Down With The Sickness [Soga]

[Anzeh]

Gunner had not looked up many times during the flight from the alleyway in Colleger to the school. Whenever she did she was overcome with another wave of nausea and quickly closed her eyes, burying her face in his feathers again and shutting her eyes tightly, not wanting to throw up again and definitely not in the air or on Soga’s feathers—or body at all for that matter—that would be beyond disgusting. When she felt they were slowing down it seemed they were some sort of descent towards the castle.

For the most part, even once they were not in the air she didn’t really like the idea of opening her eyes until she was in relative warmth compared to the outside, she cracked her eyes open, sliding off his back and swallowing as she took in her surroundings. It looked like a dorm, but it was definitely no dorm she’d ever seen. It wasn’t a high schooler’s dorm, of course, it was the dorm of a college student, one that she’d completely forgotten Shoutoku was.

But it was better than being outside, so even if she wasn’t sure where she was she would be able to deal with it.

Rather suddenly, she began to cough. It started randomly, but she did cover her mouth and nose. Gunner continued coughing for several minutes before it stopped long enough for her to get in a couple gulps of air.

[Oren]

Once Gunner had climbed off his back, Shoutoku went to his dresser and pulled out a shirt and pants. He walked into his bathroom, his wings brushing the door frames and his talons and claws clicking on the tile. Moments after he shut the door, he opened it again, changed into the new clothes.

By that time, Gunner was coughing up a storm. "Hey, are you alright?" he asked as he walked over to her, lightly touching her shoulder. Odds were she didn't mind too much. She had hugged him, after all. Then there was the ride back to the school. She had clung to him as if he was her only ticket to keep living. That whole time he had been extremely appreciative that hawks couldn't show emotion, otherwise he would have been the picture of embarrassment.

When Gunner still didn't stop coughing, he turned her to face him, both hands now on her shoulders. He took a deep breath as the unconcious irritation set it. It began to boil up quickly in him, that immense dislike of people standing in front of him. He wanted to strike out at her, and, if it had been anyone but her, he would have quickly taken a few steps back.

But the matter of the fact was, it was her.

Taking a deep breath to calm his rising aggrivation, he looked at her face, his worry increasing. Had it been the cold? Had flying been a bad idea after all? Whatever had happened, Gunner was coughing extremely bad, and she wasn't getting air. Maybe a gasp here and a gasp there, but nothing substantial. There was even proof.

She was turning pale. And he could only think of one thing he could do.

"Gunner, look at me. You still trust me, right?" he stared into her eyes, trying to convey his worry while not giving away what exactly he was about to do. That wouldn't sit well with her, he knew, but... she needed air... And it wasn't like it was going to sit well with him either. But... he was still going to do it.

[Anzeh]

The unicorn didn't understand why she was coughing. Every now and again while she lay there on the ground curled up, she would cough. So before Soga had even found her she'd been coughing, just not as badly as she was coughing now. Maybe flying had made it worse, but once again, the unicorn didn't understand that.

Even though she shouldn't, she flinched slightly at his touch, though not for the reason that she couldn't take being touched, more because she was surprised, too wrapped up in her coughing.

She knew that she wasn't getting enough air. Every time she coughed she felt herself get dizzy and her vision go unfocused. When she heard him speak she managed to slow down the coughs, if only a little, so she could hear was he was saying to her. At first it was an honest "are you okay", to which a nod would be lying. She wasn't very okay--her throat hurt and her lungs were screaming for air, which try as she might, wouldn't go in. At every attempt to breathe she coughed instead of inhaled.

Looking at him when he asked if she still trusted him, she managed to nod slightly trying to open her eyes and look at him, since her eyes had been closed the entire time as she coughed. She saw deep worry in his eyes, though she only saw flashes of this worry. Splotches of black like paint splatters dotted out parts of her vision as her eyes began to get less and less focused, her coughs weaker, but no more air getting in.

[Oren]

As she nodded, Shoutoku felt a wave apprehension wash over him. Was he really about to do this? He didn't really have a choice. She was choking and her face was officially pale. Taking a deep breath, he focused on what needed to happen. Taking a breath, he used one hand to turn her face toward him, the other he placed over her nose.

With no time for hesitation, he pressed his lips against hers, breathing out to force air into her lungs.

CPR wasn't typically used on someone choking, but there wasn't anything she was choking on so he had no other way of helping. And this situation required immediate action, and that was all his mind could come up with. He was book smart, but he didn't have experiences in real life. That was the only major fault of a griffin; they never had much people experience.

