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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1890241" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 81: Pain and FamilySomething was wrong. In the silence that Landau had created in the comm building, he’d still been able to hear Light making pained noises. But it stopped. Suddenly. At first, he hadn’t even realized it was gone. But the second his mind caught up with the complete silence, he turned and ran back down towards the first room. The door opened and he had his blaster pistol raised to fire at anyone who’d approached. But no. No one else...just Light and the body of the Narani.    Landau looked from the dead Narani back to Light. She was sitting in the chair, head tilted over the back in an awkward position and arms limp at her sides. She was moving. Not shifting violently or holding her leg from pain. Her chest wasn’t even rising and falling from breathing. Dead?! Quickly, Landau holstered his blaster and moved over to the Alraxian. The wound on her leg was still seeping oddly colored blood(well, odd to a human. Alraxians would find red blood just as odd). He moved her from the chair onto the desk, laying Light on her back and trying to figure out what to do. Her eyes were closed. No signs of life. Still bleeding. Wait. Maybe. On instinct, he rested his ear over where a heart would be in a human. There was a sound. No. There were two sounds. Beating. A heartbeat. Still alive. Two heartbeats.    So Alraxians had two hearts. Interesting. But that didn’t help right now. For all he knew, she was dead and her hearts didn’t know it yet. But how had she died?! She hadn’t lost enough blood for it to have killed her. There were no other wounds. Nothing. There was no one else there. Her hearts were still beating but she wasn’t breathing. Or was she? Did Alraxians even need to breathe? Landau allowed himself an exhausted sigh. He was working himself up with too many unknowns. Though he was no doctor, one picked up a few things while working in the service of any military. He moved over and looked her face over just in case. No bruises or marks. Not even a mark from where one of the Narani’s guns had cuffed her jaw.    And then she made a noise. Landau nearly jumped out of his skin and clung to the ceiling at the sudden intake of breath. Light’s back arched slightly before falling limp again, but she was breathing now. Doing his best to slow his own breathing(and heart), Landau stood back slightly. So it seems like he couldn’t do anything. But she was alive. Or maybe she just had some very odd nerve spasms. But no, that had been breathing. Was breathing. Still was breathing. And heartbeat. And...no, nothing else. Dead otherwise.    As he wondered what he should do, Light’s eyes opened slowly. She had a strange expression on her face as she took in her surroundings, seemingly taking no notice of the still bleeding wound in her leg. Of the metal still there. Of her body trying to remorph the wound...which would kill her much more painfully than the enduring of the shot. Her eyes found Landau. Forcing her voice out, she said, “Get the metal out of my leg. Please.”    Landau stared at her blankly for a moment. Something in her eyes was off. A glazed look. Almost like she wasn’t completely paying attention to him at the moment. He moved to her leg anyway, looking at the small hole and not really sure what to do. Get the metal out? When he’d picked up a knife from the Narani, Light had twitched out of the way. Metal. No metal. Then how to get that out?    “Shoot it,” Light said quietly, not sounding like herself and having to force the words out, “Burn the skin and pull the metal out.”    How could she ask anyone to do that? Oh, shoot me to save me. Really sounded wise. But then again, what other option was there? Against all reason, Landau drew his blaster pistol again. He closed his eyes after placing the blaster barrel against the wound. The scream of pain from Light easily drowned out the echo of the blaster shot. Somehow, all she did was wrench to the side and claw at the table. As she did this, Landau opened his eyes to look at the wound. Black. All black...somewhat burnt in now, and he could see part of the metal bullet. But still couldn’t reach it. When he placed the blaster barrel to her leg again, Light stopped her moving. Again, her scream of pain silenced any other noise at the shot. But this time, her scream had been muffled by biting her open lip open. Despite all effort otherwise, tears streamed down her face and she forced herself not to remorph the agony in her leg. Landau looked again. Still no good. One more. After that, he wasn’t going to be able to stomach another shot. The smell of burnt flesh was already nauseating enough.    The third shot recieved no noise from Light. It was the most unnerving of all to simply hear the blaster shot, but she wrenched even more against the claws in the table this time. Landau tried not to look at her face, and tossed his blaster pistol into the chair. Looking at the now large open and scorched wound, he found the metal bullet. Forcing his own eyes to stay open, he reached into the mess of black scorched flesh and blue blood to pull out the bullet. Somehow, he managed it, and the second it was out, he watched an equally disturbing scene. Light’s leg reformed in front of his eyes. While he knew that this was possible, seeing it in such horrid detail was even more sickening.    For a short moment afterwards, there was silence. Then, against anything that would normally be heard from Shadow, Light cried. Her body shook as she wept from the intense pain now only a horrible memory. But so vivid. Alraxians were too weak to endure such pain for so long. If not for Shadow’s history, Light would have remorphed the leg and watched her body become consumed with the metal as it killed her slowly. But she’d lived. Somehow. It was the first time Shadow, in any form, had ever wept. But it was warranted, and though Light could be seen as weak, Landau knew that it took immense strength to endure all of that pain. As she continued to weep, her body shook and she curled up on herself slightly.    Landau sighed and sat in the chair next to her on the table. Carefully, he reached over and rested an arm on her shoulder. It wasn’t much, but it was all he could think to do. Older than he was, but she was child. A child alone in the galaxy that had just undergone an impossibly traumatic experience. When she curled up a little more and seemed to calm slightly though still crying quietly, Landau found himself suddenly wondering why he’d never had children. There had been chances...yet...he’d never thought of it. Not until he sat there in the exact center of a vicious battle comforting a non-human child. These wars shouldn’t be fought by such children. It wasn’t fair to them. The soldiers should all be experienced men. They shouldn’t be old enough to be Landau’s children. He shouldn’t have had to always feel like he was losing a child.    Through her sobbing, Light managed to speak quietly, “Akan. We have to get him. Have to go back.”    Landau couldn’t help a smile. So she wasn’t all that alone. Children needed family. Everyone needed family. Perhaps his worry for her lack of family was misplaced. As she sat up and composed herself, wiping the tears from her face and trying to look like nothing had ever happened, Landau was glad that she had someone to relate to. Despite the age difference between herself and Akan...they were the same now. Something Landau couldn’t do. He could only ever be a father for her, never even a friend. But he didn’t mind. And standing up to help her to her feet, Landau felt pride at the knowledge that Light had more strength than she liked to show.</blockquote>

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