Day 69: Courtyard

[his_legacy]

Link was feeling overall good as he was escorted outside after breakfast. The food had been good, and the weather was nice. It wasn't so cold anymore, but still comfortable. He much preferred coming outside to being cooped up in that stuffy, dull building. The Hylian was trying to remain positive. They had the cure now, did they not? People were getting better.

The death toll was impossible to ignore, though.

He sighed, hands in his pockets as he shuffled through the grass and settled himself on the lawn. This was nice. At least, it was as nice as things could get around here. Link's mind drifted back home, back to Ordon and Hyrule and Midna and Zelda. Everything was okay there, now. And he couldn't even see it for himself.

[Free!]

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[a_sin_for_him]

"And that was all?"

She let whatever he had begun to say slip. She wasn't angry with him, only tired and worn after the assault of emotions she'd suffered through in the last twenty four hours. And she drew back her hand when she felt him stiffen, letting it drop into her lap.

"You were...gone a whole day."

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar nodded, finally shifting to make himself more comfortable (less uncomfortable?) when she pulled her hand away. There wasn't anything else to it, unless she needed to know every little detail of how he had died.

Highly unlikely.

"I know." He had died at night and woken again at night. Of course he had been gone a whole day. She was pointing out the obvious. But the words didn't have the bite to them they normally would have. Maybe he was just too tired to be angry. Not physically, but something else.

[a_sin_for_him]

"I'm sorry."

Lust looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. It still startled her sometimes, to see them. Perfectly normal human hands. But not human, not really. Another cruel trick of this place.

"You don't deserve any of this."

[envy_the_sinners]

With the apology, Scar finally looked sideways at her, a touch of perplexity blending with his usual scowl. Sympathy. That was what it was. He should be used to it coming from her, by now. But it would always catch him off guard.

"Yes, I do, if anybody here does." He would rather these pointless games be played on himself rather than watch it happen to another. "If it has to happen to someone..." He braced himself for the inevitable objections.

[a_sin_for_him]

"No." Lust shook her head. "I'm too tired to have this argument, we aren't even going to start it." And if he persisted, or complained that he wasn't intending to argue, she would ignore him entirely. She couldn't bring herself to argue with him right now.

"You've been up and about? You went to breakfast, I mean?"

She wanted to know if he knew about Edward and Alphonse yet.

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar cut himself off and was quiet for a moment following her question.

"Yes." Another moment of silence. "He looks like his brother." He was certain she would know what he meant. Now he seemed to shrink, the tightness in his throat bothering him further as he once again thought of the injustice of the Elrics showing up here. He was back to watching the ground, his scowl deepening to hide the sadness behind his eyes.

[a_sin_for_him]

A small smile turned up the corners of Lust's lips.

"He's better looking. He grew up well, they both have, really." Though she didn't mean physically, and she figured Scar knew that. "It's a misery they're here, but at least they're together. And Alphonse is whole."

In all the misery and failure that surrounded them in this place, they had to hold on to the small things.

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar was, as usual, far less adept at looking on the bright side of things.

"They shouldn't be here." The pain his voice betrayed what his hardened eyes and grimace could not. "Neither of them. They don't need this." They don't deserve this.

[a_sin_for_him]

"No one deserves it, Scar." She twisted her hands in her lap, staring down at them still. "That doesn't matter and this place doesn't care. And at least if they must be here they have one another. And Alphonse has his body. Doesn't that count for something?"

It did to her.

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar only nodded, his eyes wandering over to her again. Were her words only for his sake, he wondered? Lust had never cared one way or another about the Elrics. Alphonse's impending death had meant nothing to her. He had seen her threaten Edward with Alphonse's life.

She was very different, since she had come here.

He tried to recall what he had wanted to speak with her about, now. His conversation with Edward was a blur, the major points still floating around his head in a disconnected scramble. Frank, the Fuhrer, Sloth, the thing that had attacked them last night... None of which Scar felt he had the will to speak of, right now. It would only dissolve into an argument. And he was so sick of fighting and wandering in foolish circles and getting nowhere. Instead, he mentioned one of the few things he knew she wouldn't mind hearing.