He pulled back, letting her breath out before repeating what he had just done. When he pulled back again, he said, "Breathe in when I breathe out, ok? You should get more air that way."

After repeating the CPR around fifteen times, he held her at arms lenght and studied her face, seeing if what they were doing was helping at all. She was still choking, but she didn't seem like she was exactly going to pass out anymore.

"Try to not cough. If you can't, hold your breath."

Placing an arm behind her back he scooped her up and carried her to the bathroom. Setting her down at the door, he quickly retrieved a glass from the small kitchen and filled it with water, handing it to her. "Gargle this. It might help."

Why hadn't he just done that in the first place?! It took him a second to realize that, if she wasn't concious, she couldn't try to make it better. What he had done had been completely necessary.

Then... why did he feel so strange?

[Anzeh]

The unicorn saw the forms of her world grow less and less defined and become more like blobs or something like that, blobs that were vaguely tangible and moveable, as it seemed to her. She felt a wave of fear overwhelm her as a terrifying thought struck her. What if she was about to die? That was horrible! Suddenly she felt a pain travel up to her brain before warmth enclosed her own mouth.

She had just finished coughing, so it was easy enough to inhale. It came straight from the griffin's body too, so there was nothing in the air she was taking in to force her into coughing. It flowed into her lungs with great relief, he vision growing less blotchy and noticeably clearer. She had attempted to push him away the first time, but once she realized what he was trying to do she gave in and allowed him to do it.

This happened a couple times before she had gotten enough air. She was no longer pale, but was currently holding her breath to keep anything that might make her cough out of her as she was lifted and taken into the bathroom. Unable to hold her breath anymore, she breathes in and coughs a few times, but it calms down after a little bit. She glanced over to him and took the glass he offered and gargled the water after she coughed, spitting it out in sink. She noticed something other than water go down the drain, and made a not to spit in the toilet from now on.

She coughed a couple more times and realized, for the first time, that there was something coming up. Ew. She turned to the toilet and gathered her hair in a makeshift ponttail behind her back and spat a few times before flushing. She could breathe on her own without coughing, and therefore took great gulps of air as though she would never be able to continue if she didn't cram all the oxygen in her lungs that she could at that moment.

"Thank you." She said.

[Oren]

Shoutoku nodded and shrugged as he turned to walk to his computer. "It was nothing big." Yes it was. "I'm gonna be up for a bit working on a few projects, so you can go ahead and sleep. Take my bed, I'll sleep on the couch."

That part was true. He had a few things he could work on. They didn't need to be done that moment, but if he tried to sleep now he'd be up for hours. He probably would be anyway. Once he started working on this particular formula, he wouldn't stop for quite a while. Also, he needed to make sure she slept well. It wouldn't be good if she was illreasted on the morrow.

"Oh," he spun in the chair to face her. "If you're hungry, help yourself. I have some grain stuff in the far left cabinet." He chuckled as he spun the chair back to the computer. "That's really the only food I keep other than what's in the freezer."

In reality, he had only bought the grain food products after meeting her. He hadn't known why he had, but it had made some level of sense. She was a friend, after all, and friends hung out at each other's dorms, right? He was pretty sure that guys and girls didn't hang out alone too much, but if she ever visited he figured the food would be appreciated.

Taking a deep breath, he began focusing on his work. Not so much that Gunner woudn't be able to get his attention, but pretty consumed. It was how he worked. Either all at once with all his concentration or not at all.

[Anzeh]

Gunner stared at him for a full ten seconds when he said that it had been nothing big. He had just saved her life, probably. How could he stand there and say that he had been nothing big? What if the CPR hadn't helped? What if she had just continued the way she had, teetering on the edge of living and dead? Would it have been a big thing then?

At the statement that he was going to be working on something and that she should ge some rest, the unicorn merely nodded slightly. Even if she wasnt' one for listening to others, she had to agree, what she really needed was some sleep. Aeon crawled into the bed and made herself comfortable under the covers, her hair forming almost a semicicle as she lay dosing.

Food? The thought of food was quickly accompanied by the memory of what had happened not even an hour ago. No, food was something she definitely couldn't even attempt to try and eat. Maybe tomorrow when the memory had lost some detail and sharpness, but not now.

After a few moments her breathing calmed and she lay under the covers asleep, blissfully unaware of what happened around her now.

