damned_institute | Day 41: Breakfast

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Day 41: Breakfast

Endrance turned his head to look at the intercom, giving it a look that would wither an entire rose garden in an instant. He would never get used to ending up in his room again from somewhere else in the Institute.

He brushed his bangs out of his eyes, not sitting up just yet. He could tell already that his torso had been heavily bandaged, even more so than it had been the night before. The cuts on his arms were covered with fresh bandages, and the one on his cheek seemed to no longer be there at all.

Endrance had been expecting to wake up in a lot of pain, but even that seemed numbed. "They must have given me something," he murmured quietly, as he slowly sat up.

At that moment, his nurse came to get him, pushing a wheelchair along with her. "Peyton, dear, good morning. I've come to take you to breakfast, so..." He shook his head. "I'm fine. There's no need for that...I can walk perfectly well."

She sighed. Well, if he insisted, she wasn't going to stop him. She motioned for an orderly to take the chair away, and walked him to the cafeteria. Once they had gotten there, she pointed him toward a seat, then set a full tray of pancakes covered with syrup, a bowl of fruit, and a glass of orange juice in front of him. "Now eat all of that, Peyton, or else you won't be strong enough to keep walking like that."

He glared at her back as she walked away, then stopped suddenly. There was that faint pulse he'd felt the night before...it was exactly the same.

And so he completely ignored his food in favor of staring at the cafeteria doors, looking at every patient that came in.

[thread will be closed to Haseo. ♥]

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Keman snorted. "You had better not, or else I can and will murder you for it," he replied sweetly. Valyn's 'habit' had gotten him killed back home, when he'd gone to confront his father without telling anyone. Or very nearly killed. Keman had been half-convinced that the idiot had gone and done the exact same thing before seeing him this morning.

He never wanted to lose a friend that way again.

"I don't have any. What do you have in mind?"

"Then I suppose I'll have to be extra careful - I've grown rather tired of murder attempts." Valyn did smile, but it was an Elven smile. He was joking, in his own way, but there was a bitterness underneath.

"As for tonight, I don't have anything specific in mind, but...have you been outside the walls yet?"

"Outside the walls?" Keman didn't realize it, of course, but the odd little half smile he gave Valyn looked exactly one of Shana's. So did the glint in his eyes. "No, I haven't been. I'd like to go, though." Maybe the further away from the Institute they went, the weaker its hold on their powers got? It seemed far too good to be true, of course, but maybe...

"We've got to get past the virgin-eating birds, though. Or, well, I've got to get past them. You're pretty well taken care of, aren't you?"

Valyn blinked, and then nodded.

"Ah, that is what they...target?" That was going to be a problem. "Heh, yes, I suppose that's nothing I have to worry about." He had the decency to flush, at least. "They're difficult to fight. We may have some trouble getting past them, in that case. But if there's a chance to get beyond the powers of this place...."

He shrugged. It was worth the risk. If the power of this place worked at all like the magic he was used to, it couldn't cover the entire world! If they ran far and fast enough...

"Between the two of us, I think we can get away from them."

Keman shrugged. "That's what they say on the bulletin board. There's a person named, ah, Le...something or other who keeps trying to gather information on the various creatures that roam the halls at night. Those birds are on that list, and everyone says that they target virgins. I don't know if it's true or not, but that's what they all seem to agree on. It makes sense, I suppose. As much sense as anything here ever makes." Which wasn't very much. None at all, actually.

"If there's a chance to get beyond the powers of this place, we need to take it," he said firmly. "If I can shift back to my natural form, I'll be able to come back here and help other patients escape too. And with your abilities, you can probably tear this place apart from its foundations up..."

The boy paused, biting his lip. "Probably. The last time I was out in that area at night was when we were all escaping from the buses...I don't remember very much after the nurse attacked me, but I seem to remember one of the birds..."

"I wouldn't find anything strange about that sort of thing here," Valyn agreed, nodding.

"I wasn't bothered by them, but I saw the damage they could do." He pushed his food around his plate, thinking. "They have the advantage being airborne - something I suppose I don't have to tell you. And they're large. I wonder if I'd be able to shield us magically long enough to make it over the wall..."

He did have that ring, after all. Maybe tonight would be the night to use it.

"Or I suppose we could always just make sure you aren't appetizing to them before we head out," he teased, jabbing his fork almost playfully in Keman's direction.

"It could be good if you shielded, but it could also be an unnecessary waste of power," Keman reminded Valyn, gesturing with his fork. "It's not like we'll be home free once we get over that wall. The descriptions of the monsters in the woods beyond the Institute that other patients have recorded have been pretty detailed." Except for the one that a patient vaguely dubbed the 'scary-ass bear.' That...hadn't been so detailed. "It sounds just as dangerous as the forest bordering Cheynar's land. Even more so, probably. We'll need every bit of magic we can spare.

"There's supposed to be the ruins of a town a ways off from the walls. It isn't Doyleton...it's another place entirely. Maybe we should head there first?"

He knew Valyn was teasing about the birds, of course, but that didn't stop the young dragon from blushing a little. "That's quite all right, thanks. And besides, Shadow already tried that last week, and it didn't work very well. For him." Fire and rain, what would've happened if Shana hadn't walked in on them when she did? That one thought made Keman blush even harder.

"Either way, I'm going to use up my magic," Valyn pointed out, logically. "And I can shield us while you can't. Besides which, I have a very effective dagger." Logically speaking, it would be best for him to do what he could defensively with his magic before they were forced to fight. At least in his mind.

And then he blinked, a look of shock coming over his features at what Keman had just said.

"What?" he sputtered, wrapping his mind around the idea of Shadow attempting to seduce Keman. He couldn't even fathom why his cousin would. Not why his cousin would sleep with someone else, but why Keman. "Ancestors! What on earth happened to bring that on?"

Keman took a bite of his breakfast while he tried to decide how to answer Valyn. Logically, he was right--neither of them had very much magic and it was going to be used up anyway, so why not have Valyn use it in a way that Keman couldn't? But... "You're still a lot more powerful than I am, Valyn. Even as limited as we both are. The shield should be an absolute last resort."

The dragon ducked his head. What had he gotten himself into? Valyn's expression was just making his embarrassment worse, if that was possible. "Ah...the night he broke his conditioning. I was alone in the room with him when it happened...and he was so, er, relieved that he...kissed me. But then he started doing a lot more than just kissing..."

"Shadow rarely stops at 'just' kissing," Valyn said dryly. "Maybe it's some sort of halfblood predilection, I don't know. Shana's done the same to me a few times." And was nearly as persistent and persuasive as Shadow was.

"He's easy enough to dissuade. Or...I at least hope he was." Valyn did idly wonder why no one had mentioned this little indecent to him beforehand. Had Shadow been worried about Valyn growing jealous or some other thing? Well, perhaps before he would have been, but now...

Shadow was a grown man, and could kiss whomever he wanted. Even if it happened to be Keman.

"Sh-Shana walked in on us," Keman admitted, still not looking Valyn in the eye. "I...uh...tried to get him off me, but it really wasn't until Shana came that he actually did." And then Shadow had walked over to share some of the kissing affection with Shana, leaving Keman to think about all manner of ways to end his own existence.

Kind of like he wanted to now.

"...But let's talk about something else, all right? I...uh...yeah."

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Day 41: Breakfast

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