[CinƔed Rubina la Fabre ]
It was suddenāthe return to consciousness. From the moment air was forced back into her lungs, she awoke with a start, body going completely rigid as her eyes shot wide open, her heart jumping to life so quickly that all she heard for a moment was its frantic beating in her ears, blood pumping through her cold and sodden body. She gasped inwardly, greedily sucking in oxygen before she broke into a fit of violent, breath stealing coughs. She sounded as if she were choking as it continued on, pain shooting through her limbs and form with every violent motion. In-between the choking coughs, she shakily attempted to breath in, body seemingly desperate and starved of air. Breath quivering as much as her suddenly very cold body, CinĆ”ed managed to force the coughing fit to subside, as she continued to take in air uncertainly, mind beyond the realm of foggy and dazed at the moment. The only thing that she knew for certain or that remained coherent was the need to breathe.
Everything . . . hurt, it hurt bad. Her body was aching as she quivered, but her head was so foggy, that she couldnāt remember why it was sheād be hurting so damn much. It was hard for her to form even a coherent thought for a moment, as she slowly brought her eyes to open, finding it hard to get her vision to adjust and focus at all. It hurt to even have her eyes open. Frena, what happened...? she thought, a slow and soft groan escaping her as a dull throbbing overtook her whole form, from her toes to her head. Nothing was free of pain.
And for the life of her, she couldnāt remember what had happened to her, or why it was she was in such agony.
As she lay there, silently on the sand...she was quickly enough pulled from her jumbled thoughts and confusion. Very much near her, she heard it, the sound of someone writhing about, squirming on the sand. Blinking a few times, trying to clear away the pain from just having her eyes open, CinĆ”edās head slowly turned to look to her sideāonly for her to let out a yelp, and bolt upright, sitting to stare at the sight that was right next to her. A male Undine was right near her, thrashing about in anguish himself, and though this was true, the sodden Salamander made no movements as she simply stared at him for a few seconds as her scrambled mind failed to connect any thoughts together other than what it was her eyes were seeing.
For a short time, the pain was forgotten within her...until it was she was near perfectly still yet again, a jolt of it ran through her without warning. A sharp seethe came from between the girlās teeth though when a piercing pain shot through her chest, severe enough to cause her muscles to lock up, and for her to cringe up. The girlās hands shot to her diaphragm as her breath was stolen right out from her lungs from the shock. Her face still locked in a grimace, CinĆ”ed turned her blue eyes down to her hand, vision blurring in and out a bit. Careful about it, she began to breathe again, albeit she took air in and out in shallow instances. Her ribcage...it really hurt, although everything else on her did too at that moment, but the pain that went through her at even moving it was enough of a shock to stop her in her tracks.... While her eyes began to at last, properly adjust to the lighting of wherever she was, she finally took note of a simple fact; CinĆ”ed caught a look at her bare arm, and realized that it was riddled with bruises, nasty ones. That was enough to make it all come back to her; the decided battle sheād engaged in before, with the rogue. She was fated to lose before sheād even began that.... For the sake of her father, sheād took on an opponent that she was in no way ready to take on. And itād cost her indeed, although she was lucky enough to have escaped the brawl with her life.
Body still throbbing, the Salamanderās eyes widened as she stared down at her arm, shivering from being cold and wet; the pieces of the occurrence began to reveal themselves to her quickly, until everything fell back into place. I donāt remember much near the end, but, wasnāt I flung into the sea? She did her best to remember, pulling at the foggy and uncertain memories of near the end of it best she could, trying as hard as she could to make them coherent. A calm look came over her face as she maintained her position, and breathing pattern, remembering. Yeah, he did throw me into the bay, I can remember hitting the water, and it swallowing me up before I passed out. Carefully, CinĆ”ed turned her head up, noting the pain in her neck as she did so.
Wait...if I passed out in the water, I should be dead...not sitting on land, very much alive and in pain. The girlās body felt like it went even colder, heart skipping a beat in her chest as her memory connected together at last, and she came to realize what she hadnāt beforehandāthe Undine writhing around right next to her, who was very clearly in pain!
That was when it kicked ināthe adrenalin that is. A yelp came from the girlās throat as jerked her head over to again look at the poor guy, a very distressed expression overtook her features. How the hell had she not realized that there was someone right freaking next to her thrashing about in pain?! Whether or not she was just coming out of being half-drowned, she shouldāve been able to acknowledge his situationāof all the times her obliviousness had to strike, it had to happen at what couldāve been one of the worse possible moments! About a bajillion thoughts slammed into her mind at once regarding this whole state of affairs, her own situation forgotten for the moment, her injuries becoming the very last thing on her mind. CinĆ”ed didnāt know what was wrong with him, why it was the Undine was in such distress for the moment, and being careful about it, to avoid being slammed with his tail as he did squirm about, the Salamander turned to face him, a look of worry on her face.
