The Anger of Slaves (O)

[Ray]

To stop the human from continuing his question, Ray quickly step up to his side and subtly jabbed an elbow at his waist. "I don't know much about any Saint, but I think a Saint means a holy person, who are believed to be in heaven after death."

"Do you believe in heaven?" He asked, mostly just trying to divert the attention away from Azik's awkward question. If Piotr don't want to talk about it, they should probably just leave him be.

[Major NPC]

Piotr listened to them talking, more interested to hear its meaning at last. The great mystery of his years unraveled with their simple knowledge - a blessing long denied to a slave such as him.

"A ... holy person," the bird repeated, rubbing above the wrapping on his wounded arm. His wings shifted slightly behind him, the one that was half missing barely moving at all. It wasn't bleeding, in the way his wrapped hand had been, and so was clearly an older injury.

"I don't know, if I'm a holy person. So he was ... maybe mocking me?" the crow thought out loud. The quiet simmering anger mutedly burned on his features again, before he shook his head. "Do I believe in heaven? ... I don't know much about that either. Why? What do you think?"

[Ray]

"I actually go back and forth from time to time about the opinion on heaven." The feline said honestly. "It would be nice if heaven really does exists."

It would be nice if there's really a place to go after death. A place without pain and suffer, where your soul can rest peacefully.

"As for your name, maybe your master was mocking you, or maybe he wasn't. It doesn't matter anyway. You're here now, and he can't mock you anymore."

[Major NPC]

"It doesn't matter anyway. You're here now, and he can't mock you anymore."

The crow was startled for a moment. The simple words of the beastfolk seemed to hit home with an unusual force. Eyes blinked rapidly for a few seconds, and jaws were tense. His gaze fell lower, down to their feet, and he cradled the slightly injured hand at his stomach.

"He can't ... anymore..." The crow repeated, as if he only dared to believe it just then.

His foot scuffed at the ground beneath him. Kicking the planet like that was about as futile as it was unnoticed to the rest of the world, but then it'd always been that way.

He exhaled deeply out of his nose.

"You're right," he said to Ray. "It doesn't matter."

[Ray]

"Yeah." Ray nodded. "What's matter now is getting your hands fixed."

He can't help but noticed the tension is Piotr's posture, and hope that he'll get more comfortable in time. He knows how confusing this is. He'd been through it himself not too long ago.

"Let's go. This way." He said, continuing down the path he took before they was interrupted.

[Major NPC]

The crow followed Ray's lead, and tried his best to avoid further dwelling on the subject just under discussion. The subject now was his hand.

"It's ... really not that bad," he said, trying to diminish the injury. "I've been hurt much worse. I'll get better, eventually..."

[Ray]

The snow leopard didn't reply, but instead letting the conversation go, leading Piotr down the stairs that leads underground, and at the end of it is the infirmary.

It still looks the same way like when he's here before, looking for Klaus. Large room, lots of beds, yet almost without a soul with the exception of the medical staff.

Ray walked straight towards the work station and started talking to the nurse. "Excuse me, we have an injured hand here that needs taking care of."

[Major NPC]

The woman turned around, surprised to see the leopard again.

"Oh my. Hello, Ray. Who is this?" she asked. A beat passed before she quickly added, "It certainly seems a lot of people get injured around you."

The crow defaulted to Ray for a moment, looking to him for a response. The nurse motioned over to the side, and brought a chair over for Peter to sit down in.

"Let's just take a look, shall we?"

The crow gave a slow shrug, but did as he was bidden. She carefully started unwrapping their earlier dressings, using the contents of a potion to loosen dried blood.

"What exactly happened, you two?" she asked as she inspected the hand's cuts.

[Ray]

"Oh my. Hello, Ray. Who is this?" The nurse asked.

"Piotr," The young feline answered. "I found him outside of the camp."

"It certainly seems a lot of people get injured around you."

