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.
Alone — because Reader had taken her amulet, and Talon along with it.
Athira tried to reach for the place where her amulet usually hung, only to find her wrists locked in binders. Her annoyance sparked. Black coated her hands, pulling them straight through the metal. The binders fell on the blanket as her fingers felt around her neck for the chain that was always there — except this time, it wasn't.
Athira covered her face with her hands and tried to force herself to breathe instead of screaming the string of curses that came to mind.
"You do know I could have unlocked those for you."
Athira peeked between her fingers, finding Shift holding the now-ruined binders in one hand and a few pieces of crystallised Black in the other.
He tossed the binders on the floor beside another four pairs. "Guess that's another one broken. How in the hues do you get out of them so quickly, anyway? Even when they run out of power, they're runed to stay shut."
"My Colour dissolves runes." Athira dragged a hand down her face and managed to sit up, propping herself upright with one locked arm as the other held her head. She was still in her Owl outfit, boots and all, except for her cloak and mask. "Where am I?"
Shift glanced at the glowing, Blue runes on her arms and raised an eyebrow before shaking his head.
"You're at the Indigo Keeper base," he said. "After you passed out, we wrapped you in a blanket and stashed you in the rover. The Elites arrived; Raph told them you were a civvy caught in the middle. We brought you back to base, Talia wanted to throw you in a holding cell, but Raph said it wouldn't hold you long, so I volunteered for guard duty."
Raph.
She thought she'd imagined him in her pain-induced delirium.
Athira shoved the blanket aside, grimacing as she caught sight of the angry, red skin outlining each of the runes along her arms. They only burned like that when she got too close to losing control. "You shouldn't have brought me here. You're lucky you have a base left."
"You can thank my expert care for that," Shift said, sketching a bow as Athira swung her legs over the side of the bed. "And I guess the five pairs of binders that were sacrificed to the cause, but I figured — hey, whoa, slow down."
Shift grabbed Athira's arm, steadying her as she tried to stand and almost fell over. She swore as her head spun, holding onto his arm just to stay upright. She locked down the Black as it tried to balance her, refusing to use it. Without her amulet — without Talon — it'd be all too easy to lose control.
"I need to leave," she said when the room stopped spinning. "I can't stay here."
"You can't even stand up," said Shift, still holding onto her arm. "Besides, if Reader has your amulet, it seems like you might need some help getting it back."
Athira exhaled. Carefully, she reached an arm out to the side, allowing a thick layer of Black to cover her skin before she crystallised and shattered it. There was still far too much Black left pooled in her body, but it took the edge off. "That's not your problem."
"It's our problem if your Colour is gonna blow up the city without it."
Athira shook her head, managing to let go of Shift's arm and stay on her feet. "I can't ask Raph to help me. He's better off if I stay away from him."
"Look," said Shift. "Last night, Raph gave us the short version of what happened when you were kids. Something bad happened, and you ran away and never came back. I get it. That kind of stuff can be hard to face."
Athira dropped her gaze to the floor. "I didn't just break a vase or something. I..." She swallowed, forcing herself to admit the truth, if only to keep him away. "I got his sister killed. I destroyed his family, and if I'd never been there in the first place, it never would have happened."
Shift was silent for a long moment, tapping his hand against his leg.
Athira could feel his gaze on her. Knew he was reconsidering the effort he'd put in to helping her, that he was realising she wasn't worth the cloth he'd put on her head. One good deed didn't redeem her. Nothing would.
He released a breath. "You really need to talk to Raph about that. I know he wants to, especially after what you said last night before passing out."
"What's the point?" muttered Athira. "It won't change —"
"He lied to the Elites to bring you back here last night," said Shift, cutting her off. "And if he's anything like he was when he was younger, you know how out of character that is for him." He tilted his head down, attempting to catch her gaze that was pinned firmly to the floor. "Just talk to him, at least for a few minutes before you vanish a second time. He has something to tell you, and you owe him at least that much."
Dread settled in her stomach at the thought of facing Raph again, but Shift had a point about one thing. Without her amulet, she was little more than a flying, sentient explosive device with a mean right hook. Raph's team might be her only option to get it back from Reader without destroying several city blocks.
"Besides," said Shift, a sly note in his voice as he stretched his hands above his head. "If you leave too soon, I won't have a chance to tell you where your cloak is."
Athira looked at him. "You're using the location of my cloak as leverage to make me talk to Raph?"
"Pretty much. From what Raph said, you used to be pretty attached to that thing."
Athira rolled her eyes and ran her hands over her bare arms, noticing the streaks of dirt and blood over her dimly glowing runes for the first time. "If you're going to hold me hostage, I don't suppose there's a shower I can use first?"
Shift pointed towards the side door in the bedroom. "Bathroom is in there. Should be some fresh clothes too, though I had to guess your size." He smirked. "Couldn't find any in 'extra short' though. Be back soon!"
Athira gave him a withering stare as he vanished into the hallway before she focused on reaching the shower without falling.
She didn't bother undressing before getting in. With her back to the shower wall, she sat on the floor, resting her arms straight across her knees and letting the icy water soothe her skin. She remained like that for several minutes, methodically covering her arms in Black and crystallising it until she sat in a pile of ebony shards.
A knock came at the bathroom door.
"Still alive in there?" asked Shift from the other side.
The back of Athira's head hit the shower wall behind her. "Unfortunately."
"Just checking," said Shift. "Take your time, no rush."
After crystallising a little more of the Black pooled in her body and feeling like she could breathe again, Athira reluctantly got to her feet. She left the crystals where they were — they'd dissolve after a few hours — and set about peeling off her wet garments to scrub away the last of the dirt before turning off the shower.
A careful, controlled flick of her wrist engulfed and dried both her hair and clothes with Black. She was about to dress once more when she noticed the pile of clothes — a long-sleeved purple shirt and grey leggings. After a moment's indecision, she hid what remained of her Owl outfit in the wall and donned the borrowed clothes.
Shift was sitting sideways in the recliner from earlier, playing a sidescroller game on a screen projected out from his wristlet. He tilted his head back over the armrest to look at Athira as she approached, his mouth curved into an easy smile.
"You're looking better," he said, swinging his legs off the armrest. "Got you something from the kitchen."
He threw it at her. She caught it without thinking and found herself holding a devastatingly familiar brand of snack bar.
This was Zoe's favourite.
"It's an OmNom bar," he said. "Figured you could probably use it."
Athira tossed it back to him as guilt settled in her gut. "Not hungry. Wouldn't want to waste the pigment you spent on them."
"Elites pay for our food and all our other upkeep costs," said Shift, standing up as he unwrapped the bar. "If we paid with our pigment, we wouldn't have any left to use our Colour against the bad guys." He waggled the half-unwrapped bar at her. "It's all yours."
"I don't want i—"
Mid-sentence, Shift stepped forward and shoved the snack bar in her mouth.
He stepped back with a triumphant grin. "Now you've licked it, so it's officially yours." He winked. "Let's go find Raph."
*+*+*+*
A/N - Have I mentioned I could write Shifthira banter forever? Because I could. I could write it forever.
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