Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Sephiroth the Man: an interview with an aide. ❯ Poisonous Relations ( Chapter 4 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Things were fairly routine, the days leading up to Wutai...Everyone was hyperaware of the situation, but no one was gearing up to go there yet. There had been a number materia hunters found dead, not too unusual, it was a dangerous job...But when company geologists looking for mako sources had gone missing, and diplomats that had been sent to negotiate a search ended up poisoned...Well, things got tense, and eventually escalated. But the days before it were almost pleasant barring my little screw-up..Good gods Mr. Zuri! Where on earth did you dig that picture up from?!..Yes, it's a mugshot...well, I've already told you how I ended up in the army in the first place...What, more pictures?...Oh..that one's from the victory ball after Wutai. Ugh!..That's that stinker Hojo lurking in the background...You're damned right I had a grudge against him..Yes, even back then. He was a class A pervert for starters... Well, it all started before Wutai, as a matter of fact it was the same time I got that dress that I had the first run-in with him....

The next morning I woke up late, having slept like the dead. I found a note with a list waiting for me from the general suggesting I take a couple of days and make a run into Midgar to pick up some equipment for the dojo from central, and that I get new uniforms, as they were becoming too loose for regulation fit. Well, if he'd noticed my uniforms getting looser, I knew they must look pretty baggy. If you looked at my fellow aides, it isn't uncommon to see a bit of spread after a while...all the time we spend sitting at a desk will do that to you. But helping out with the training had really gotten me into fighting trim!..Good thing too, as it happened...Anyway, new uniforms...Officers are responsible for the purchase and maintainance of their uniforms, and part of our pay was supposed to cover the cost of normal replacements...But as I was thinking of the long term, and saving every scrap I could...You can't stay in the army forever and unless you have rank, retirement pay is lousy..and part of me still remembered the little girl who arrived in the slums with little more than the clothing on her back.

You could say I was cheap, and getting them retailored was cheaper..leaving me more in my savings and for shopping!..and there's nothing like a little retail therapy to help with the mental hygiene!..Yes, I enjoy shopping, even if I don't buy a thing...I guess it's something about seeing shiny new stuff in the shop window, and knowing that I can actually buy it if I really want it. I only really splurged on music, naturally. You can be tough and professional, and still remain feminine...everyone else seems to forget that. I headed down to the wall market, to a tailor's shop that I knew fairly well...they not only did alterations, but they also did some of their own designs. I stopped in to talk with the guy who ran it Old man Cho, the best tailor in the sector, possibly in all of midgar, and the bluntest, most tactless man on the planet...which was why his shop was in the wall market instead of on the plate. If you had to go into the slums, wall market was the safest place...Troublemakers just tended to dissappear, one way or another, and nobody wanted to piss off Don Corneo by disrupting his trade. I went to the shop to get a rush job on the alterations, and ran into Cho's teenaged daughter Angelia instead. She gave me a peculiarly intense look, sizing me up, and said "Yes, you are the one..You'll be perfect!...Daaaddy! come here a minute please!" As I stood there kind of bewildered and more than a little unnerved, wondering if she hadn't gone crazy, old man Cho walked out from the back of the shop, and said to his daughter "What is it Angel?..Oh miss Kyruk! What can I do for you today?" he never gave me my proper rank, but from him I didn't mind it. "I need these uni-".."Daddy! She's perfect!" Angel pops in before I can finish "The burgundy and cream!" she says in an urgent tone as I stand there looking blank.

Old man Cho comes up and takes my bundle of uniform parts, lifts my chin with his finger, looks at me, this way and that..and says "hmph, you'll do very well indeed...alterations on these?" "Yes sir" I said, thoroughly spooked, and slightly miffed by now. "Good, you were beginning to look like a refugee from the rag bag, the way these unis were sagging." You see what I meant about tactless?..You know that little voice inside, the internal editor that tells you when you're saying something rude that you really shouldn't? He didn't have one...I didn't get mad at him because he was always honest. "DAAAD!" Angel howled, outraged on my behalf. "It's ok" I told her.."I sort of expected him to say that..even the General noticed that my uniforms didn't fit anymore, and he just doesn't usually pay attention to things like that." "I'll do these alterations for free, if you'll let my daughter play dress up with you for a couple of hours" Mr. Cho said. "Daaaaad! you make me sound like a ten year old kid or some kind of pervert!" she squawked indignantly. "She is right, you would be the perfect model for the design she's talking about." he said while grinning fondly at his child. "go ahead, she doesn't bite, hasn't since she was about four anyway."