What in the name of Frena do I do?! Heās, I donātāgah! the girlās hand shot to grip the side of her head as she slammed her eyes shut, unable to comprehend or think of how to handle this mess, the guy was in no shape to talk, so she couldnāt find out what was wrong, and without that info, she was useless to help him. A groan slipped from her while her body shook from the anxiety and panic she felt at being unable to help him, she hated the idea of being useless to given assistance.... However, it took a few moments, a few moments of scrambled and jumbled thoughts for something to drop in out of nowhere, a thought that actually made sense amidst the chaos of her mind.
A memory, and knowledge. With it, her eyes opened about as quickly as they could, before she stared at the poor Undine before her. I...forgot, Undine, when they leave the water, they change between their aquatic forms and their terrestrial ones. A frown formed over her face, And unlike the Salamander who also can change...their transformation is very painful; Osael did not show much kindness to his children like Frena did in that way. CinĆ”ed removed her hand from her head as she remained overtop the Undine, watching. Still yet, she could not help but notice a very strange thing happening as it was he turned. The markings that had been upon his body, ones sheād thought tattoos began to recede away while it was even his hair color began to change. Okay, I donāt think thatās supposed to happen? she thought blinking.
A moment after this thought passed through her head though, another surfaced in her mind while it was the most wrenching part of the Undineās transformation occurred...the division of the tail into legs. However....
Gah...I forgot about that too! The small Salamanderās injured body went rigid while it was her face turned beet red at a momentās notice. Not only is their change painful, but it doesnāt exactly come equipped with clothing! Although she definitely wasnāt as squeamish about the matter of nudity when it came to the opposite sex as some girls her age might be, that didnāt mean she was perfectly comfortable with it either. CinĆ”ed averted her eyes while the Undineās change came to its end, feeling her face redden even further. It was only at this point that she was able to take note of one other thing that persisted within proximity of her as wellāseeing what looked like water move within the air out of the corner of her eye, the mortified Salamander found her gaze drawn toward its source.
Hovering about the now seemingly human boy before her was a sort of creature, looking rather like a fish, formed of...water. She could only stare at it a moment, as its attention was focused upon the Undine who it seemed to accompany. Okay, make sense of that later more important things.... she thought, forcing her mind from the subject of the strange creature. Her face still red from the fact that the Undine lying before was undoubtedly nude...and seemingly unconscious now, CinƔed found herself letting out a sigh as she shut her eyes and moved her hands to what lay around her neck now, though it was sodden, the cape she wore would at least provide some cover for the boy and make it bearable for her to look at him without flushing.
Undoing the knot that held the article in place, the Salamander removed it from around her, and very quickly draped it overtop the Undineās middle, sighing as she did so. āOh Frena.... What happened?ā she mumbled, looking back to the water-fish for a moment as she drew a hand up to her head.
Slowly, the pain and ache of her battered body returned to her as she came to calm down. And she remembered before, what her mind had been on aboutā¦the fact that sheād been flung off a cliff by the rogue sheād engaged in combat. So, since I somehow managed to survive a bludgeoning, drowning, possible internal bleeding, and dying from dehydration or starvation...and since I woke up to find a writhing Undine near me on a beach, I think I can come to the conclusion that heās the one who saved me. Her eyes went back to the unconscious Undine boy...to whom she likely owed her life.
A groan slipped from her as the distress of her injuries began to make a return to her body, throbbing and such. A sharp pain around her neck too got her, a bruise forming from when it was the rogue had hoisted her up and tossed her into the ocean. Sighing, the girl set her eyes upon the face of the seemingly sleeping Undine, the strange fish thing still floating about him...what it was she still had no idea, but it seemed to have intelligence about it that she couldnāt deny. ....I know Undine changes are painful, but, I canāt help but worry. Looking around a bit, a look of discontentment upon her face, CinĆ”ed was uncertain of what it was she could or should do.
So, she did the only blatantly obvious thing that occurred to herāwhich was to carefully reach out, and set a hand on the boyās forehead and attempt to speak despite the discomfort in doing so. āU-Um, please, wake up? You....are you all right...?ā