Heart of the Cards

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Chapter Ten: ". Then How Come You're On the Floor?"

(Will's P.O.V.)

I groaned.

And blinked.

And blinked again.

What the hell TIME was it?!

And for that matter, what day...?

I sat up with much effort, trying to ignore the fantastic display of colors that exploded in front of my vision. I could barely remember when I'd fallen asleep, why, or how come my chest hurt so much....

Oh.

Oh yeah. That.

I shook my head out, memories flooding back through a hazy curtain. Being led down to the training room, seeing Gaia and Doma battle, my own Duel with Ebon... it was coming together a bit more clearly.

Sitting up, I took a chance to lift the bandages wrapped in a constricting way that reminded me threateningly of snakes winding their way up my torso. Peeling back the top layer, I held my breath a little only to see...

More bandages. I lifted those.

More of them. I groaned and gave up, wondering why I had had that disgusting curiosity anyway. Come to think of it, where had Ivy gotten those from, anyway? I had no doubt that Ivy had down the medical clean-up. She was the only one among us that had any experience in this type of thing, and her hyper-super-freakishly high levels of maternal instinct explained why I'd most likely still be working on removing these two years from now.

I got up, testing my energy. I regretted it almost at once.

Staggering backward and lifting a rough claw to my face until I hit the far wall, I allowed myself to slide down it to the floor. That was more trouble than it was worth.

"Will...?"

"Unngh...?" I asked intelligently. Cracking open my right eye, which hurt a little less than the left, I was greeted by a blurry brown, green and blond figure.

Blaine.

"Hey..."

"Hi Will. Are you... feeling okay?"

"Yup." I lied. No need to worry Blaine, even though I had the type of shooting pain in my joints that signified that I probably should be clinically dead. He was only twelve, as I constantly had to remind myself. No need to stress him out...

"... Then how come you're on the floor...?"

I winced. I'd walked right into that one. "Um..."

"Blaine? ... Oh! Sleeping beauty is awake!" another voice and presence entered the room, and I quickly identified it as Ivy. Her face came into focus as she traveled the room and knelt down, smiling. "How are you feeling?"

I knew it was a natural thing to ask, but I was starting to get irritated. "I'm fine." I said, perhaps a bit too curtly.

"Oh. I see..." She said, frowning slightly, and pulling me up to my feet with considerable force. I was more than shocked. It must be the Blue-Eyes genes, Ivy would not be able to lift me up normally.

"Where's...?"

"Ebon? Oh, he's out talking to Casey, his cousin..." Ivy paused and looked at the ceiling, thinking. "Coincidental, huh?"

I frowned. The coincidence didn't bug me; I wouldn't be surprised if I encountered my grandparents in here, honestly. But there was something... off, I suppose, about the way that Ivy was talking, something that suggested that something was indeed, very wrong. She was just not telling me.

"Ivy."

"Hmmm?"

Silence. I think she knew my tone, so I waited.

Nothing. Ivy busied herself with straightening the already straight bed sheets.

I sighed, giving up and plopping down hard on what I could only assume was Blaine's bed, since it was kept immaculate. That was one thing I could always count on Blaine for; keeping the house clean. While I admittedly was a slob and a half, Blaine was practically obsessive-compulsive about his dire need to keep things in order.

My ribs each chorused out a bitching cry of pain as I took in too deep of a breath and explosively exhaled it, regretting my need to yawn. I earned myself a concerned look from Ivy, and closed my eyes to block her out. Sure, I should be more grateful, but... I really wished I could just take care of this myself and quit worrying everyone.

Getting up again a little sooner than I should have wasn't fun. Swooning and pitching slightly, I made my way to the door in spite of the fact that my vision had gone dark, and groped for the doorknob, leaning my weight on it as support.

About a second before it opened of it's own will.

"HOLY-" Tipping forward, I bumped into the person entering the room. Well... okay, so it was a little more than a bump. We both careened off in different directions, I scaling off of the wall. And then, a strange thing happened.

As I made contact with the wall, one knee smashing into it and my palms connecting to the floor, bracing myself for the pain of the full-bodied impact that was sure to follow, two new appendages: two that I hadn't really given any thought to before, spread out behind me instinctively and gave the wall a sharp tap. The world spun upside-down as I spun away from the wall. I let loose a whoop (for whatever reason), as I looped back down as agile as an alien gymnast and FWOOSH! Red and black wings spread and supporting me, hands and knees facing the ground, I touched down and promptly collapsed.

