134: Vestigial Pursuit – One
The dlegh had been a total subsumation of V'tala's will. She could still think, still feel, still utilize all the skills she'd trained in practically from birth, but unless her dryhten commanded her to do something, she would do nothing. No one was meant to live like that, and so, even though she still had her interiority to herself, more often than not she spent her days dissociating, acting on instinct alone wherever her dryhten had guided her.
Her dryhten's commands had been an incessant, inescapable presence in her mind at all times. Even if she'd been exhausted past her limits, injured beyond ignoring, if V'tala had been given an order, she would carry it out, regardless of how badly it ended up harming her. Her dlegh was a collar, and she was never not aware of how tightly her dryhten had gripped it.
Awakening without that constant pressure on the edges of her mind had been a blessing as much as it had been terrifying. Without the hand that had steered her life for the majority of it, she didn't know how to interact with the world, and so she'd fallen back on the instincts her training had given her.
An alien figure standing before her as she emerged from stasis? An enemy, deserving of nothing more than a bullet to the head. An armed and armoured figure half poised to take down the alien she had just executed, the familiar shape of horns along the back of their head? The person who would fill the void the passing of her previous dryhten had left within her, and so V'tala had recited her pledge.
Rather than the ceding of her will, as she had expected, the surgical removal of a part of herself to have it cradled in another's hands felt more like a violent assault, a gaping wound shared between herself and the woman she would learn was named Pryseia. Pain and confusion had brought V'tala a clarity of thought she hadn't felt since childhood, since before she'd pledged her dlegh, anchoring her in the here and now where the only one in command of her will was her and her alone.
What followed was a navigation of what it meant for V'tala to be in total control of herself for the first time in her life, and she would forever be grateful to the women who had encouraged her independence at every step of the way.
Pryseia, Rhea, Malakh, Nevara, Elytra, Viatrix.
She felt a kinship to these women that she hadn't felt among her own people, even with her fellow dregil she'd grown up alongside. Her connection to them had only strengthened since they'd become Storlayacas together, and even now, surrounded on all sides by mercenaries shouting over and dancing to the music blaring from every speaker, she could feel them on the edges of her awareness.
It was nothing like her connection to her dryhten, the woman's presence like a hand fisted tight in her hair, forcing V'tala to look only where she'd been directed. Instead, it was no more invasive than being aware of her environment - the heat and chill of a temperature change, the brush of wind past her face, the feel of grass beneath her fingers, and the weight of humidity hanging in the air. If she concentrated, she could feel it more deeply, but even then it was more like being aware of the direction light was coming from based on where the shadows it cast fell. For the most part, she barely noticed this tether between them at all.
And so when a frigid chord of panic was struck within her, a sense she didn't know she had snapping taut and leading in the direction of their suite within the activity centre, V'tala was moving before her mind had a chance to register her actions.
She didn't break stride as the door to the suite as a whole slid open before her, or the door to the bedroom she was drawn to after that, her hands clasping together and rising over her head before it had a chance to fully pull back and reveal the nightmare taking place inside.
In a single stride she was next to the bed, her clasped fists crashing down like a hammer on the skull of the thalatte assassin crouched over Pryseia, stunning them enough that the woman they'd been holding at knife point was able to lash out with a leg, kicking them across the small room.
The thalatte hit the wall with a gasp, their knife falling from their nerveless grasp, and before they could even take a breath, V'tala was upon them.
Nevara keeping the Thalatte agent's mouth pinned open to prevent them from biting down on their kill switch. The memory had V'tala gripping this assassin by the snout and the ridges on the back of their head, twisting until a wet crack sounded from within them, and they became a dead weight in her arms, little more than a marionette with its strings cut. She didn't wait for the body to tumble lifelessly from her grasp before she rushed to the bed, to the woman writhing on top of it.
Eyes wide and wild with fear, so different from the distant gaze in the throes of her panic attack, Pryseia's hands were clutching at her throat, as if trying to pull away something that wasn't there. Dark purple blood was gushing from beneath her fingers, and bubbling out from her gasping mouth.
V'tala turned to the door, her lungs filling with a name, but Rhea entered before she had a chance to shout it, medkit open and tools already in hand.
Quickly, gently, she shoved V'tala towards the head of the bed, gripping Pryseia by the front of her shirt and hauling her into a sitting position while she ordered, "Get behind her, prop her up."
With more urgency, agency, than any command her dryhten had ever given her, V'tala did as Rhea asked, pulling Pryseia against her chest, one hand keeping her head tipped back against her shoulder, while the other wrapped around her waist, holding the injured woman's right arm down while Rhea got to work.
The electronic whir of the tool at Pryseia's neck, the wet choking sound bubbling against her ear, the flash of lights from Rhea's Longan, a smear of teal and lavender in her periphery, Malakh suddenly at her side pulling more instruments from the medkit. If it all took place in the span of seconds or hours, V'tala couldn't tell, could only clench her jaw as the twitching of the woman in her arms grew more feeble with ever passing moment.
