[open] Gut feeling

[Katharina Brightrim]

The first arrow she received, she barely even noticed. The berserker potion still kept her system going and the limbs moving. And all things considered, it was just a scratch at her right leg. Barely pierced the armor.

The second arrow, however, was a whole different story. She was just about to pull the string of her bow back, aiming at Jefferson, as his arrow connected with her first. It took her brain a moment to process the information and to tell her body that it wasn't working properly anymore. The metal of her torched and scraped armor wasn't able to withstand the arrow from this distance and as she looked down at herself, there was the flight of it sticking out of her stomach. She stumbled and a distant part of her was thankful that the other arrows and spells aimed at her, missed. A closer, louder part of her her yelled at her, though. One step in front of the other. There's a good girl. Over the bridge now. Good, good good. Now, forming a word. That was a little difficult, she admitted that to herself. "Amelia?", she heard her mouth saying and was proud at it. Good job, vocal organs! The berserker potion wore off slowly and the pain flushed through her veins and reached the part of her brain that was responsible for processing these information, causing an extra shift for its cells.

What then came was foggy. She opened her eyes in the hospital, laying on the operation table. She did not really understand what was going on around her, the only thing she knew was that she ached. Badly. A blinding pain flooded through her body and it was impossible for her to find the source of it first. Katharina had no memory about how she had ended up in the hospital in this moment and she did not really care, when Inara held her shoulders and Amelia removed the arrow, turning her brain off for another brief moment. As she woke up again, she stared through tear-veiled eyes towards the ceiling. Her body shook from the Adrenalin and it felt curiously numb. Her lips were smeared with a paste and as she tried to remove it with her tongue, her mouth became dry and the tip of her tongue went numb as well. A funny sensation. Amelia and Inara said things that she did not really listen to and worked on fixing the open wound in her stomach, that she could not feel anymore. She felt isolated from the outer world, even from her own body. Whatever they had given her, it clouded her mind and put it to a peaceful place, far away from the terrors she had witnessed at the gates. Far away from the worries about all the people out there and her own wound that came up occasionally. Far away from everyth- Amanda. Where was she? Was she alright? She heard her own voice inquiring about her. She sounded weak. She wished that voice would have shut up. Absent-minded, she licked at the funny paste again, as she listend to the reply. She hasn't been out there in the fight. Good. Good. She was relieved and her mind drifted off again.

The next thing she remembered was the softness of a mattress beneath her back. Her body was still numb, but her stomach felt hard, uncomfortable. People stood around her, but her eyes would not focus on the faces. She felt drunken, which was weird, since she didn't remember drinking. She babbled some words and giggled, still drugged from the strong painkiller-brew and the weird paste. Oxiana and Reyor were there and both looked quite beaten as well. She also recognized Amelia and her mind connected that imagine with a former piece of memory, in which she had seen the same face at the same time as the pressure on her stomach decreased. "Thank you", she mumbled. People talked and she could not understand the words, could not understand their meanings. Somewhere in her subconsciousness, a concerned voice rose, promising her more pain and more soreness, once the effect of the brew wore off. She dreaded that moment, wanted to stay in this sweet sweet bubble in which her body didn't ache and in which the gates of Cadomyr weren't under massive attack. But there were faces around her in this bubble. Friends, citizen she was responsible for. And the clearest of them was framed by red hair and looked back at her with blue eyes. "Yeah... Rest now Lady Katharina..", a voice came through to her and she accepted it, pushed her concerns into a far corner to worry about them later, and dozed off into a dreamless sleep...