[Oren]

Shoutoku worked on his computer for only thirty minutes before he became restless. Arg! Why couldn't he just sit here and concentrate? He stood and paced for a minute before plopping down on the cough, crossing his arms and glaring at the wall. What was it, this annoying feeling? He felt uncomfortable and there was a strange feeling in his chest that he'd never felt before.

Standing again, he walked over to the small freezer and took out a small bad of meat. Before he even opened it he became frustrated with himself and threw it back inside, slamming the small door shut. What the heck was wrong with him? Food always helped when he was upset, but why wasn't working now? Probably because he wasn't hungry...

Taking a deep breath through gritted teeth, he walked over to the window and opened it, letting the cool night air flow into the room. It had a somewhat calming effect, but it made him want to fly. Just as he was about to hop out the window, he looked at the girl on his bed. Immediately he felt himself calming down and a small smile showed on his face. She was so young and almost had this little-girl cuteness to her. Walking over to her he knelt by the bed, staring at her face.

"She really is cute..." he mused to himself. Unconsciously he reached out to brush a few strands of hair from her face.

Wait... what was he saying?! What was he doing?! He stood, the irritation at himself back, even stronger. He was twenty four! She was fourteen! What in the world was he thinking? It wasn't love for a little sister he had just felt. It wasn't the feeling of a lover, he was sure of that too, but... it was something more than a regular liking.

Walking briskly to the window, he dropped his skin and jumped onto the ledge and then out, flapping his wing so as to cushion his fall to the ground only a few stories down. Landing, he ran to give himself a little more momentum than jumping out of a window could ever give. Taking off, he sored into the sky using all his might to take him high. He'd go back after a little. But for now... He needed to clear his mind.

[Anzeh]

The unicorn remained asleep for not even an hour. In her dream, the skies were perfect and the water was crystalline. She wasn't flying, no, that scared the crap out of her, no. She was on a ship, a ship that, she realized now, was a pirate ship. It was a memory, but at the same time, a dream, because this was not the pirate ship of five years ago when she had worked with Emz and cleaned the decks. It was not the pirate ship of five years ago when Captain Lisai had taught her many things that were important.

This ship, like her, had grown five years.

Emz, the furry wolf-boy as kind as cool breeze in summer, was now just about seventeen, soon to be eighteen. A feeling filled her. No, he was 18. They'd been born on the same day, just three years apart. She'd turned 15 that day. What a wonderful gift.

All of a sudden the dream was blown to smithereens, but she couldn't understand why. She opened her eyes and the window was opened wide and Soga was gone. She sat up and reached out to it, as though she was going to close it, but that thought vanished rather quickly.

If she closed the window, how would he fly back in?

So she rolled out of the covers and walked to where he'd said there were grain products and poured them in a bowl, eating a few handfuls of grain, even though she really wasn't hungry. Though there was still more in the bowl, she was too distracted to try to eat more. She set it aside and walked up to the computer he'd been working on. The session was still on, and she had the oppourtunity to look at what he'd been working on.

Obviously, it was nothing the young unicorn could understand, but it was probably complex. Perhaps it was even easy for Soga. He was smart and on top of that was a college student. She wouldn't pretend she didn't pass with mostly As and a few solid Bs, but she wasn't made to be intelligent. Or a fighter. Maybe that was why this was so hard to her.

Those doubts again! She shook her head and tossed out the remainder of the oats and cleaned out the bowl before crawling back into bed. Thoughts raced across her head and acute fear because Soga wasn't here made it hard for her to fall back asleep. So she lay awake, tossing and turning and trying to quiet the roaring storm of her mind.

[Oren]

Shoutoku’s talons ripped into the warm flesh of a dead fox. Ferociously he tore into the gushing red, making a horrible mess and eating nothing. He needed to eat, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t hungry. It wasn’t like his body wasn’t hungry, because he needed to eat, but his mind wouldn’t let him. It was psychological, he knew, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He wasn’t in the mood to eat, so he simply couldn’t no matter how appetizing fresh meat looked.

Taking a deep breath, he looked around in the dark. It was amazing that he’d been able to catch something in this light. He wasn’t an owl, after all. He was part hawk, and this was the first time he’d successfully caught something this late at night. It gave him a very small sense of pride, which comforted him just a little. He would do anything right now to still his nerves. Catching something hadn’t help.

Obviously, he’d have to find something else.

