Chapter Text
The eyelids of the body open, groggily. There is a haziness in the mind, a lack of thoughts and a slightly thundering pain in the head; it is consistent in an annoying kind of way. The more the time tickles by, the more conscious it starts to spread from the skull to the skin. It hurts and is the only thing that she knows. Uh, she? Hold on—
She doesn't have a clue why, but the moment she can pierce things together, there’s this weird nagging feeling inside her body that’s saying: something's wrong. Somehow, the mind is sure of her gender: she is a woman. But her age? Who is she? How did she get into this? Nothing comes, not even a fleeting thought, even less her own name.
While her brain is working itself into an overdrive, her eyes are staring seeingless at the dark azured-sky. The feeling of the soft soil against her skin is a clue that her body is lying in the ground — well, she thinks it’s the earth. Since her memories are just a long blank, she can't be so sure. It’s weird, somehow knowing and not knowing something. The air that enters her lungs is crisp and the humid ground under her fingers is distracting. Does she even want to know how she got here…? Looking at the lack of twinkling stars, she frowns. There’s no shining moon either, only a musky darkness; as if a veil is hiding the light of the night from the people — like her brain is concealing her identity from herself, for whatever reason it found necessary. Thus, she has no idea of where she even is or what she should do. Was she in danger before this?
Why was that her first hypothesis?
Still confused, and starting to feel the frustration building in her chest alongside the slightly subtle pain in her head, her eyes wandered, searching. Her attention gets caught by the silky turquoise color, a clue of an objective that slowly transforms into the hair of a woman that was close to her. She can’t see her face, however she does make notice of the two bear ears on top of the other’s head — from the way she didn’t find it weird, it was probably a normal sight. Now that she could somewhat ignore the pain, she could hear a whining sound too. Was the bear-woman crying? For what reason? Did they know each other? Her chest was feeling stuffy while looking at the woman, so maybe they did. The big question was: how much did they know of each other?
Her fingers slowly closed into the soil, crumbs of dirt getting under her nails and making her frown, uncomfortable. She needed to say something. Her tongue got out of her mouth, tracing her lips cautiously in preparation for it. Anything would be a good start. Maybe. She breathed in, still unsure of what she would talk about, but decided to do it anyway. Perhaps she should ask about what happened? It seemed like the best starting point.
“Kureha-san, she’s awake”, a mature voice made the turquoise woman tension her shoulders, making her eyes realize that what was obstructing her from seeing part of the other’s face was the hands there. The bear-woman — Kureha, it seems — lifted her head while taking her palms away from her eyes, looking for a few moments in the direction of where the sound came before turning her face in the direction of her body.
Oh, her eyes were the same colour as her hair. No, it was closer to emerald instead of being in the spectrum between green and blue. Seeing the tearful orbs and the slightly flushed cheeks was making her chest feel uncomfortable; the beats of her heart were accelerated in a way that was paining her, the pressure inside not helping her to breathe. It’s like there is an invisible bind grounding her there. She wanted to look away, to see who was the other person who pointed that she was awake and to look more of her surroundings. But she couldn’t. She was stuck seeing the tears accumulating in the emerald eyes until it started to drop into her face, the tremble of the lips that were dry and hear the sniffles that were made by this Kureha.
“Hi-Hiromi-sama…” The soft voice almost didn’t get to her ears, that was how small it was. A fleety feeling, almost instinctual, told her that this was her name. It was the same sureness that made her think of herself as a woman, since the name didn’t make her remember anything. Her mind was still just an empty space being broken by the pain coming from her head and chest. She saw the other bite her lips, making a hurt expression, before putting her hands back again on her face. Hum, this didn’t look good.
“Kureha-chan, we will need to move her to a safe place.” A more higher-tuned voice than the first one made itself known, a hand appearing on one of the bear-woman's shoulders. This simple action was enough for making her look at the new person: a silver-haired woman, with a feline rounded ear on top of her head, who was sending Kureha a soft look even if she wasn’t seeing it. By the way she referred to herself and the distrustful gaze she sent her way, it was very obvious that she — Hiromi — was not part of this trio…?
“Takane-chan, can you call Himeka-chan and Akari-chan so we can move her?” The feline-woman turned to the other side, a movement that was followed by her eyes, both of them looking in the direction of the third woman. The first thing that grabbed Hiromi’s attention was the horns protruding from the sides of Takane’s head, a little above her deer-ears, mixed with her flaxen colored hair. It was such a different visual, and even so, it still didn’t surprise her. What actually made her frown was the dark mark that seemed to have blossomed in her shirt.
“I already did”, was the answer the horned-woman gave, sending a tiny smile in the direction of the feline-woman. Her amethyst eyes had a playful light on, one that clashed in a nice manner with her serious and relaxed demeanour. Tilting her head in a subtle gesture, the look that Takane sent to her was almost apathetic in comparison, “Don’t worry Kanaho. Everything will be fine.”
After saying that, she sent another pleasing smile to her… friend's? way. They seemed close, but Hiromi wasn’t sure what relationship any of the three women had between each other. Or worse, between them and herself. From the little she heard and saw, she could suspect that she wasn’t liked by the others — and that she did something to them. She doubted she would feel so much pressure in her chest if she was the victim here. It was a suffocating feeling, one that made her feel bad; if only she knew what she did. By now, she was starting to get a little scared to discover what it was.
Given the tension that was dominating the women, Hiromi was quite sure it was better not to ask. She had a strong feeling that they would not believe her if she said anything about her situation. Not wanting to keep watching them exchanging meaningful looks and trying to avoid glancing at the curled up bear-woman, she brought her eyes back to the empty sky. In a strange mode, looking at the lightless dark-azured space above her was somewhat comforting. There was at least one thing that was as lost as her, without the details it fills it with meaning — like her, that has nothing but a name and a body, with only some vague feelings to guide herself in this world that seem as new and confusing as it would be for a very young kid.
As she enjoyed the view, a heavy pull was trying to make her eyelids close again. Fighting it was useless; not only she didn’t wish to talk with the others, she could also hear new voices coming closer to her body. The pain in her head and chest was dulled, but still present. Since there was nothing Hiromi could do now — not that she would know, given her situation —, she let herself be guided by the gentle hands of sleep into her consciousness. Perhaps things would make more sense once she awoke again.