My convalescence is long, though probably not as long as it feels, each day when I do not sleep it away, seemingly longer and more interminable than the last. My flesh and bones heal, bruises fade. Anthony teaches me how to stretch and move like he does, and I see echoes of his deadly practice in it, slow though it is. Under his tutelage, I grow ( Read more... )

Anthony leaves me mid-morning and I find that I'm grateful for it, to be entirely alone. Anthony is easy company, but even the easiest company begins to wear, even were I not still very, very injured, a fact that has not ceased to be profoundly irritating as I sleep less each day and become more aware of my limitations.

( He frets over me... )

Time passes ( Read more... )

OOC Note: There are a series of vignettes coming up that may or may not be of interest to anyone but myself, all dealing with the aftermath and subsequent convalescence. Fortunately, they're all vignettes and therefore not very long.

MorningI wake in stages, each one bringing with it fear and comfort in quick succession. One moment, I am falling ( Read more... )

"Keep talking to me, Joule. I can't let you sleep out here."

I start at the sound of my name and shiver. We've left the dell and are working our way back up the defile. He's carrying me. I feel an irrational wash of stubbornness, of anger for not just leaving me to sleep when I'm hit with a moment of absurd clarity. You're half dead, Julia. He's ( Read more... )

When I manage to open my eyes again, Anthony crouches over me, his eyes skimming the edges of the bowl. Holding my left arm close to my body, hoping that they will do the double duty of keeping my chest closed and offering some measure of support to my arm, I try to pick myself up. In an instant, Anthony is there, slipping an arm under my shoulders ( Read more... )

The signs are subtle when I first see them; a tree blackened from lightning, a line of brush charred beyond recognition. I stay close to Anthony, never more than an arm's length away. There's an uprooted tall pine that leans at an angle against a stand of younger trees. When I see the oak, its trunk ending in a shattered ruin, I put my hand to ( Read more... )

I keep wintering in places that are cold, and I don't know why. Perhaps because they are easier to be a hermit in; no one comes and talks to me unless they really need to. Automobiles need more maintenance in colder climes than warmer, or at least a different sort of maintenance, the sort for which I am uniquely qualified and enjoy performing. ( Read more... )

Despite making the decision to trek out into the backcountry, my feeling of dread doesn't lessen in the slightest. If anything, it increases and multiplies and finds ways to breed in the crevasses of my mind. So, I do what I always do when this happens: I ignore it and bury myself in work. Fortunately, there's plenty of that ( Read more... )

Wherever I go, snow clouds my vision. Anthony trudges resolutely beside me, but even he is lost in a swirl of white.

Crack.

I look down to see my snowshoe cracked in half, my booted foot plunged into a shallow, iced-over stream. I swear and pull my foot and the remains of the shoe out.

Slam.

Anthony is face down in the snow beside me and I look ( Read more... )