Ten Thousand Fleets Chapter 20: 20. Iceni

Read chapter 20 of Ten Thousand Fleets by DavidNiemitz on NovelPedia.

20. Iceni Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum September, 2847 When Arc first woke from the surgery, he didn’t yet feel pain. That came later. Instead, he felt fuzzy, disconnected, as if he was somehow two steps to the left of his body. They put him in a recovery room, where he lay with his bandaged head against a pillow, waiting for the anesthesia to get out of his system. In those first hours, he drifted in and out of consciousness, and eventually he woke from sleep to find that the second bed in the room was occupied by another cadet. It wasn’t until he saw the spray of acne across the other boy’s face that Arc realized he’d been half-expecting they would put him and Cassie in the same room. It was stupid—the academy didn’t use co-ed dorm rooms, it wouldn’t put men and women in the same hospital room—and it certainly wasn’t the other cadet’s fault that he wasn’t Cassie. Still, they’d been sorted together so often, because of how close their last names were, that he’d come to expect it. Jimmy Tierney was almost unrecognizable without his frizzy hair; it was only once Arc heard the other cadet speak for the first time that the sound of his voice brought back the memory of how Doctor Vogel had lectured them on why she wanted all the cadets to take their own notes. Once he did start talking, all Arc wanted was for his temporary roommate to shut up. Even with the painkillers, his head was throbbing, and any sound just made the pain worse. The corpsmen had them taking short walks up and down the corridors of the infirmary starting on the second day. Aside from a few brief flashes of vertigo at the beginning, Arc was surprised at how good it felt to move around. Better yet, though he had to put up with a corpsman hovering at his heels like an overprotective parent, it let him get away from the room, and away from Tierney. Arc found Cassie and Vee sitting in a small waiting room, and he threw himself down on the first empty chair with enough force that made himself wince. Both of their heads were wrapped in bandages, and the sight of it was jarring—wrong at a fundamental level. Cassie’s eyes seemed even brighter without that black hair falling down to frame her face, and Vee almost looked washed out in the absence of her vibrant, feathered head-crest. “Pika was here until five, ten minutes ago,” Vee said, once Arc was seated. She spoke quietly, slowly, and without any of the energy she’d shown even during the worst of Hard Burn. “He won’t stop nagging them to let him take a shower. Says his skin’s too dry.” Arc laughed, and immediately regretted it. “How are you two feeling?” he asked. “Mostly, I’m having a hard time not touching it,” Cassie admitted. She raised her fingers to her bandage, and brushed it very gently. “I’m kind of terrified to see what it looks like, under all this.” “Beautiful,” Arc said, before he could think better of it. Because it was true—she looked, with those bandages and in the hospital gown, more fragile than he’d ever seen her before. It made him want to protect her, and to comfort her. “You still look beautiful.” Cassie froze, color creeping into her cheeks, and just looked at him—until Vee leaned forward too fast in her chair, and groaned at the pain. “Do me too!” the Torean girl demanded. “Tell me I’m beautiful, not a bald, sick little ghoul. Tell me I’ll still be pretty even if my feathers never come back.” Arc smiled. “Your feathers will come back, Vee,” he assured her. “You’re the one who told me that, remember? Anyway, Beecher Red Crest went through the exact same surgery you did, and he’s got a very nice set of feathers now.” Vee flopped onto her side to face Cassie. “He doesn’t get it,” she said, looking as pathetic as she could manage. “You’re still pretty,” Cassie said, and reached over to wrap her arm around Vee’s shoulders. 𝝮 If there was one good thing about being stuck in the infirmary for days, it was that Arc finally had time to record a message to send home. He’d been so busy, since