"Right this way miss Kyruk." she chirped. "Call me Ana'e..and you are?" Angelia Talcho." Yes, the famous designer Talcho, before she was famous. "I must have somehow had you in mind when I designed this gown, because there is not a single other person in this city that it would fit!" The dress she had me try on was incredible...dark burgundy at the bottom of the full skirt, shading gradually up till it was cream colored around the middle of the bodice, shading to a medium red, just a shade to the burgundy side, again on the upper portion. Silk woven with subtle patterns all through the fabric and sparkly crystals sewn in to the patterns, long form fitting sleeves, slightly daring off the shoulder neckline. It fit like a glove, it didn't even need the hem changed..and as she began to show me some of the gown's secrets, like the outer skirt that converted to a cape, and the concealed pockets, I knew that she was absolutely prescient. I am unusually tall and long limbed for a woman..My sisters called me Spider when I was a kid..Even General Sephiroth was only a couple of inches taller.

It was surprisingly flexible and strong material, it had hidden pockets, just the right size for a couple of discreet daggers, or my little long range pistol, and the full skirt was removable in a fight, converted to a cape, or as she pointed out, you could go from formal to club in seconds. She steered me over by a full length mirror, let my hair out of the usual bun at the nape of my neck and swept it to the top of my head in a sort of sketchy updo, slid a couple of sparkly red and white crystal clip combs in, and fastened on a matching necklace and a sort of headband that came to a point with a ruby red drop in the middle of my forehead, and turned me around to face it. I swear, my own mother wouldn't have recognized me...I looked like an elegant woman...and for the first time I didn't feel like it was a liability. I asked the price, and blanched a bit at the figure she named..I could swing it, but... She followed by naming a figure about half of that, on the condition that I tell anyone who admired the gown where I'd gotten it. I explained that there weren't many occasions where I would wear it, but she insisted I should take it at that anyway.

By then her father had finished my alterations, and knocked on the dressing room door asking if we were decent. Angelia replied that we were, and as he walked in and saw me, his jaw dropped, and he started swearing and said that if he was twenty years younger, he'd...well he got kind of graphic,enough to make me blush, and I'd been around twenty something year old bachelors for a few years! But when Angelia started making gagging noises at him, and repeating "What would mom say?" in an increasingly loud voice, he apologized and said "You realize you have yet another way to leave a path of devastation behind you, warrior lady..in the form of broken hearts." And as I tried to demure, he said "Consider my reaction representative of the rest of the healthy male population." Huh..he was such a dear old fart. I just had to have it!..I bought the gown ensemble, and it did come in handy a couple of years later, after the Wutaian war...Yes, even us warrior types want to feel pretty once in a while...Besides, who can resist the idea of being heartbreakingly beautiful at least once? I left for central kind of walking on air...maybe that's why I didn't notice Hojo in time to avoid him...

It was when I made the trip to central supply that I met Hojo for the first time. There was nothing on the outside that would suggest the kind of monster he'd turn out to be. He wasn't even bad looking for his age. I know many women would have called him handsome even...but there was something ruthless in his eyes...something heartless that made me want to run away screaming. I was waiting behind him to hand in the paperwork and arrange for the supply delivery. He handed the clerk his papers with a sneered instruction to not mess it up this time, took that strange stooped posture with his hands behind his back that I guess he thought looked intellectual or something, and whirled around to walk out...He ran headlong into me. He reeked of nasty chemicals and the filthiness of his labcoat, and gave off a vibe that gave me the creeps. He looked surprised for a moment, then seemed to recognize me...he must have known who I was from a file somewhere.."Excuse me sir." I said politely as I moved a few steps out of the way...and I hoped, downwind. I'd seen the tag that said he was a doctor, and if he was in central, it meant he was a company scientist...high ranked at that, and knew that ticking one of them off was a good way to end your career...at least, so I stayed polite and ignored the fact he was staring at my chest. I stepped up to sign off on the papers, dismissing him from my mind, and the bastard goosed me. I gasped in outrage and whirled..."Please keep your hands to yourself sir! Such behaviour is against policy." I said with all the ice I could muster in my tone. He just smirked and left...or so I thought

