Some Fall By Virtue

Chapter Twelve: pushing me to see the truth

"Do not fall unconscious until we have Lindion treat you," he warned, worry twisting his expression as the sound of battle resounded from where they had just been, a clash of scale and metal. "I will return shortly. We were fortunate to not drift too far..."

Sakura sat up swiftly at that because she had been injured protecting him, so like hell was she going to allow her good, wonderful soulmate to run off into battle with an enraged member of her kin. Dragons were so terribly dangerous, what with how large they often were compared to men and elves, and truly, all she could picture was her good soulmate lying there dead at her kin's claws. Or fangs. She had to be the one to suffer such a fate instead, because he was everything good just as she was everything evil. Chakra pulsing in her muscles, she climbed to her feet, noting how the world swayed as though she were aboard a ship in a stormy ocean. "Wait," she muttered, voice not carrying as she wished it to, but that golden hair was already what felt like miles ahead of her and Glorfindel did not turn back. She staggered after him almost drunkenly on unsteady feet, legs threatening to bow under the weight of the simple task she was trying to accomplish.

It took what felt like hours to make any sort of progress uphill, and Sakura had swiftly resorted to using her hands and feet to crawl up the incline. Dizziness assailed her about halfway up, and she had the most terrible urge to vomit. Sakura only prayed her soulmate's boots were far, far away as she turned and promptly upchucked the contents of her stomach once more near the roots of a tree. Narrowly avoiding falling in her own vomit, her back hit the ground, breath coming in ragged gasps as pain slammed into her with all the force of a tidal wave, and no amount of chakra could get her aching limbs working again. Her body simply refused to obey her wishes. It wouldn't have been so bad, a voice whispered then like a little devil upon her shoulder, had she been in dragon form. But Sakura refused that form. She wanted to be human. Good. So much unlike the unsightly blight she was upon that world.

Groaning, she closed her eyes – the light above her far too bright – only to be woken moments later by a frantic tapping on her cheek. A grumble escaped her, and she slapped at the offending hand, eyes cracking open just a sliver as she came to realise her sense of time was horribly distorted. Thanks to her slightly rattled brain. And she hadn't even been able to injure the pesky number of her kin who had done such a thing to her – she, a dragon of the First Age before their might had lessened. The rest of her injuries hardly helped, and she had the barest moment of lucidity as she peered up to find Glorfindel and Lindion leaning over her. Dimly, she wondered why they would want to help a monster such as her. Part of her was rather incredibly grateful for the fact she couldn't manage more than a few words at a time – her sentences a mess of one words. It meant she could hardly get anything too important or too revealing across, what with her brain to mouth filter being completely and utterly obliterated.

They spoke above her in hushed voices, a frown marring her brow as she tried to figure out there words, but all there was to hear were muted sounds and a faint ringing in her ears which was only growing louder as the minutes ticked by. Leaves swayed above her, acrid green eyes following their motions blankly, even as they began to slowly blur out of focus.

Then Lindion's beautiful, unearthly voice washed over her like an ocean upon the shore, splashing through the silence and dimness which had swallowed her so completely, and she fell under the waves of sweet, sweet sleep calling to her so. Despite the genuine slapping being done to her cheek in an effort to regain her attention, that was. Sakura only wished she had enough breath left in her to tell him that ship, with her attention on it, had well and truly sailed from the harbour.

It probably wouldn't matter too much if she didn't wake up anyway. One less terrible monster roaming the earth, and then perhaps her soulmate would be free of her and her evils.