Chapter 4 - Better than Deserved

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The first thing Athira became aware of was the agony that had burrowed into her bones.

The Black that had flooded from her mindscape during the Surge remained lurking in her body. Though it'd settled, it still felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to her insides and left the embers to burn their way through whatever remained. Her muscles ached. Her throat felt dry. Her head was pounding, and she was pretty sure that for other people, this was what dying felt like.

For her, the pain wasn't anything unusual. Her Colour always hurt once it was out of her mindscape — there usually just wasn't so much of it.

Her eyes flickered open, expecting to see the inside of a prison cell if her Black hadn't destroyed it. Instead, she found herself in a bedroom, curled in the corner of a bed and tucked beneath a blanket. Daylight drifted in below the drawn curtains, keeping the room peacefully dim.

Athira sat up, relying on her Black to do most of the lifting. When her Colour responded far more enthusiastically than usual, she panicked and released it, shedding a wave of ebony crystals across the bed as she fell back on the pillow with a groan.

"Whoa, just take it easy," said someone across the room. "You awake for real this time?"

Athira turned her head, frowning as the dim room came into focus. The Green Keeper with the sandy-blonde mess of hair was getting up from a recliner, his gaze on her.

"This time?" she muttered, squinting against the streaks of sunlight across the room as something fell off her head.

"You had a rough night, woke up a few times," he said, moving the damp cloth from her pillow to the nightstand before he crouched beside the bed. "Speaking of which, you never answered my question last night." He put his elbow on the mattress and held up two fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Athira closed her eyes, pressing her head into the pillow like it'd do anything to stop her headache beating its way out of her skull. "If I tell you, will you shut up and leave me alone?"

"Unlikely, but who knows?"

She sighed. "Two."

"It was three, but close enough."

Athira opened an eye and scowled at his three fingers. "It was two until you changed it."

The sandy-haired Keeper smirked back at her. "Just had to check you were actually awake."

"I should have let the tower squash you."

"Gotta say, I'm glad you didn't." He ran a hand through his hair. "Guess I should say thanks for the save but uh, if you don't mind me asking, what made you come back?"

Athira drew a long breath in through her nose. "Maybe it was just how pathetic you looked, all given up after that idiotic elemental collapsed the tower."

He frowned. "I'm not sure whether I should be insulted or grateful."

"You're alive, aren't you?"

"Grateful it is!" A grin. "My name's Shift, by the way."

"I don't remember asking."

"Someone's cranky," said Shift, smirking. He folded his hands beneath his chin and rested them on the edge of the bed, head tilted slightly to the side as his emerald eyes flicked across her face. "Do you remember much from last night?"

Last night was a blur in her thoughts. She vaguely remembered pulling him out of Starpoint before she'd collapsed, hallucinating from the pain of trying to contain her Colour alone.

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