Hojo ambushed me again in the narrow street between central and the train and got me stuck up against the wall...How? I think he knew I was afraid of him...he told me who he was in nauseating detail, and after revealing that he knew who I was, tried to pump me for information about the General, and in the most condescending manner possible...There is no way in hell that any self-respecting aide de camp would reveal any kind of personal data about their officer...in fact, we take an oath not to do so except as required by a full court-martial. He was whispering obscene suggestions as his hands were getting personal again...I lost any qualms about getting rude. I pushed him away hard and had the satisfaction of seeing him land flat on his rear! He immediately started calling me every name in the book...miss bitch was the politest phrase used, and began making threats. I cut him off by pointing out the fact that not only had he attempted to press me into breaking my officer's oath, he'd also been making unwanted advances, and the company tended to take a dim view of such behavior. He got to his feet..."It'll be your word against mine bitch...and who do you think they're going to believe?" he said as he took a step toward me. I put up my hand in a stay away gesture. "Keep your hands to yourself or I'll break your fingers!" I snapped as He laughed. "Who're they going to believe, bitch?" he asked again..and in that moment I spotted movement overhead..I was never so happy to spot a security camera in my life! "I think they'll believe the security camera footage." I grated. He looked up and spotted it.."Congratulations, you pass the test!" and similar chocobo dung in an attempt to cover his ass...He was pouring on the charm...and if I hadn't sensed the seething rage beneath the smiles and flattery, I might have fallen for it. I couldn't stand his greasy personality for more than a few moments...I turned and started to walk away in the middle of a sentence. "You bitch!" he spat after me....well, I guess I had to have the last word, cause I couldn't resist spitting back over my shoulder "That's major bitch to you." I replied. I left him there sputtering in incoherent anger.

You are one of the priviledged few who know everything about that incident now...I believe that the only people who knew were Hojo, myself, possibly then vice-president Rufus Shinra, and General Sephiroth...Of course I reported it to him eventually!..The only reason I didn't do so immediately is that the general was out of contact for nearly a week after, on a top secret mission with the trainees and when he came back everything turned so chaotic that I'd forgotten about it...till later, in the thick of things.

I typically went on campaign with General Sephiroth unless the mission was top secret, though I wasn't supposed to be involved in the fighting. During the war, we were out in the field a lot because they sent regular army units to the front from wherever else they'd been stationed, smaller SOLDIER units were often sent to replace them. The first campaign was something of a failure..it ended in a stalemate after three years...Then the president got the idea of sending 'the great general Sephiroth' to lead the second Wutai campaign to appease the public whose loved ones had been fighting and dying the whole time. I remember a bit near the beginning...The SOLDIER training had been suspended during the war, the trainees sent to various military units...after the main body of men had gone out, the enemy flanked the fighters and launched a surprise attack on our primary camp. I had no choice but to put my self defense skills to work..as the enemy seemed to focus on the medical tent and the General's command tent, probably after the spare materia and documents in it. After making sure the documents were secure, I had no time for anything more than hack and slash. The battle wasn't a long drawn out affair, but it was bloody. An enemy swordsman made sure I didn't come out unscathed, and he left a shard of poison materia that broke out of his blade in a slash across my ribs, before I brained him...at the time I thought it was no more than a scratch and decided not to bother the medics with it as they were busy trying to save lives and repair the damage to their surgery tent..I slapped a bandage on and went on fighting. By the time the troops arrived to reinforce the camp, half of those who had defended it were either dead or dying, and another quarter were severely wounded. Many of the dead were technically non-combatants, orderlies, pages, medics, and aides like myself. The wutaians hadn't discriminated. I thanked the planet and all the gods that General Sephiroth had made sure I was well trained, or I'd certainly have ended up captured or killed.

