Chapter Text
The first of his senses to return is smell, he can smell something slightly sweet, something familiar, it's comforting in a way nothing else is for him.
He greedily inhales the scent, trying to puzzle out why the scent is causing such a maelstrom to begin stirring in his breast.
A small smirk spreads across his pained mouth, he tastes the blood on his teeth as his swollen tongue glides across them beneath his busted lips, the metallic taste settling into the hollows of his cheeks. He recognizes the smell with a involuntary jerk of his body, it was lilacs. Lilacs? That can only mean she is still near. Do they still lie next to each on that far away plane? Did they yet live? Not that his own survival was ever a paramount concern of his, but hers? She almost always occupied his thoughts, the only warmth he's known filling his entire being nearly each and every single time. That is, until his mind would wander to the thoughts of their clashes ending, his candle being extinguished by her was always the end he wanted for himself, but for her to meet her end by his hands? The mere thought of her no longer existing was enough to sap the heat from him, his world growing cold once again. He only ever wanted her strong, fierce, blood-thirsty, ravenous for their next clash, as he was.
He drifts in and out of consciousness for what feels like moons, but slowly, he's regaining the ability to hear clearly, twitch his fingers, and move his toes; although he notes that his movements feel restrained somehow. His mouth and throat are dryer than they have ever been, and his stomach rumbles with deep hunger.
The day when he's finally able to open his eyes enough for light to peer in; it feels like the brightness will blind him, it would seem he picked a particularly sunny day to attempt it. He opens them slowly with a low groan only to see angry, blue-gray eyes staring daggers into his of cerulean.
Estinien stands, several fulms away, leaning against a smoothed wall of white stone with his crossed arms and wearing the same expression that Zenos has seen on the faces of hundreds, even hundreds of thousands before. Fear, hate, anger and disgust.
"Why are you here?" the white-haired elezen man quietly demands to know through his gritted teeth. Zenos can only look at him with a puzzled furrow of his brow, he does not even know where they are. The elezen looks past him to the far wall, where there is another bed.
Zenos turns his head slowly, training his eyes to the same spot in the room; the pain in his neck and shoulders barely tolerable as he winced, his expression falling flat as he sees her.
His mirror, the light, the spark that ignited his soul- and she's barely clinging to life, and it's his fault. She's surrounded by all manner of magical apparatus, a curious contraption hanging above her bed on the wall, it's slowly feeding aether into her form, he surmised. She looks so frail, so small. He'd only ever seen her with fire in her eyes, a feral grin spread across her lips as they danced; save for after their most recent one when she dragged her broken and bloodied form towards him. But now; now she looked.. hollow, her body appeared an empty shell; it made his chest ache to see her this way but he did not know why.
She's covered by a thick green blanket from the neck down, he cannot see the extent of her injuries but knows that she must possess many. Her mouth is bruised, and her bottom lip has been sutured back together. Her right eye is swollen shut and is myriad shades of blue and purple. The once long, thick wave of her deep burgundy hair now seems to lie flat against her pillow, devoid of its usual fullness, and her leporine ears once stiff and upright lie limp. A large wooden table next to her bed is covered in small bottles, pieces of parchment, and a stonework bowl with metal instruments covered in blood, he can smell it from where he rests.
"She has so many injuries that the healers lost count." The azure dragoon says with a twinge of sadness. "Broken leg, broken arm, cracked vertebrae..q. countless.." Clearing the emotion from his throat, his expression turns to a scowl and he looks back to the Garlean, he spits out "That you still draw breath is a courtesy bestowed upon you by her; why she demanded you be given equal medical treatment I will not pretend to understand."
"She.. demanded?", he ponders as he looks down his nose.
Estinien rises from the modest chair that is sat against the wall next to Zenos' recovery bed; walking around the large bed that currently houses the behemoth of a man, he crosses the room to where the warrior rests. Zenos can feel a heat rising in his chest, his eyes narrowing as he watches the man get closer to her unconscious form.
The elezen man spends a moment reading a sheet of parchment that is on the table next to her bed; he glances at her and mutters to Zenos, "However," he says with no small amount of disdain for the man in his voice, "now that you've awakened, I will have someone come to tend to you as per her wishes, although you will be sedated so the chirugeons can perform their treatments on you without fear of death." He glares back at the Garlean, his lips forming a stiff line, his teeth clenched behind his cheeks, slightly shaking his head as he exits the room, the door closing lightly behind him.
Since this is the first moment of sight and quiet since he awakened, he takes a moment to survey the room he finds himself in, as well as the state of his own body. His upper body lay against a slight incline of pillows, allowing his head to be elevated enough to observe his surroundings. Although he knows not by whom, his familiar black coat, gauntlet, glove, boots, and trousers have been removed and he's been dressed in a simple white gown, covered with a thick white blanket although his bare arms are exposed to the air. As he looks himself over, raising his brow inquisitively, he notices he is restrained after all; thick metal shackles that hum with aether around his ankles and wrists, a band of thick metal across the wide expanse of his chest, an identical one splayed over his thighs. He sighs.
The room itself is sparsely decorated; he notes there isn't much room for additional furnishings should anyone wish since the room is so full of medical apparatus. The space contains only the chair that the Azure Dragoon had been seated in, a small chair next to her bed, and the table next to her bed the only other pieces in the room. He and his friend must be in some form of infirmary... somewhere. There are two large windows, one on either side of her recovery bed, each draped in a thin, dark blue curtain. The time of day allowed the barest peek of sunlight to dapple brilliantly across the freckled skin of her face; the sunlight hitting her closed eyes caused her body to reflexively shift her face away from the bright beam of the sun, causing her face to turn towards Zenos.
Zenos' gaze softened as it returned to her visage; he never was able to keep himself from staring at her whenever she was near; although he was unclear as to why, never had another stirred such a feeling within him. Even in such a listless state, she was able to invoke his undivided attention. "How peculiar", he muses to himself the small smile from earlier returning to his lips as exhaustion takes him.