indicate 'no'.

"Ohhkay then. Deep breaths. In, out. In, out." Linh's tone was soft and soothing, gradually guiding him back to normal. When he could finally breathe regularly again, he plucked a fresh tissue out of the box and dragged it down his face. "T-thanks."

"'S what I'm here for." She smiles softly at him, although the crease of worry between her eyebrows hadn't completely vanished. "But...how much did you cough up again?"

Wordlessly, he showed her the tissue. Of course, her face automatically drained of all color. "Two whole flowers...."

Dex jolted into action. "Darn. You're really deep in. It's too late to adjust your medicine concentrations right now, but...taking more of each should give the same effect. So that should do, for now."

"Mmhm." Tam gave Dex some major side-eye. "W-why were you two h-holding hands?"

Linh flushed, plucking the stained tissue from between his fingers and dropping it into the bin. "Later. First, we talk medicine-y stuff."

AUGH this chapter is bad, I'm sorry. Hopefully tomorrow's is better...?
Then again, knowing me, there's only a small chance of that happening........

Anyone for music? *toots trumpet hopefully* I mean, I didn't torture you TOO much in this chapter...