I was feeling a bit odd, and had tossed my cookies a couple of times..You do that you know..at least after the battle when you realize there are people all around you whose insides are on their outsides, and in some cases splattered all over you. It's really only a worry when you no longer feel sick after a battle... just normal post battle nausea and fatigue, I thought when the General arrived back at his tent. He finished reading a short letter he'd recieved and then commanded me to report on the status of the camp. As I did so, my voice started slurring more and more, and I began to have difficulty focussing. I was shivering and leaning on my axe to keep upright, when he interrupted me towards the end with a scowl and ordered me to "sit down before you fall down". I did so gratefully, as my knees were shaking by now. "Why haven't you had that attended to?"he growled. "What sir?" I said having forgotten all about my wound. He pointed at my side where a bit of bloody bandage was showing through the slice in my shirt...I hadn't noticed the blood dripping from under my shirt. "Just a scratch sir, I didn wanna bother the medics with somethin so silly." I felt a tingle as he cast a sense spell on me.."Your "scratch" is bleeding profusely, and you've been poisoned..didn't you know the Wutaians use poisoned blades"? he said. I was by this time losing control of my emotions and getting more irrational by the minute. I said something to the effect of "Those sneaky motherfucking assholes! Let me at them!" or something similarly rude and idiotic as a wave of dizziness and a sudden flash of irrational rage swept over me. He stalked like a prowling cat over to where I was sitting..'Gods help me, he's so damn good looking, bah, foolishness!' I thought distractedly, as he reached down and grabbed the bottom edge of my uniform shirt, "you are correct about the medics" he said, "there isn't a single one in camp that has a scrap of magic energy left now..even the esteemed doctor Ornari is exhausted.." and began to pull off my shirt.

My mind wasn't functioning right at all..The poison combined with the pain now beginning to seep through my adrenaline haze had an odd effect. I totally mistook his intentions. I was completely dazed by this time, I forgot everything except the fact that he was male, and far stronger than me..I felt a sudden rush of unreasoning fear. I began to curse and kick him and started swatting ineffectually at his hands. He grabbed my hands, and pulled them around to my back, and tied them there with the revenants of my shirt, yanked off my boots, pulled off his sword belt and strapped my legs down as well, came back around the chair and slapped me gently in the face to bring me back in focus, and explained calmly, in words you'd use with a frightened kid, that he was just going to treat my wound, and to stop acting like a silly child. I still wasn't able to even recognize him. At that point I had bit of a breakdown..I started weeping and cursing and feeling totally terrified and embarrassed...I'm just glad he decided to ignore my behavior at that point, because I wasn't in control of my mouth at that point. Normally I trusted him totally, I just somehow couldn't figure out who he was for bit. It was like he was someone else, some enemy, for a short time.

After he cast a poisona spell on me, and when it had little effect but to temporarily clear my head enough to recognize him, he pulled up a camp stool and medkit, and stripped the now bloodsoaked bandages off. He began to press at the sides of the slash..now the damn thing hurt! I winced, and he snapped peremptorily at me to hold still...His tone penetrated even the poison haze and I immediately complied. I held myself totally still except for the occasional tremor I couldn't completely control as he found what he had been probing for. He grabbed an antiseptic/ anaesthetic from the medkit.."This is going to sting a bit" he said neutrally. Boy did he have a gift for understatement! I barely managed to turn my yowl into a snarl as that stuff seemed to burn the germs out of the wound.

I glanced at him with blurry eyes, gasping for breath, sagging in relief as the anesthetic began to take effect, and quickly closed them as I was unerved by the avid look, almost one of pride, I thought I saw on his face as he was watching mine..It was almost as if he was enjoying my pain..I dismissed the idea as foolish because when I next opened my eyes his expression was normal again...I should probably have heeded my instincts...A bit of advice..never get in the way of a warrior fresh from a battle, it's suicide. On the last edges of battle madness, it's possible did enjoy the pain. Battle madness makes the insane sensible, and turns the horror of killing into a thing of beauty..I remember my first battle madness..How slow everyone else seemed to move, how I was entranced by the incredible beauty of a spray of blood droplets coming off of my axe as I sliced through a man's torso on the battlefield, the sweetness of his scream, and how good it felt to unleash the rage I felt, that I had contained within me for years..I was violently ill later, after the battle, sick at heart and mind as well as body, but in that mad state, it was exquisite. The amount of rage I know he kept contained every day, the fact that he didn't lash out and randomly destroy whatever crossed his path...The only thing that made Sephiroth kill cleanly, quickly, and only when necessary was his sense of honor and self control, which matched and surpassed his physical strength.

