Welcome to Gaia! ::

Uncomfortable silence filled the evening air as Tanzanite passed under the orange glow of streetlights, casting double shadows down the empty streets. Her arms cradled Linarite like a child, supporting her slender frame with strength beyond what her own thin body seemed capable of possessing. For a long time they walked, for an hour it seemed, with Tanzanite looking straight forward and Linarite's head resting against her shoulder. They walked until Tanzanite was ascending the stairs to her own apartment and shouldering open the door, careful not to bump Linarite's leg. It was swollen now, a worrisome shadee of purple blossoming at the surface near the broken bone.

Gently, Tanzanite set the bluenette upon the mattress on the floor that served as her bed, careless of the blood that oozed out onto the white sheets. Her expression was a complicated one, anger and worry and a hint of fear all found in the set of her brow and the curve of her lips. Jaw was clenched, lips pursed as she pulled out gauze and peroxide and a half dozen other things that she knew she would need from months of bandaging her own wounds. She remained silent right up until she was gripping Linarite's ankle with one hand and just below her knee with the other.

“You're so ******** stupid.”

Lina's eyes widened with shock, and in that brief moment there was a sharp crack and a horrible grinding as Tanzanite set the bone. It was followed by the worst scream Tanzanite had ever heard.

- - -

Morning came slowly, with nothing to be done for Linarite's pain but a handful of Vicodin and a glass of tap water. The dawn came through a haze of pain killers and the dawning realization of where she was. Linarite's leg was splinted and wrapped, but even someone who got her a** kicked as much as Tanzanite wouldn't be able to fit it in a proper cast. Eventually, she would have to take her to the hospital. However, three AM and aNegaverse uniform brought questions that Charonite would not appreciate, and Tanzanite hadn't just saved Lina just to see her beaten for failure.

“You called me stupid,” Audrey groaned and rolled her brown eyes to the corner where her friend sat against the wall in a pair of sweat pants and an old t-shirt two sizes too big.

“You are stupid,” Aree responded dryly.

“Am not.”

“You fell off a building.”

“I was thrown off a building.”

“By Castor.”

“And?”

“Castor,” was all Aree said, and Linarite was out again.

- - -

Getting into the hospital the next morning was easy enough. A little bit of panic and a rise to her voice and they believed the mugging story easily enough. Aree blamed the terrorist group and explained how she thought setting the leg might help her friend because their parents would have killed them if they knew they were out so late. They passed her off as another stupid girl who relied too much on Google and too little on doctors and explained Audrey away as yet another piece of collateral damage in the war between the terrorists with bows and the terrorists with really stupid weapons.

There were so many pieces of collateral damage, most of them in the morgue.

They called their parents anyways

“You called me stupid,” Audrey repeated as she awoke, her leg now encased in a cast such a familiar shade of orange that it looked as though it had been specially ordered to match Ursula's hair.

“You are stupid,” Aree repeated just as dryly as before. Her eyes didn't leave the muted episode of Danny Phantom on the small television, even when Audrey pushed herself up into a sitting position.

“Am n-”

“Don't ever do that again,” Aree interrupted, and suddenly she was staring at Audrey with a narrowed, angry gaze, “You could have died, Audrey. You would have died. If Castor had-” She paused, rethought her words, and continued, “Castor would have killed you.”