Running and then launching himself into the air, he just flew. He flew for hours, sometimes hard and strong, sometimes just soaring. He thought all the while, letting his mind wander and ponder and conclude. It took him a while, but he finally felt like he could go back. He wasn’t restless anymore. In fact, he was quite tired. Maybe he should have just forced himself to eat, ‘cause in the state he was in he wasn’t sure how well he could keep his skin once he was back.

Taking a deep breath, he changed directions to head toward the school. His mind went to Gunner for the 100th time that night. He wondered if she was still sleeping. Was she well rested? Did she have a restless sleep? Maybe she had woken already. He had been gone for quite a while, so it wouldn’t be too strange.

When he reached the school he angled toward his dorm window. It was still open. That was a good sign. She was probably still asleep. As he reached the window he opened his wings to slow his decent. He was almost hovering at the window before he latched onto the sill. Using his upper body strength he pulled himself through the window, making a very conscious effort to switch to his skin. He landed on the floor, his hand on the ground to steady himself. He looked up and around.

Now, where was Gunner? Asleep still?

[Anzeh]

Gunner has tossed around fitfully until the entire bed was like an incubator before finding a mildly comfortable position. But even though she was laying like that, she couldn't even fall asleep. The chilly air blowing through the wind seemed to cause the entire scene to play in her head over and over again, and pulled the blanket over her head, groping for something that should be on her neck. Her eyes widened in horror. Why wasn't it there? Where had it gone?

Her panic rose and she slid out of the covers and found something like a length of rope laying around (why she didn't know) and yanked up Soga's pants, tying the rope around her tightly.She wasn't wearins shoes, but it didn't matter really--as soon as she left she was going to change into a unicorn and go back to that alley. Now that she thought about it, she had remembered the bite of the chair before it was tossed away. Yes. It was still there! But not for much longer. She had already wasted so much time...

When she walked into the kitchen, rumaging through the oat products and pulled out some grain and stuffed a handful into her mouth in a very un-ladylike fashion, she began to hear strong wingbeats.

He was back?

The issue of the locket was pushed from her head for the moment, and she walked out for the kitchen, still chewing the grain she had shoved into her mouth literally moments before he came in.

"Hey, you're back." She said, walking towards him. "How was your fly?"

[Oren]

Looking up at Gunner's voice, he frowned at her. "You should still be asleep." He stood before looking her up and down to make sure she wasn't hurt. He vaguely saw the oats in her hands and noticed the slight impediment to her speech. She she was eating. That was a good sign.

"Finish that and then go back to bed. By the looks of it, you haven't had enough sleep yet." Shoutoku had no room to talk. He himself had been out all night. He was tired, definitely, and he could feel his legs shaking and his whole body about to give way. While Gunner had experienced something terrifying, Shoutoku had literally worn his body out to where it was taking all of his strength to keep his skin and stay standing.

He walked over to his couch and laid down, watching Gunner. He could still feel that affection, and, although he wasn't sure what to do with it, he was able to just accept it. He couldn't do anything about it, so why try? He needed to apologize, though he wasn't sure when, but he would when the opportune moment revealed itself.

He closed his eyes and listened to her movement. He would make sure he himself didn't' fall asleep until she was in bed again. Wait... something had been wrong when he had looked at her. What was it? He went through a mental picture of how she had just looked and compared it to a her from a few days ago. What was missing?

He sat up straight, looking at her neck and then into her eyes. "Your necklace... You lost it?" Wasn't it important? It had been a locket. Not many people carried lockets around for absolutely no reason. People usually wore things like jewelry because it was precious to them. This instance was probably no different.[/color]

[Anzeh]

The unicorn stared at him blankly and swallowed, pushing in the last of the oats into her mouth and licking up the remaining grains from her hand and watching the other curiously. He looked rather tired himself. Gunner was more than a little tempted to run out and go to the alley, and in fact she would have if she wasn't almost completely certain that Soga could catch up to her and bring her back.

But perhaps not. Looking at him he seemed to be off balance and quite tired. Perhaps he wouldn't be able to catch up? She could try to run, she could! the door was right there, she could make a break for it, all she had to do was take the first step. Come on, one leg in front of the other...

Oddly enough even though she took the first step, it was not towards the door. She was walking towards the bed with a level of tiredness that hadn't been there before. Now that Soga was there, she could look up and see him laying on the couch, she could reach out and touch him if she so pleased. He was real, he was tangent, she could reach out and touch him if she felt like it. He wasn't mist or dust or an illusion... he was real. He was there.