"I think the illness is dissipating." Scar looked down at his wrist, where the rash once was. "I don't feel as sick as I did." Was it dying that did that? Or something else? Either way, she would stop fussing over it now. That much was a relief.

[a_sin_for_him]

"Good. I'm glad."

That was something she was pleased to hear. She'd go again, to find the cure, if she had to, but for god's sake he had died! Wasn't that enough?

"The other cure, the flower, it's not very difficult to find from what I understand. But I'd rather not go searching again." Not that her quest for it had gone at all as planned. Lust still didn't know where that had been, how near or far to the Institute they had been.

[envy_the_sinners]

"Edward mentioned something about the greenhouse. Do you know more?" If Lust had a specific location, Scar wanted to know. It didn't matter that he most likely didn't have anybody he would know to give it to, now. He still wanted to try.

There had been so many announcements of people dying over the past few days. How much of that was due to the disease? If they had the cure, they needed to get it out and around the hospital as quickly as possible.

And this was much more comfortable to speak on.

[a_sin_for_him]

"That's where I was going, with Castiel." Lust leaned back and sighed, remembering the other night.

"But everything was wrong. We went through a hall door and we were in a forest. It was freezing. There were no lights anywhere and we didn't even know if we were near the Institute. We followed a river...Castiel was wounded so we stopped. I went down to the water to clean his bandages and there was a spectre. In the river."

She shook her head.

"All I ever seem to meet in this place are spectres. It had the flower. I went out into the river and it gave it to me. Then I woke up."

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar had no idea who Castiel was, but that detail was hardly relevant, when put next to everything else.

"...You're certain that actually happened?" He knew that this place was strange and impossibly powerful, but for them to cause patients to go through doors and come out in completely different places... "The nurses didn't drug you...?" He'd certainly never heard of that sort of thing happening before, nor had he caught wind of a river.

[a_sin_for_him]

"Yes, I'm certain." Lust didn't bother attempting to explain. Instead she toed off her slippers, the same as she had done to show Edward. They were still swathed in bandages.

"I couldn't walk in the woods in the boots I wear at night so I took them off. I cut my feet."

[envy_the_sinners]

"You shouldn't wear those damn things at night." Scar couldn't resist making the comment. He didn't care if she preferred her old clothing to what the Institute gave them. Hers was completely impractical.

Mostly he was just frustrated that she had gotten herself hurt for no reason. He heaved a short sigh, letting go of the small frustrated bubble.

"Can you walk okay?" he grumbled.

[a_sin_for_him]

"They're mine," Lust said simply. "I'd rather wear what's mine." Though not outdoors. She didn't know how else to explain to him her strange attachment to her impractical clothes.

"And I'm fine. I just cut my feet, they'll heal soon."

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar huffed. "You tell me not to do foolish things and yet you will not do what is practical because-" He cut off abruptly, suddenly alert and looking around the courtyard. Sound had faded as he spoke, and now it was gone completely. He couldn't hear a thing.

"The hell-" The words came louder than they should have, yet he still couldn't hear them. Everything was completely silent. He looked down to Lust, as if questioning what was going on.

[a_sin_for_him]

Lust frowned as Scar shouted, leaning back away from him.

"What in the world's the matter?" He looked so puzzled. One moment he'd been off on one of his silly scoldings and then he looked as though someone had pricked him.

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar snarled in frustration as he tried to figure out what Lust was saying. He looked back out to the rest of the yard, but nobody else seemed to be experiencing something like this. Upon trying to stand up, he wobbled on his feet and needed to sit back down. Eyes still darting frantically around the courtyard, Scar finally found words.

"I can't hear." One shaky hand came up to touch the side of his head.

[a_sin_for_him]

Lust frowned deeply, her hand going out to steady him when he lurched back into his seat. She began to ask him a question then stopped, moving to be sure he could see her mouth moving.

"Did something attack you last night?"

Alphonse had been experiencing strange effects from the phantom that had tried to choke him last night.

[envy_the_sinners]

It took Scar another moment to figure out what she was saying.

"No..." He was consciously keeping his voice down, now, for once thankful for the steadying hand.

"And the thing that killed me got my throat, not..." His eyes were back to darting around the courtyard as he spoke. It was making him nervous, even if there was presumably no danger during the day. It was testament to how much of his guard he never let down.