He reached into the wound with a pair of tweezers, and extracted a pea sized shard of shattered poison materia, which he sealed in a vial and sent off via runner to the medics as soon as he finished, a couple of tiny fragments of bone that had shaved off my rib, and cleaned the it with a pack of sterile water. He surprised me by drawing on a sphere of mastered materia from his bracer, and casting an esuna spell on me..a sensation like being plunged into icy cold water followed by a moment of barely controlled nausea, and I was thinking relatively clearly again. I had expected perhaps a vial of foul tasting antidote, or a potion to carry me till a healer could attend to me. He selected a prethreaded needle from the medkit, and quickly closed the slash with a few well placed stitches, finishing just as the anesthetic was wearing off..

"There" he said as he applied a new bandage."That should hold till a doctor can see to it properly in the morning." "Thank you very much sir! I'm honored and surprised that you would tend to me yourself"! I said shyly..No, I knew he had some medical training, because it's part of SOLDIER training...They're often sent on well-publicized search and rescue missions...But I didn't know the extent of his, nor that he'd waste the mp on someone who was a nominal noncombatant. He gazed appraisingly at me and said "Good aides are difficult to train..especially those who aren't also spies set to watch me..You aren't a spy, are you now little aide?" he said with one hand on my chin so I had to meet his eyes, which seemed to be trying to bore a hole in my skull, the other resting lightly on my bandages. "No sir!" I replied firmly before I thought it through, then I remembered the incident with Hojo. I could tell that he knew something...and then with a little grimace I admitted "I was approached by a man the last time I was in upper Midgar..one who appeared to be a doctor. some greasy..person..named Hojo, but he was wearing the filthiest lab coat I have ever seen..or smelled, shortly after we returned to Midgar after that last skirmish.. I was frankly insulted by his...offer.. I meant to tell you, but haven't had time, with all the preparations for this operation.. Do you want me to pretend to take his offer when we get back sir?" I asked not hiding my dislike of the idea. "I might...Why didn't you take him up? Most of my former aides accepted his, or another's offer..what made you refuse?" he said quirking a skeptical eyebrow at me. I flushed and glanced away.."..Or did you truly refuse?...Answer me." he commanded as I continued to try to evade him. He began to put careful but painful pressure on my wound as I kept trying to duck my head. "You WILL tell me." he said, his eyes glowing with suspicion, anger and distrust. I suddenly remembered the stories I'd heard about two of my nastier predecessors....that they'd dissappeared in the heat of battle...And it would be really easy for me to meet the same fate if I didn't come clean immediately.

I should have told him immediately, not telling him had made him suspicious. "Look at me, and answer the question!" he said, increasing the pressure and I gasped "Ow sir!" in protest, and finally capitulated. "It's not that I don't want to answer sir..It's just..I, I'm just so damned embarrassed...He got handsy, for starters and, and, said some, some..disgustingly inappropriate things..and then giggled, like an insane child when I threatened to break his fingers!...When I checked him out to see if he really was who he claimed to be and to see if I needed to report him..I found out more than I ever wanted to know, sir..He has the ethical standards of a swamp zolom..no honor at all..his assistants tend to "disappear" on a regular basis...especially the female ones...And he scares the hell out of me!." I blurted out flushing with disgust. "What? More than I do?" Sephiroth said with cool amusement. "Yessir" I said, meeting his gaze again.."I've never been very afraid of you, I respect and trust you too much to be afraid sir. Maybe that isn't altogether sensible of me...But you've only given me the feeling that you want to beat the crap out of me when I screw up. I know that Hojo wants, at the very least to dismember me and put me back together wrong, repeatedly, just to see how I twitch." I said quietly with a shudder I couldn't suppress.."He regards people as no more than objects...or subjects for his experiments..Sir...he is a pervert with power, and if there hadn't been a security cam, I don't believe he would have taken 'no' for an answer without considerable force behind it." I said, shaking with the memory, and post battle reaction. "Perceptive of you..Next time don't wait till you are under duress to answer me..You have nothing you need feel too embarrassed to bring to me. I will keep your confidences as you keep mine." he chided, releasing my chin. "Yes sir, sorry sir". I muttered still feeling vaguely embarrassed, for having not told him.