She crawled into the bed and at the comment of her necklace she rolled over and looked at him. "I suppose you could say that," she whispered to the emptiness. "It's probably in the alley where you found me."

Leaving it at that she pulled the covers up to her chin and attempted to fall asleep. It was difficult dispite her exhaustion.

[Oren]

In the alley, huh? He’d have to get that for her. Well, actually, because the locket did belong to Gunner she’d want to get it herself, but there was no way Shoutoku was about to let her go back to that place alone. That creep was probably still out there. No, he was still out there, Shoutoku knew, because people like that didn’t come to a town just and do only one girl before leaving. Odds were that Gunner hadn’t been the first and wouldn’t be the last.

As the unicorn’s breathing evened out, he closed his eyes and let his mind wander aimlessly until he could sleep. He couldn’t sleep very well as the day was dawning, but he figured what rest he could get he would appreciate later on.

Opening his eyes, he looked at the clock. He had actually fallen asleep for that long? Sitting up, he looked over at the seeping form of Gunner. She’d want something to eat. Looking at the kitchen he sighed. There really wasn’t much to preparing a meal when it came to either of them. For Gunner she had to grab something out of the cabinet and eat it. Shoutoku had to be a little more planned, but it still wasn’t too much trouble taking frozen raw meat out of the freezer and letting it thaw.

He stood and did just that, taking a small frozen rabbit, whole and un-skinned, out of the freezer. He looked over at Gunner. She didn’t mind that he ate meat, but the last time they ate together he had been eating something a little less gruesome. A chicken with bone was a lot easer to watch being consumed than a rabbit with fur, at least he figured. He was very possibly wrong, of course, so he decided not to worry about it. She seemed to be the type that would voice her opinion when something bothered her.

Walking over to his computer, he wiggled the mouse to bring the screen flashing back to life. He smiled to himself, quite amused. She hadn’t bothered with leaving his things alone; the page wasn’t where he had left it. It didn’t matter, though. It wasn’t something personal and he highly doubted she understood the specifics to three dimensional surfaces.

He sat down and looked over the chart, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. One of the professors of the school had given a CD that had charts and other such things pertaining to the subjects of math, science, literature, and history. For the math he had to create long problems and solve even longer ones. Science was like what he was doing now with the different dimensions. The literature section dealt with translating different languages properly, and the history dealt with dates, wars, famous people, and not-so-famous people. All of it was hard work, but this is what he did in his spare time. Working his mind was his favorite pastime, though something told him that would change over the next few months, if not weeks.

[Anzeh]

Aeon Gunner

[/blockquote][/blockquote][/center][/font]

Gunner lay there in a veil of sleep. No dreams dashed across her head, no fantasies or dreams of grandeur danced before her mind's eye, no, it was pure sleep, pure darkness. The unicorn slept longer and longer, so long that she was lucky it was the weekend otherwise she'd be in so much trouble with the school. A noise somewhere between a sigh and a moan escaped her lips before her blue eyes opened and regarded her world with a sort of exhausted detachment.

"Morning..."

She was still wearing the griffin's clothes and when she slid out of the bed she noticed that his shirt hung off her shoulder. She fixed it and walked off to the grain cabinet and rummaged through it, her hand running against something familiar. She pulled a little packet that held a little linseed cake, which caused her to smile.

These were often sold in pet stores, the individual things. They were sold in great surplus at places that sold farm supplies, however.

She tore it open and nibbled on the sweet cake, also pulling out the box of oats and pouring them into a bowl to eat, all the while chewing the delicious cake between her lips. After this her eye caught what looked to be a small woodland creature thawing. She regarded it with almost childish curiousity and sat, taking handfuls of oats and pushing them into her mouth, watching the other work. From Aeon's vantage point however, she couldn't see what he was working on, though was willing to wager it was the same thing he'd been working on the night before.

Another handful of oats found its way into her mouth and then another. Despite her uncivilized way of eating, she didn't spill anything and all the oats found their way into her mouth. Once finished she licked the bowl and her hand before putting them in the sink. Even though she'd just eaten she returned to the bed got back under the covers, but sleep did not return.

Normally she would have walked to the computer and watched him work over his shoulder, but she felt an odd sense of... incompleteness. Once again her hand groped around for the locket but did not find it. A frown tugged at her lips. She wanted to get it now. But... what was stopping her?