The comment bothered him a little, but he only showed it in a twitch of his tail. Then the nurse turn away from him, and started to treat the crow's wound. He walked closer, standing beside the bird and watch the nurse do her job.

"What exactly happened, you two?" She asked after cleaning off the dried blood.

The boy just looked at the Piotr, expecting him to answer the question.

[Major NPC]

The crow guiltily looked away from the nurse, feeling an unexpected sense of shame of needing someone to take care of the wounded hand. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but the gouges and cuts remained.

"There was a bug on the tree," the crow felt compelled to lie.

"A... bug. On a tree?" the nurse repeated, gently applying a measure of healing magic to the limb.

"... It was a big bug. Had to die," Saint Peter said as he thought more about the 'bug' he really wanted to squash. His muted anger wouldn't get the chance to hurt that bug.

He glanced just once at Ray, and hoped he'd go along with the lie.

"One of those demon-laced monster bugs? With acid-dripping fangs?" the suspicious nurse hazarded.

[Ray]

"It was an ugly one." The snow leopard said, knowing fully what kind of "bug" Piotr was saying.

The anger still burn inside him, though not as strong as before, after losing its source to fuel it. But the anger remain, as well as the pain and regret.

The boy had long since chose to shut off the pain and regret. But the anger, he clung to it like bee to honey. It makes him stronger. More brutal. More capable of surviving.

And he WANTS to survive until all of this is over.

At least until all the bugs in this country is crushed under the Resistance's feet.

He doesn't plan to stop until then.

[Major NPC]

The nurse looked slightly suspicious at them, but made no further attempts at prying. She focused on what she was good at instead: taking care of people. In so very little time, the nurse had returned his hand into its proper working condition.

"There. That should do it!" the nurse said optimistically.

Peter was still careful about flexing it, fingers curling and stretching. No physical pain remained to bother him. The emotional ones, those would take longer. But today had been a good start.

"... Thanks, ma'am..." the crow said after an awkward moment.

The nurse smiled broadly. "It was not problem, sir. I was happy to help! ... And I can't help but notice your one wing."

Memory made a painful twinge go down his spine.

"I'm afraid healing that is out of my league, but Madame Yelena might be able to help."

A beat passed.

The crow stared at her blankly.

"... What?"

[Major NPC]

"Madame Yelena," the nurse repeated. "She might be able to help, with your injured wing."

The crow looked confusedly from her, to Ray. When Ray didn't respond, the crow continued to make his confusion clear. "My wing is healed. It's been like this for years."

The half gone appendage gave a slight twitch behind him.

"Yes..." the nurse said, starting to sense where the problem lied. "But the Madame is not your everyday healer, Peter. She is quite gifted when it comes to matters of the body. Regenerating a lost limb is not a simple thing for anyone, but I've seen her do it a number of times. If she can help, I'm sure she will."

Like a chisel, her words chipped away at the stony covering around the crow's heart, causing it to beat several times harder with freshness renewed. Instinctively, he glanced back, knowing that out of this building was a sky long denied to him - a sky, he just might be able to see again.

Anger had long since sealed away that hope, and left only bitterness behind. Yet seals, as he was finding out, are hardly permanent.

[Ray]

"Good for you, then." Ray said, patting gently on the crow's shoulder while putting on a faint smile.

He let himself wondered for a moment that if he might able to retrieve his lost eye, but decided that it's best to keep his hopes down. He had lost it since he was a child, so the chances are his eye is gone for good.

But it's good to see Piotr gets a chance to fly again. He never knew what flying means to an avian, and he possibly will never have the chance to know it in his lifetime, but he imagine it must be quite freeing.

To have that freedom ripped away from you is just...cruel.

But the world had always been cruel.

And there's also a rare chance of kindness, once in a while.

"Where is she, then?" He asked the nurse, since Piotr seems to overwhelmed at the moment to do that.