"Umm sir?" I said a few minutes later. "Mmm?" he said appearing deep in thought. "Could you untie me now?..I feel kind of chilly sitting here all umm..hanging out." I said blushing...I was getting goosebumps on my goosebumps, in the most unusual places! He said after a moment "Oh, of course.", and he leaned forward and reached around me, apparently having no idea what effect his proximity was having on me..my head was still not completely clear, survival instinct and hormones..I could feel his body heat where his arms were reaching around my shoulders and through the fabric of my bra where his chest brushed against me, the rumble of his voice as he said "It's good you were honest with me, little aide...I wouldn't want to have to damage you to obtain the truth." into my ear as he tugged on the knots that were restraining me, his breath stirring my hair...it made me delerious! I felt dizzy, and my heart began to beat faster. I was also sensing his bloodlust from the earlier battle..in the state I was in, it's no surprise I mistook it for the sexual sort. I wondered idly how he always knew when I was telling the truth..I instinctively knew better than to lie..could it be empathy?..contact enhances empathy...then I realized his fingers were also brushing pulse points on my neck when he was holding my chin..he was monitoring my pulse and eye dilation..just like a lie detector!

"I wouldn't have done it anyway sir" I said tentatively. "Spied on you I mean, or anything else so dishonorable.. I'd even refuse a direct order to do so, it'd be unethical. I want you to know that.. You saved my life when you made sure I could defend myself! I regard your privacy as a point of my own honor. Hojo, or anyone else, wanting a spy can kiss my cracked ass!" I said nearly giggling at my own cleverness, and feeling peculiarly warm all over, as though I'd been drinking. "Such language!" He said, with an amused air as he brought my right arm around to finish untying the knots. "Sorry sir, it's just how I feel."I said blushing, feeling my blood boil at the touch of his hands on my ankles and calves as he released the belt holding my legs. And then as he started to rise, I couldn't stop myself, I felt like I was on fire....I impulsively reached up, put my arms around his neck and kissed him, passionately, winding my hips against him. I must have surprised him, because for a second or so he did nothing..then, abruptly I felt his palm press against my shoulder, and as I resisted, my bandaged ribs, causing a pain so intense I passed out for a split second. I gasped and collapsed back into the chair wimpering, with tears on my face as he loomed over me with an expression of barely controlled anger on his face. "Games little aide?" he snarled in rage. "I don't play games in my own chain of command." he spat. "And you know better!" he growled as I cowered away. I. I, I'm s, sorry sir, i,it won't happen again, I d,don't know what c,came over me!" I stuttered, nearly as startled at my own behavior as he must have been. For the first time I was truly afraid of what he might do to me, still on the edges of battle.

He reached again for my bandage, and I flinched away with an involuntary wimper. "Hold still you little fool!" he snapped irritably. "I am simply going to make sure your wound hasn't reopened." he said acidly. I couldn't keep from shuddering as he glared at me while his hands were gently peeling back the bandage. "You are fortunate the stitches are still intact" he said in a tone as cold as the northern continent. "If they had ruptured I would have had to resew them, and I am out of anesthetic. Drink this." he said and handed me a foul tasting antidote and glared at me till I drank it down. I shivered again, mostly from the cold of the evening air, and the blood loss I had sustained...only mostly, because I have no doubt he would have carried out that threat. He noticed. "Here, put this on." he said in a moment, calmer as he tossed me a robe.."I'm afraid your uniform is ruined" "Thank you sir, I think I have a spare or two in my tent." I said shakily, as I shrugged into the robe and tried to stand up..tried and failed, miserably. I fell back into the chair panting, and dizzy. And as I caught my breath, he came over, took hold of my arm, and pulled me to my feet. He slung my right arm over his shoulders, reached around me and grasped my other elbow to support me and helped me the few yards to my tent, as I continuously apologized for my weakness. "I don't know why you put up with me sir". I said meekly. " I would have to do my own laundry and paperwork, or worse yet I would be stuck with one of those moronic incessant chatterboxes for an aide." he replied as he lowered me onto my cot. "Thank you so much sir, I'm sorry about...I didn't mean to be so presumptuous...I really don't know what I was thinking!" I said trembling with eyes downcast. "I meant no disrespect sir." I said, feeling as if I were dying of shame. "If I thought you had intended disrespect, you would be in the stockade, not here...we will speak no more of this." he replied flatly. "A doctor will be here in the morning to cast a cure, and see to it that you are fit for duty as soon as possible...in the meantime"..and the last thing I remember as I felt a tingle of magic was a blanket dropping over me, and hearing his voice compelling me to sleep.