And then it stopped.
Pryseia's head tipped against her jaw, her chest falling still beneath V'tala's arm. Malakh surged at her side, turning sharply to Rhea with an unreadable look on her face, but Rhea would not be distracted from her task. Her gaze was intent as she worked, her eyes on something that neither of them could see, and after an eternity she cast her tool aside, reaching forward to tear open Pryseia's shirt to the navel as easily as if it had been tissue instead of cloth, holding her hand out expectantly. Malakh had what she needed in her grasp an instant later, an unassuming grey lump, which Rhea pressed against Pryseia's sternum.
Pryseia surged in V'tala's arms, before falling limply against her once again.
Four roaring, hammering beats of V'tala's heart later, and Pryseia surged again, only to remain unmoving in her arms.
A third time and Pryseia surged, Pryseia seized, her body roiling like she was about to throw up.
Grasping V'tala by the shoulder, Rhea tilted the both of them forward, and with a retch, blood flew from Pryseia's mouth, scalding across her and V'tala's legs.
Choking, gasping, Pryseia hacked out another torrent of blood, and V'tala realized with horror that Pryseia had drowned in her own blood.
Rhea said something she couldn't comprehend then, Malakh darting between Nevara and Elytra as Rhea eased V'tala back, Pryseia heaving for breath against her.
Pryseia had drowned.
Pryseia was alive.
Malakh was back moments later, a clear, liquid filled sac in hand, reaching for something in the medkit at the same time as Rhea.
Carefully pulling Pryseia's right arm from V'tala's grasp, Rhea ran another device across Pryseia's wrist, and as soon as she was done, Malakh snapped a cuff around it, the cuff now plugged in to the sac she'd brought, hanging suspended in the air by some sort of antigrav mechanism.
Her voice coming calm and steady, decades of situations just like this allowing her to keep her cool, Rhea said, "Pryseia, your throat was badly damaged. I don't want you talking just yet. Tap my hand twice for yes and once for no, understand?"
V'tala felt Pryseia flinch with pain as she swallowed, trying to force her breathing to even out, and after a moment she patted Rhea's hand twice.
"Good. Okay, do you know where you are?"
Pressed close as they were, V'tala felt Pryseia's eyes dart around the room before she tapped twice once again.
Nodding, Rhea continued, "We're getting you back to the ship, and I'll deal with the fallout of all this. I've got you on a sedative, and I'm keeping you under until I deem you fit for duty."
Pryseia slapped Rhea's hand. Once.
"Yell at me when you can actually speak." Rhea told her with a sad smile, and for the second time that day, Pryseia fell limp in V'tala's arms. The steady rise and fall of Pryseia's chest against her was the only thing that kept V'tala from dissociating.
The lights were dim when Pryseia opened her eyes - both of them working again - the familiar architecture of the Pelekys' medbay cast in soft shadow.
"Hey, welcome back," Rhea's voice, quiet beside her, "It'll be sore, but you're okay to speak."
Turning, Pryseia found Rhea seated at her bedside, wearing different clothes than she'd last seen her in, the shadows under her eyes speaking to her exhaustion.
Swallowing, her throat feeling hot and raw, Pryseia croaked, "I'm sorry I slapped you."
"A slight that doesn't require forgiveness," Rhea's eyes were bright with tears, her smile fond, "I know you weren't in your right mind, given the circumstances."
Pryseia drew in a breath, closing her eyes as she felt the phantom of the assassin's hand around her throat. Opening them again, she asked, "What happened?"
The sigh that huffed out of Rhea was one of fury as she adjusted herself in her seat. "A pair of Thalatte assassins snuck their way into Necupole territory. Captain Tyeku combed the mind of the one V'tala killed and let the Necupole guards and officials that showed up later know that they'd come there to kill us. The second assassin detonated their kill switch when one of Viatrix's drones dragged them away from where they'd been attempting to break into the Pelekys, and part of the arena got caught in the blast. Because of that, Erkanschlde's managed to kick this up into a full blown diplomatic incident, as you were a contractor under Necupole law at the time, and Necupole property was damaged. Kith lawyers are holding off on revealing that the Necupole stole Thalatte and Zymeth secrets at the moment, because this might just end up being enough to make it so that the Thalatte get so caught up in costly litigation with the Necupole that they won't be able to afford to keep their anti-Kith fleet in operation. Conditions in the core have been giving the Dolabra an expensive amount of damage, to say nothing of all its escort vessels."
"This seems like more excitement than should have passed in a matter of hours." Pryseia rasped, and Rhea nodded to concede that point.