[Major NPC]

"She's out right now, resting. There was a special operation last night, and a few people were badly hurt," the nurse admitted. "Madame Yelena is strong, but no one is without limits."

The nurse made a face as if she was thinking to herself, then offered a suggestion. "It's hard to say how long she'll still be out, so why don't you all go about and enjoy yourselves. I'll have a message sent to you, when she's ready to perform the recovery."

The crow, Peter, had been wingless and earthbound for so long already. This new hope - one of so very many he was encountering today - could tide him over.

"I can ... I can wait," he said in a measured voice.

The nurse gave a quick nod. "Good. I best be getting back to my work. You boys have fun now!"

Peter slowly started to walk away, but he kept looking to Ray.

"Um ... What do you do ... for fun?" he asked.

[Ray]

"I dunno." He said, following Peter out of the room. "I haven't been having fun for some time."

"I usually just oil my gun, or do some basic exercise in my free time. Either that or out hunting. Keeps me useful...I guess." Ray explained, taking the lead and direct themselves back out towards where they met Azik. "We do have a ball here though, if you want to try that out."

"So...What you want to do?" He asked.

[Major NPC]

"Useful," Peter repeated the word, suddenly pondering what exactly that would mean for him. Food and medical care, of course it would come with a catch. He silently pondered what kind of debt he might be wracking up, letting these people do anything more for him.

He was only half paying attention by the time they got to the field, lost in his own thoughts and wonderings. That's when he looked down at the ball, and the field.

The crow leaned down to pick up the ball, and examined it a moment before he let out a big sigh.

"Getting out of my head would be nice," he admitted, before he dropped the ball and kicked it rolling along the ground to Ray. "What, uh, should we play? I haven't had much chance to play games with others."

[Ray]

The snow leopard intercepted the ball with his foot, making it jump up into the air before holding it. "Neither have I," He said. "But I think we're suppose to kick this into each other's goal." He said, pointing at the hand-made goals that's assembled by the kids in the base, mostly using sticks and ropes.

"Why don't you give it a try." Ray said, and let the ball fall before kicking it back towards the crow, a hint of smile appearing on his muzzle.

[Major NPC]

"Kick it into your goal," the crow said, rubbing at his left arm for a moment as he looked back and forth between the two haphazard goals. He followed the ball's path as it came closer, and tried to stop it with his own foot in turn.

He tried to imitate that leopard from before, to kick it up into his hand. Several failed attempts saw him kicking it a few feet forward every time instead. Sheepishly, the unskilled crow sought to kick it for real that time, towards the goal. He had enough force behind it to send the orb sailing above the ground in the right direction. Control was another story.

The crow looked a bit embarrassed and a bit frustrated as it landed a few dozen feet to the right of the goal he'd been aiming at. He took off at a slow jog to retrieve the ball and try again.

[Ray]

Ray just stood there and watch the crow going after the ball. Intercepting the ball and score a goal would be easy, but that would be too hard on someone who just started playing. He'll wait until Peter got a hang of it first.

He moved in front of the goal, readying himself to go after the ball and returning it in case the crow missed again.

[Major NPC]

The crow played the simple game awkwardly at first, but he was picking it up well enough. He tried to focus on the ball and get out of his thoughts, but there were still many things distracting him.

Piotr opted to strike up a conversation as they played their simple ball game.

"Ray. You said you were in the army," the crow started as he tried to bounce the ball towards the goal.

"How did you get involved, with the people here?" he asked inquisitively.

[Ray]

"I was in the Alpine Division," Ray explained. The ball stopped short of the goal, and roll towards him. He stopped it with the foot. "The commander officer there was a world class A-hole."

"He walked one of the child in my care on a minefield, resulting her death." He said calmly, as if he was reading someone else's diary. "I tried to kill him, and then bumped into the resistance who was raiding that camp. And they caught me, brought me back here. I think you know the rest of the story quite well yourself."

He kicked the ball back towards the crow, and signal him to try again.