It happened in maybe two seconds. But as soon as the exhilaration left, the pain kicked in.

"Oh, jeez Will, sorry..." said Ebon, who had been the person I smashed into hurriedly, as I groaned and rolled over.

"I'm f-fine... clenching my eyes shut, I really wanted to say "Hey! Hey, dude, did you fucking SEE THAT?!! That was fucking crazy awesome cool!" But two things were stopping me: 1) I couldn't pry my teeth open as they were clenched to stop me from shouting, and 2) I would die before I spoke the word "dude"

Ebon, thankfully, let me get up on my own, and smiling sheepishly said "Didn't see you..."

"... 'Course not..." I grunted, starting to recover my speech centers a bit. "You were on the other side of a door..." I shook my head out and suddenly said "Hey Ebon, did you see me?"

Ebon's expression flashed to worry. "Will. are you feeling okay? I just said I didn't..."

I blinked, then laughed. "No no, not like that, I meant just now! I was flying, I swear to God, I was here-" I shifted my position to the threshold of the door. "And then I hit you-" I made the motion of being ricochet off of something and careening at the wall "And THEN, when I got here, my wings kind of... smacked the wall and I went way up there and around like that and then I was hovering here for a sec, and then I feel down back over here!" I said, and sucked air in after my continuous sentence. "It was... weird. Well, okay, so it wasn't REALLY flying, but you get the point!"

Ebon was looking at me blankly, eyebrows raised. "Flying."

"Yes, FLYING."

A blink. "Okay... that's bizarre." An expression I knew too well grasped his features, and I almost screamed at what I'd done. "But it doesn't make SENSE, how does that WORK, your wings, I mean... they're only about three- quarters size of your body each, and unless your bone structure changed-" blah blah blah.

Ebon walked around and around me, pulling a wing out here, poking another there, examining them and talking all the damned time. My eyes rolled into my head as aerodynamics, contrasts to the bone structures of birds, my body weight, and a whole load of other stuff was thrown at me, seeming more overwhelming as his voice kept travelling round and round and round, giving the lecture a surround-sound stereo quality.

"Ebon. No offense," I started in a hazy tone. "But SHUT UP." My eyes snapped open and a tic started under my eye as I glared at him, his new spot one just under the left wing, staring at the place where it melded into the skin.

There was a short pause, and just as I was anticipating a snappy comeback, cold remark or indifferent shrug, he laughed. "You're right, sorry. Just interesting."

I gaped. "Who are you, and what have you done with the real Ebon!!?"

He smiled wryly. "Gimme a break."

In the silence that followed, I became increasingly aware of my hands and feet. Well, at least I couldn't say I was imagining that they felt overlarge and clunky; the transition from human to human-red eyes freak had left them with four clunky claws in place of fingers, and three razor-edged talons instead of feet. They WERE roughly four times their normal size.

"Will, I just want to say... I... I'm really sorry, you know... abou--"

I cut him off. "Ebon, drop it. I can't think of anything that was less your fault than what happened yesterday. Look..." I paused, rubbing my temple, which was awkward with my claw, but a force of habit. "Don't go all awkward on me, okay? Everything's fine, no one got hurt-" the look on his face made me correct myself "-seriously." he tried the look again but I went on. "And we know who's fault this really is. So just forget it, okay?"

I wanted to say more. Strange things I never thought I'd be the type to say, things about how he couldn't be going all soft and worrisome in this place, things about how affection for others meant death for yourself, things about being ruthless, cunning, strong and unable to feel emotions at all. Strange things that made me a little nervous, a little worried.

And what was ironic in all this, was that normally Ebon WASN'T soft, WASN'T affectionate, WAS ruthless and cunning, at least in duels, and as far as I could tell, the normal Ebon, the past Ebon that I knew had the same emotional capacity as a rock. That was another thing that tweaked me. If Ebon started changing, starting loosing the durability that made him a tough-ass duel opponent, things would get hard, fast.

But I didn't say all these things, because Ebon smirked and said "alright, but you know, you NEVER have to worry about ME going mushy." Crossing his arms again in the stance he always had, he continued "I agree that we need to kick some serious ass. What you say to a walk down the hall? Casey told me yesterday that this place has fucking showers. Can you believe it?"

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