"You've been out for a little over three days. You were just shy of losing a fatal amount of blood. Your heart stopping when it did ended up saving your life in the long run, otherwise it might have jettisoned too much out of you for me to bring you back and keep you here. Your larynx and hyoid bone were both crushed, and that assassin's claws punctured your arteries and trachea. Your stomach and lungs were the only places your blood could go, and with the way you were trying desperately to breath, into your lungs it went. I kept you under to allow all that a chance to heal, and to avoid any situations that could spike your blood pressure enough to rupture your mended arteries. That and to make sure you didn't suffer any brain damage, your brain being momentarily deprived and all. I swapped your prostheses out too."
Lifting her left arm, Pryseia saw that it was indeed the robust black and blue model she preferred, an information HUD momentarily flickering to life in her vision with a thought.
"Saved me from having to sit by and watch you suffer through the process while awake again." Rhea told her with a wry smile.
"Have you slept since this happened?" Pryseia asked, though she knew the answer already.
"I said I'd take care of the fallout, didn't I?" Rhea replied, answering the question by dodging it, "Erkanschlde paid us the money agreed upon in our contract, the first place prize fund, and another lump sum as restitutions for what happened to you. Between that and all the shit we stole from the Dariyaschlde Institute, we really made out like bandits with this one. Woulda been a perfect mission if those Necupole guards had actually done their job and guarded the activity centre."
"What can you expect of the Enlightened?" Pryseia joked, and that got a wet laugh out of Rhea.
Pryseia reached out a hand across the space between herself and Rhea, the other woman taking it in both of her own. Relief settled across the both of them like a welcome blanket after a terrifying storm.
"I take it we are no longer within Necupole space?" Pryseia asked after a few moments of comfortable silence.
"Tucked away in subspace, as far from Thalatte territory as Nevara could bring us in that amount of time," Rhea said, "Malakh and Vi have been upgrading things, and Elytra's been working in more stuff to the tournament video. She didn't want to release it before you'd had a chance to see it. This is actually the first time V'tala hasn't been in the medbay. I had to pick her up and haul her to her room to get her to go to bed. She'll be pissed she missed you waking up."
Swallowing thickly, Pryseia said, "I owe her my life. I owe the both of you."
"As if," Rhea snorted, though her bravado was spoiled by the tears she couldn't stop, "The amount of dangerous shit we've been through? That we keep getting into? If we start trying to keep tabs on who owes who what, we're going to have to hire a financial AI just to keep track of it all. You don't owe us anything other than what you're already giving us, you fucking idiot."
The laugh that dragged out of Pryseia was painful, but she couldn't regret it.
Squeezing her hand, Rhea stood after a moment, saying, "Now that you're conscious, I wanna give you a once over, make sure all the repairs have stuck."
The check up didn't take long, scanners taking care of the bulk of it, readings showing that there were no complications from the reconstructive procedures Rhea had to rush through in order to keep Pryseia in the land of the living, the more thorough repairs she completed once Pryseia was back aboard the Pelekys smoothing out whatever rough patches the triage hadn't been able to catch. The cognitive test she ran her through didn't pick up any abnormalities that could point to brain damage, and the both of them let out a sigh of relief so identical at those results that they both dissolved into laughter. Her touch feather light, Rhea had then carefully examined Pryseia's throat, finding that the residual pain from the injury and repair were no worse than the after effects of a coughing fit, the medicated syrup Rhea had her drink soothing the worst of it.
Sitting on the edge of the bed she'd awoken on, Pryseia asked, "So, what is your prognosis?" Her voice sounded steadier, stronger than it had when she'd first spoken not that long ago.
"I don't want you exerting yourself for the next day or so, but your wounds aren't at risk of bursting open, regardless. The pain in your throat will probably clear up by tomorrow, and there were no other complications caused by this assassination attempt. You might find yourself a little more prone to headaches for a bit, but that will pass once your body finishes replacing the emergency fluid we got in your veins with your actual blood. I'm not going to give you a clean bill of health just yet, but you're fit enough to return to duty, so long as you take it easy for a couple days. You should get some proper sleep now, and you can do that in your own room, if you want." Rhea said from where she was leaning against the bed beside her.
Pryseia breathed out a laugh through her nose, shooting Rhea a questioning look as she asked, "Do you actually want me to retire to my room for the night, or would you prefer to have me remain here for observation?"
"Here, obviously, but I know you'll want to get things back to normal sooner than later." Rhea replied, giving her a knowing smile.
Pryseia returned it, and then promptly swung her legs back up onto the bed, settling against the pillow as she said, "In light of recent events, I believe a small step away from the sacrificial altar would be to the benefit of us both."
Caught off guard by this, Rhea's laugh was half sob as she turned around to face Pryseia, the other woman lying heavily against the bed enough for Rhea to tell that she wouldn't be awake for much longer.
Bending down to place a lingering kiss against Pryseia's forehead, Rhea whispered, "Gotta start somewhere. Pleasant dreams."
"And may your own slumber be restful." Pryseia said, reaching out to squeeze Rhea's hand one last time before the other woman left the medbay, a relief rippling through the ship as all points on the tether between those aboard fell into a peaceful sleep.