Alitia: Hellfire and Blizzard

XVI: Eyes Open

The first thing Carys noticed when her eyes next fluttered open was how much her head hurt. Light flooded her vision, and the room spun furiously enough to make her feel as if she was in free fall. Carys clamped her eyes shut again, and as soon as the darkness consumed her, the world faded from between her fingertips. 

"Carys? Can you hear me?"

Sophia's voice was both a welcome reprieve from the silence and an obnoxious drill trying to tear Carys' skull in half. "You can wake up now. Everything is okay," Sophia insisted, and Carys resisted the urge to bury her face into whatever pillows she could get her hands on. No matter how desperate she was to run from Sophia's voice though, Carys couldn't convince her body to move as she wanted it to, leaving her completely still and forced to listen to everything her friend had to say. 

A rush of healing magic surged through Carys' body, and the world around her seemed to still despite the dizzying sensation she had noticed seconds prior. Carys was tempted to try and shove herself back into the world of dreams, but she doubted she would get away with that as long as Sophia was there to continue watching her, so she let her eyes open permanently this time. The ceiling of the Alitia infirmary was a familiar fight to Carys whether she wanted to admit it or not. She had been there more times than she could count, but unlike every other visit she had paid, Carys couldn't remember what had happened for her to end up there in the first place...

"How are you feeling?" 

Zylphia's voice was enough to pull Carys out of her haze, and she looked over to her left to see the headmistress of Alitia sitting just beside her bed. Zylphia was the one who had cast the healing spell, Carys realized, though she supposed that made a lot of sense. Zylphia may have been the headmistress of the school, but she was an incredibly proficient healer as well, and no one could ever hope to match up to her raw skill when it came to mending the wounded. Carys was no exception no matter how desperate she was to be left alone so she could sleep until all of this faded away at last. 

"I'm..." Carys tried to say, but she didn't know where to find the words. She wouldn't have said necessarily that she felt fine, but she felt better than she had a few moments prior. The healing spell had already gone a long way toward helping her, and Carys was glad it had. Still, she felt as if there was something she was missing that she wouldn't be able to unravel until someone was finally honest with her. "I'm feeling better."

"I'm glad to hear it," Zylphia said with a hum. "I was worried about you when the rest of your group arrived back here." After a moment of silence, Zylphia continued. "Do you happen to know what happened to you for you to end up hurt this way?"

Carys wished she could have just shrugged Zylphia off so she could go back to sleep, but she already knew she wasn't getting away with that. Instead, she found herself putting actual effort into remembering just what had sent her for such a loop when she lost consciousness. Carys squinted up at the ceiling for a few moments too long before it all rushed back to her. "Sierra," she realized. "We were fighting at Sierra, and... And Brynn showed up. After that..." Carys' head pounded a warning to tell her to not get too close to that subject if she could avoid it, and she groaned as she cradled at her temple. "My head hurts."

"You took quite the nasty blow during the battle, or so I'm told," Zylphia hummed. "Still, you should make a full recovery soon enough. The rest of your friends have gone back to their room for the time being to get a bit of extra rest." 

"I can help take you back whenever you're ready to move again," Sophia offered. "I know you're exhausted right now, but if you're interested in sleeping in your own bed..."

There was an offer Carys couldn't refuse. She was desperate to get out of her own head and back to the privacy of her own room. She was exhausted, and the last thing Carys wanted to do was interrogate the meaning of everything she had endured to make her head hurt this much. Brynn had clearly won the battle for Sierra earlier that day... Had it been earlier that day? Carys didn't know, and she was almost afraid of finding out. Surely she hadn't been blacked out for that long... Right? Then again, Carys supposed that she had seen worse injuries over the course of her time at Alitia. If anything, a wound like this was to be expected from a fight meant to reclaim one of the schools.